August 27

Here is my title page. I think those "lanterns" are much too close on the left, but I'm going to let it be. There's a space inside each circle for your names. Please leave the circle in upper left corner blank as I have some ideas for that one. As I said, I'm going with "tight and bright" this time. I do this when I'm feeling a little insecure! I'm even using acrylic gouache(VERY bright). Is anyone else having problems working in such a small space? It feels constraining for me, but I'm getting used to it. The Chinese Characters on either side of the girl mean "the five elements"..loosely translated, I'm sure!

The flower on the opposite page is a real Rose of Sharon I picked and pressed when I was in CT a few weeks ago. Please be gentle with it. It came from the tree behind my parents' memorial bench. I really tried to be neat, but spattered a little red paint on the edges of some of your pages. If the paper was dead white it would be easy to fix, but you'll either have to ignore or incorporate.