How A Tree Gets Its Water....Pearls On A String!

Pearls On A String, no.3 is posted now in my shop, MissouriBendStudio.  That little bird is just calling out to the universe with all of his tiny being, isn't he?  I just want to share with you a little moment of revelation for me. I'm reading a pretty fascinating book that I bought not long ago, A Splintered History of Wood, by Spike Carlsen, and in the early part of the book he talks about trees and their amazing ability to pull water from the ground.  Here's how it happens...in theory.

"...for while water isn't sucked up the tree, it is literally pulled up the tree.  When the minute pores, or stomates, in leaves are open, water evaporates from the leaf.  Each water molecule is part of a continuous unbroken column of water traveling through vessels, or tracheids, reaching all the way to the roots.  The water molecules adhere to one another through cohesion; each time a water molecule evaporates from a leaf, it pulls the entire chain of water molecules up behind it.  At the roots, a molecule of water is pulled out of the soil to fill the gap in the chain.  In other words, the roots, trunk, and leaves form a continuous system that connects the soil below to the air above."

The universe is made of pearls on a string...

A Continuation

Pattern Play no.4 is shown here, one of latest listings in my etsy.com shop.  It's hard to read the feedback on these new works and whether people are responding to them or not.  I'm going to try to juggle making these, along with more of the Season Cycles, so I can play more easily with collage and embroidery in the pieces.  It's always a balancing act, isn't it?   Would love to hear comments--positive or negative about any of the work shown on the blog!  Cheers!

Pattern Play, no. 2

Still making the watercolors in this format, playing with pattern and color--what fun!  Working in the garden, planting perennials, herbs, tomatoes and today, for the first time, potatoes--blue ones! My husband built an above ground bed for them.  Since we came from Florida almost five years ago, we've tried our hand at "crops", as I call them, without much success. But, each year we learn a little more and we don't seem to give up, so we're hoping for a bumper crop this year!  Being in the studio is great fun, but being outside enjoying the birds and having my hands in the dirt is also on the agenda these days!
Baby robins in the nest  resting on the shed next door...delightful!

Pattern Play, no. 1

Well, I finally have a few pieces finished in the new series of work in watercolor and ink.  I like the new format of the house...a shape that has appeared over and over again in my work in the past decades.  It allows me to play various patterns against each other, as well as juxtapose a simple image in the center.  Somehow, as much as I love abstraction and pure pattern, I can't seem to let go of the image...now I can have it all!  New pieces posted at my shop this morning.

Patterns of Nature, no.1

Patterns of Nature, no.1 is a sort of prototype for a new series in watercolor and ink.  I've taken the format of this one a step further and added a contrasting patterned roof and a little circle with an image in the center of the square...they'll resemble birdhouses!  I do love making pattern and this is a way to play endlessly with the combinations.  This piece is posted in my shop on Etsy.

New Work in Watercolor and Ink

The first work in watercolor has just been posted at MissouriBendStudio on etsy.com!  It's an interesting process, coming back to a medium you haven't work in for decades!  Quite fun, though...to see new possibilities.  Still working out a new format that I'm excited about, so the next work I hope to post will be a bit different.  Less imagery based and more about pattern...but still whimsical and delightful I hope!

Cheers!