One by one they follow me

Through the woods we go

Gliding up and down in waves

Unspoken words form

Waiting for the wind to blow

Aloft the seeds fly

Everybody is silent

Hiding in the shade

I hear birdsong float on air

Like sweet melody

Frog on frog spitter

Since May of this year life has been a little crazy off and on. There was a death in the family, then others had a surgery, a biopsy, home damage from a storm and a stroke. In between we all still go to work and do the dishes, vacuum and all the other things that take place during life.

I was out at my studio one night trying to get some things done when I realized what I needed was still back in the house. I go rushing out of the door into the dark to rush back to the house to get what I needed. I have a 55 gallon fish pond that sits on a 2 foot stand that sits just below a studio window. As I passed the pond, out of the corner of my eye I spied a silhouette that normally isn’t there. As I stopped and turned slowly and leaned in I saw a small frog sitting on the frog spitter. Now I don’t know how many of you have tried to shoot pictures of frogs before, but they tend to move quickly. Knowing this I slowly pulled out my Sony phone/camera and took a picture. I was too far away so I slowly leaned in closer to take another picture. I said my thank you and stood up, but I didn’t rush off as before. I slowly walked to the house and retrieved what I needed.

That little frog in that brief moment showed me that I needed to slow down. Don’t rush so much you miss the little things in life. Life goes on and things get better especially if you are slow enough to see the frog.

The end of July was very wet here in southern Louisiana. It seemed to rain every day. Sometimes it rained all day and sometimes just in the afternoon. Days and weeks before were very dry, so we needed the rain.

Once the rain started to fall everything started to grow. The grass and weeds seemed to shoot up overnight. Plants that looked wilted weren’t droopy anymore. And the ginger plants produced blossoms that filled even the damp air with fragrance. Grapefruit and satsumas stopped falling off the trees and the banana plants started standing taller with their blossoms and small bananas.

Between showers and in the heavy humid air that is like a steam bath I decided to look for mushrooms in the yard. I first went to the front yard where there are a lot of fallen leaves. I found many mushrooms in little clusters. They look almost velvety and were red in color. I walked around to other parts of the yard and found other mushrooms which I photographed. The more I looked the more variety I saw.

The last place I photographed mushrooms was the old tree stump in front of the chicken coop. On top  were several different types of mushrooms. Down the side of the trunk were half plate mushrooms that project horizontally out from the trunk. I don’t know if this is a type of mushroom or some other type of fungus. I have seen them as large as a dinner plate.

Stump with mushrooms

The side of the stump

The rain was beginning to fall again, so back inside I went. Moving forward in time and we have had a couple of days with no rain. I decided to trim the roses where I unknowingly tangled with some poison ivy. Slathered up with anti-itch cream on my hands and fore arms I decided to revisit the tree stump in front of the chicken coop to see if any of the mushrooms were still there. There were  mushrooms, but they looked different from the mushrooms that were there during the rain. I raised my camera to take a picture and…Ahhh, fire ants all over my feet and ankles. The photo I snapped is a bit fuzzy, but now you know why. I applied more anti-itch cream.

Stump after a few dry days

Since the weather has been dry most of the mushrooms are gone now. The other day I did see a faerie ring. I haven’t seen one of those in quite a while, but it is good to know they are still around.

On one of my walks in the yard a large moth lit on my shirt. I of course pulled out my camera and began taking pictures. I managed to get the moth onto my hand where I photographed it and when it flew to the ground I took more shots. In a couple of the shots I photographed from directly above. Eventually the moth flew off, but I felt sure I had some shots I could use later.

While visiting my family in Florida I took some pictures of the food, place settings and linens on the table. A large papaya had been halved lengthwise and was placed on a green plate. I loved the color combination and took a picture thinking I would paint a still life later. I still plan on doing the still life, but when I decided to use the single leaf as a wing I thought of the papaya as the moth body.

Here begins the how to part of the blog. I gathered together in a file the leaf, the papaya, a shot of the real moth and a shot of the tree in fall colors. If like me you love playing on the computer and have access to a photo manipulation application you can use to silhouette your separate images.

First I uploaded the real moth picture and separated the moth from the wings so only the wings were left.

Silhouette of real moth wings

I also silhouetted the single leaf so that it would have a transparent background.

I then used my selection tool to select only the top portion of the half of papaya and I left a part of the plate showing to use as antennae. I used an eraser tool to erase parts of the plate to make the antennae look like fringe.

Completed digital moth

I created a new file and layered the real wings on bottom, then the papaya as the body and on top the leaf on the right and then the flipped leaf on the left as the fore wings. Once you have the layers and image arranged satisfactorily be sure to name it and hit save.

One fall weekend I was working at The Greater Baton Rouge Arts Market and took some pictures of the trees in all of their fall glory. The leaves are various shades of orange, yellow and red. The trunk and limbs are dark and are visible through the leaves.

If, as a teacher, you want to do this in a classroom setting the procedure is slightly different. First the pictures can be taken in the school yard during a data gathering excursion. You can take pictures of natural and man made things to use to create a moth.

Moth wings in fall colors.

Upload to a computer, print the pictures in color and have the children draw wings on the print and then cut out the wing shapes. They can cut out geometric shapes to glue onto the wing shapes. This can be a great exercise in counting and symmetry. Some examples for moth bodies are tree trunks or the slide.

The possibilities are endless for moth designs so, get out your camera, boot up your computer and start your digital collage.

daytime, dragonflies, flowers

frogs and crickets sing