New Abstract Leaf Notecards Set

I promise this is my last blog post featuring notecard designs for awhile! :)

I just wanted to highlight one more new notecard set available in my Etsy shop - a set of 8 cards with abstract leaf designs.

The original artwork for these cards were mixed media pieces ranging in size from 8"x10" to 4"x6". They were created by collecting dry leaves in the fall, painting the leaves with watercolor and using them to "stamp" designs onto watercolor paper, and adding choice lines with colored pencil to draw attention to certain shapes, fill in missing areas, and add a feeling of the crunchy, crisp texture of leaves in autumn. I created these back in 2015 (where they were a reprise of a similar piece of art I created in 2005-2006 in high school), loved how they turned out, and even scanned them so I could make notecards of them, but never got around to making said notecards until now.

Unlike all my other pre-selected notecard variety packs, this one does not have all different designs. There are 8 cards in the pack, but only 4 designs - you receive 2 cards of each design.

NYC Photos - Botanical Gardens Conservatory

The New York Botanical Gardens in the Bronx has a large conservatory greenhouse with many rooms. When we were there in early April, much of it was dedicated to their famous orchid show (photos of that to come in later blog posts!), but they also still had some of their general collection available for viewing in the conservatory as well.

The photos below are from the tropical greenhouse rooms (not including the orchid pictures, which will come later):

I'm not sure what most of these flowers are, but I did recognize the bougainvillea (the pink tree flowers), as well as the calla lilies and waterlilies. 

More photos of the other rooms in the conservatory greenhouse to come soon!

Changing Leaves - Paint Creek Trail

A couple weeks ago I posted photos of the Clinton River Trail near our house. More recently, my husband and I took our puppy on a walk along the Paint Creek Trail and the Downtown Connector that connects the Clinton River & Paint Creek Trails through downtown Rochester.

There were a few more trees with color on them this time, and it was another gorgeous, sunny day. So naturally, I took some more pictures. Here are a few of my favorites:

Changing Leaves - Clinton River Trail

As I complained in yesterday's post, I feel like autumn didn't synchronize well this year. Though individual trees were beautiful - if you caught them at the right time - they didn't necessarily work together to create that traditional multi-colored everything-changing-at-once autumn panorama.

In late October, my husband and I took our puppy Ginny on a walk along the Clinton River Trail near our house in Rochester Hills, Michigan. I brought my camera along, thinking there might be some great fall color to document - but only some of the trees had changed, and many others were still green or just starting to turn. There was also limited sunlight, since we took our walk in the morning, when the sun was still a bit low in the sky. So these aren't the most colorful autumn photos, but a few of them turned out pretty good regardless.

I don't know if I'll ever use these as inspiration for future artworks (certainly not for the foreseeable future, since I have a lot of other projects already in the making), but who knows? I might some day!