“LEAP” was the topic posted on the 29th of February (“bissextile day“ or “leap day“) for the weekly illustration challenge called “IF” – ILLUSTRATION FRIDAY.
A leap through the air, in a full out split, flying across the landscape… a Grand Jeté!
original painting – artist collection – Nashville, TN – USA • “Grand Jeté”
• watercolor, wax, ricepaper, then quilted • 36″H x 72″W • Lisa Rivas © 2002
It portrays <a great leap in life!> perhaps in the “right direction”…
Once “Spring” starts ‘peeking‘, there is much more than what ‘beholds’ the eye.
Most of this activity unfolds underground, below the surface, deep within.
The earth softens letting “new growth” push upward like bubbles rising.
On every branch a new sweetness lingers awaiting for the sun’s next warm touch.
Vigor awakens again, fresh and bursting forth, filling the air with “gems of life.”
“Renew”
• digital mixed with original printed on ricepaper and mounted on canvas • 10″ x 10″ – Lisa Rivas ©
“But you were something more than young and sweet
And fair, – and the long year remembers you.”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay, RENASCENCE AND OTHER POEMS
A dandelion has a composite flower head consisting of many tiny ray-flowers called florets…
This flower head in botanical terms becomes a “multiple fruit” since each floret produces a single fruit or seed.
“Floret Cloud” • digital Illustration • © Lisa Rivas
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“Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm,
but to add color to my sunset sky.”
~ Rabindranath Tagore, STRAY BIRDS
The dandelion‘s florets… can change into the well known “white gossamer”
seed-ball overnight.
Then each seed has it’s own tiny built-in parachute to fly far and near…
” Florets like mini-parachutes” by ©Lisa Rivas • digital illustration
The lunar eclipse brought to mind another vesper / flying incident which was:
Viewing photos of my trip to Italy with my friend Carol I came across a
pic that was extremely dark; almost black, the kind you usually
delete. But there was something ephemeral… there. Upon
checking it out a bit further with my friends encouragement:
Lo and behold there she was “beautiful” maybe “holding the evening with her wings.“
I named her: “Vespertina”
• photo-composite – Lisa Rivas © 2007
Come in the evening, or come in the morning; Come when you’re looked for, or come without warning.
‘The Welcome’ ~Thomas Osborne Davis