provides a treasure trove of practical techniques and ingenious approaches. In this captivating guide, noted artist
Jane Freeman shows readers, step by step, how to use modified kit components, and found and handmade objects to create intensely detailed miniature constructions.
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February 6, 2006
Blog in February
At dawn I ventured into the wintry park nearby. It was empty. The sky was a pearly, silverfish gray, and both the sun and the moon were out. The untenanted gazebo glowed like a stage-set phantom. The wasted gardens were in full, majestic decline — a tenebrous spectrum of inscrutable hues. I looked around, naming them: green-gray, brown-gray, blue-gray, pinkish-gray, yellow-gray . . . and became awash in an amplitude of close tones.
A raven glided down, jetty feathers swishing like satin. He looked like an inkblot on parchment. I thought of his country fellows whom I’d once seen posing in profile on dirt roads and at the apex of feather-shaped trees. This raven strutted and cawed upon the cobblestones, then took off with much ebon-satin rustling. He flew into the hairnet skeins of branches, unsuspectingly calling my attention to what looked like a derelict nest. It was no nest, but a perfectly still squirrel that, disturbed by my attention, sprang clear to another tree. His leap and his landing caused me to note a nearly invisible, static assembly of pigeons lined up on a branch. They were puffed up and looked like a display of dusty odd-lot ornaments.
A human being appeared. The park-keeper, a young Ethiopian, who looked like Krishna’s eager understudy but without a flute. Instead his arms were full of burlap bags. He struck up, as if in mid-conversation, a cheerful chat about the raven (whom he seemed to know). Naturally, I thought of Dicken in The Secret Garden. As it turned out, he was neither Krishna nor Dicken.
“My name is Abel,� he said, and shook my hand.
“As in Cain and Abel?� I said, surprised by his warmth.
"Right," he chortled. "And if you see him, tell him I'm looking for him. That brother owes me!"
He laughed outright and I laughed too, mirth between strangers on an off-kilter morning of beautiful, gray things, of small events that live beyond the outskirts of harsh light and perished dreams.
Posted by Jane on February 6, 2006 9:34 PM
