A Walk Around Lake Merritt

L and I are spending our Saturday running errands all around the Bay so here's a more relaxing post from our most recent meander around Lake Merritt.

I was kind of obsessed with the bonsai...

 A bit of chamomile

Corn snake at the nature center

California poppies

Lady Bug!

Flores Book

And now, for some hand drawn flowers.

When trying to think of the perfect holiday present, I came up with an idea for a new book arts project.

My love for old things, 18th and 19th century botanical drawings, flora, and books decided to tie themselves together for this one. You have probably already seen my post about P is for Plants, the second book in this as yet untitled series, so I won't bore you with too many unnecessary details but this is the book project that began it all. 

In this book I worked only with lettering and line drawing, keeping things rather simple to see how it would play out. It was also less like a field journal, with just common and Latin names for each of the flowers, instead of details about them as well. 

Having done two books in this style so far, I'm feeling like there is a lot of potential for further projects and for turning this into some sort of series. I guess we'll see where it goes!

For L

These flower images have a different purpose from my other flowers pictures. 

L's birthday was earlier this month and her parents sent her a lovely little flower arrangement. Not wanting to keep it at work, she brought it home where it would potentially face the wrath of my two crazy cats. Hiding in our little sink area wasn't much of an existence for the arrangement either so in an attempt to prolong their lifespan, I decided to photograph the flowers. These images are a bit of a belated birthday present for L.

Dying Flowers

Shortly before the winter holidays and the end of the year officially hit, I was wrapping up a few projects in the studio and happened upon some flowers left over from a holiday event. They had been left uncared for over a weekend and were clearly destined for the compost bin but there was still something about them that caught my eye. I had my camera with me and couldn't resist spending nearly an hour photographing them. 

I love the Dutch tradition of vanitas and, despite the lack of bugs and complete rot, these past-their-prime flowers reminded me of that tradition. I would be lying if I said I had thought of the overtly poetic end-of-the-year-death-evergreen-new-life concept as I photographed; that didn't happen until I was typing up this post. Vanitas, symbolism, nice photos, interpret them however you like, I am simply sharing this quick end of 2014 photo project with you.