Linda's Magic Workshop - Linda Britt Design

Eight years ago we went to Ecuador and, of course, I took hundreds of pictures.   A few of those pictures were taken in a place where there was a Reptile House and lots of flora.  In a small area of the garden was a plot of the most interesting white succulent plants.  They reminded me of the green agave in Arizona but the ones in Ecuador were white.  It felt like I was seeing a black and white photograph.  White Plants of Ecuador - real color! A few months ago, the Prescott Art Market decided to have a quarterly art competition and anyone that had their work in the market could enter.  A 20 x 20 canvas with black edges done in colors of the season was the requirement.  I did not participate in the autumn competition but decided for the winter competition that I wanted to do something with polymer clay using the white plants of Ecuador as inspiration.  What I had in mind was a 3 dimensional painting made of polymer and everything about it would be an experiment .  I thou

Last week I started sharing my vision of a book for my friend, Michelle, who helped me press and collect the flowers from our 2008 trip to Ecuador.  My next step was to visit my neighbor who is a talented bookbinder.  I took my finished pages (at least I thought so at the time) and hoped he would have some suggestions for putting the book together. We discussed making an accordion of folded paper to hold each page or making a box to hold the loose pages.  I took home two books on bookmaking to read and experiment.  One of the requirements I had was to make sure I could open the pages fully without damaging the dried flora.  That presented challenges of protecting the flowers and I used a translucent paper to cover the dried flower cut smaller that the floral page.  It would be easy to lift the translucent cover to see the actual flower. Somewhere about this time I realized that I had 2 different widths of pages.  That would never do!  To solve that issue I ma

Once in a while I clean off a shelf in my studio and find things I put aside for inspiration or a project.  This week I found the pressed flowers from the trip to Ecuador.  They were stacked between construction paper in a folder and are in pretty good condition.  There were even moth wings we collected. In between other projects (like using older clays in jewelry and making soup and jerky), I decided to take pictures of the  pressed flowers for a photo book and research how to mount them.   I want to give a book to my friend, Michelle, who helped me collect the flowers as a memory of our trip.  Michelle and her husband, Chan, went to Ecuador with Peter and me in 2008.  I remember Michelle asking what I ever did with the pressed flowers and my answer was ‘nothing’.  Guess it is time to do ‘something’.  Today I set up the camera on a tripod outside in natural light and started shooting.  Next was editing the photos and deciding the book layout.  I’m almost done with the