i’ve been quietly emailing this around to local friends for the past week. there’s still a few spots left, come join us! you’ll meet a variety of interesting people with varying backgrounds, and have a great excuse to spend the day in a park during portland’s glorious summer!

phew, now that things are getting bigger in the garden it’s hard to keep up with drawing them on a weekly basis. this week it took me 2 days to draw a representative of everyone in the garden that i planted from seed. new additions to the garden this week: the sunflowers popped up fully formed on sunday between sunrise and sunset. and this morning the potatoes showed their leaves for the first time.

another book to covet for my library. behind the book is a sneak peek of a new project in the works – garden repeat patterns. more on that later!

a few weeks ago i took an amazing [and free] workshop called naturescaping and was introduced to this book there. why haven’t i seen it before?! this is a copy from the library, until i’m able to get one of my own. i’m trying to pare down my extensive book collection into a more concise grouping, so every week a stack of books goes to powell’s and i bring one or two home in trade.

back to the workshop… all participants got to bring home one of a selection of native plants. i chose kinnikinnick. yes, because of the name.

this book is broken up into different sections: ferns, conifers, annuals, perennials, shrubs and trees. every plant has a photo and description including cultivation notes.

the back of the book is devoted to sections for special situations and purposes, such as drought tolerance, plants for rockgardens, groundcovers, etc.

i’ve finally posted a few additional pics of my studio on flickr from the photoshoot for the handmade nation book.

speaking of handmade nation, i’ve just finished a new art piece for a fundraiser for the documentary which will be featured on 20×200 later this summer. above is a tiny tiny tiny section of the complete piece. more details when i have them!

it’s been hot the past few days, and my weekly veggie patch drawing shows it! the swiss chard especially has doubled in size. i know you’re supposed to “thin” the seedlings, but really let’s be honest, that’s a euphemism for killing some of them arbitrarily. so this past week i’ve been transplanting the neat rows of seedlings into something much more freeform in order to accommodate everyone! they’re all perfectly good little plants and i intend to let all of them grow into their full potential… and then eat them! yum.

a life is a life, no matter if it walks or not. and all life consumes other life to stay alive. this is why i’ve been so drawn to drawing plants in these past few years of constant upheaval – they’re so quietly alive and fully present. carefully scrutinizing my little plants in the garden on a daily basis las led me to some contemplative big thinking, not unlike the meditative process i experience when drawing. and looking doesn’t hurt my hands like drawing does!

the other week i ran across a mention of this book while online researching another one and thought it would be interesting to thumb through the next time i was at powell’s. i’ve seen this guy’s work in magazines these past few years and always save the articles for my research file, but i definitely wasn’t going to buy his book in these tough economic times. no way. it’s $60! then i forgot all about it.

then, a few days later i was at powell’s trading in books and this book was right there on the shelf staring at me. sh*t. i knew what i’d be using my powell’s trading card, and my mastercard, for before i even picked it up.

i haven’t read a word in the book yet, only looked at the pictures. over and over. the first half of the book is dedicated to showing mr. blanc’s – aka monsieur vert – amazon jungle photographic research, apparently his background is in science. being french, he’s inserted himself into many of these photos. and always with a typically french over-the-top pose.

thankfully someone else took over photographic duties for the second half of the book, which illustrates his mature vertical planting projects. it’s basically vertically verdant architecture porn, with planting diagrams and everything. pages and pages better than any of the articles i had clipped. so, yeah, now this tome sits in my studio and i flip through it just about every day.

wow, did i really not blog about this before? i was busy moving the same weekend as the show opening. is that a valid excuse? i’ve finally added the images from the show on flickr. below are some pics from the opening night as it was winding down. thanks to molly for a spectacular space to show these in!

hurray, the new save gocco website is live! as some of you may know, i started the site a few years ago but have done a miserable job keeping it up to date with everything else going on in my life. katie stephenson has come to our rescue with a new site design and added features! hurray!

four large [28" x 28"] panels of native sierra forest wildflowers for a client project in lake tahoe. left to right: sierra primrose, pinedrops, monkey flower, and soap plant. unfortunately the photos don’t portray the glimmery iridescent sheer paint of the backgrounds and the wood grain of the panels – the subtle pleasing details that are always satisfying. these will be hung in a public place, i’ll let you know when it’s ready and you can see them yourself on your next trip to lake tahoe!

as always, i would have like to have spent more time with these pieces before they had to leave the studio. making artwork is comparable to parenting in that way – you spend so much time cultivating something not unlike another version of yourself and then it has to leave you. while it’s satisfying to put a little bit of yourself in the world and see how it does on it’s own, it’s also a melancholy process.

shipping these guys was no small feat – the package was ungainly bulky and weighed 50 pounds.  but… i’m really starting to like working on a larger scale – my work this year keeps getting bigger! 

it’s poppy season! this is the first one to bloom in my yard this year. it’s also bluebell season. a friend just bought a new house with a huge yard overrun with bluebells. she let me come over and dig up a bunch of bulbs for my own yard. i felt very dutch riding my bike home!

meanwhile in the vegetable patch, all the seeds are beginning to grow big enough that you can now tell the difference between them. i’m hoping to document their weekly growth with drawing. here’s the first installment…

the “prolific” artwork and related paper goods are available on life and limb’s website shop now! shown above is one of two limited edition digital giclee prints, available exclusively through life and limb.

i’ve also updated my etsy shop with limited edition goodies mostly culled from my archive stash – tshirts and prints!