Grab Bag for a Cold Winter's Day

Yesterday, the weather here preempted everything else--whether fun, or sort of important. Time to play catch up because there were some very lovely things that were happening for WillOaks Studio on other sites and I want to be sure to share them here.

The new exclusive piece I designed for "Yoga With Style" made its debut and I'm happy to share here that it is just the first of several pieces of my work that will be available at this very nice retail site for yoga aficionados. Meanwhile, I include one image of this piece here, but do take a look at Jennifer's whole site, with many wonderful categories of things for the yoga life style.

My readers here will recognize this as a new version of my ongoing "Made With Silk" series, which just keeps on growing!! Truly, I just keep finding new ideas, new treasures to incorporate, new color themes...and they become richer and more complex as the continue to evolve! And yes, they sell out because they are still made in small editions with neat things that I find in small batches.

My blog and Etsy buddy and fellow artist, Nancy, featured my work in her article on the "a little etsy love" blog here, and it includes a chance to win a gift certificate to use in my Etsy shop. The drawing on 2-9 is open to all who make the effort to enter!!

I really do like the way Nancy (her own blog is here) wrote up my work and hope you'll take a look (always nice to hear things from another perspective than mine...I'm the artist, after all, so am far from objective!!)



And finally, when I was making photos of the big snow drifts and after effects of our blizzard yesterday, I happened to notice and capture an image from the landscape that now I can see was a direct influence on the new pieces I've been working on and began to share here a few days ago. Well, I've done a few more versions of these since that post (see below) and can now juxtapose these with the "original source material." I love then this happens because when I wrote the descriptions of where this idea came from and what these pieces are meant to reference, I only had the image in my imagination....this photo from the Magnolia tree in the front yard here is definitely one of those photos "worth a thousand words. In fact, I'm just beginning to add it to the listings for these new pieces!


Thanks for dropping by....and if you happen to be in one of the sub-zero zones today, like I am....keep warm!!

Winter Ready Flower Buds

I find these buds to be just fascinating, even a bit miraculous. They are formed during the summer and will go through the entire winter in the state photographed here. And the fact is, they don't just survive stretches of seriously subzero weather--but will open in about March to be large magnolia blossoms. Seems sort of incredible, especially when I think about how delicate those flowers are when opened.

I adore pussy willow buds, and these are a fair substitute and last much, much longer. I'm thinking about how I might try to reinterpret these as wearable art....hmmmmmm? To be continued.....

Meanwhile, yes, the photography continues, too. Boy, I've got a lot of new work here! I must have been "in the zone" because it seems, it all just sort of "happened!" The new widget for my Etsy shop, on the top right sidebar here, scrolls through work now listed in the WillOaks Studio Etsy shop.