Rain: The 2015-2016 Rain Season--Drizzle, but It's a Start

We've finally had a little rain today. It's been a light drizzle, but it's continued much of the day. There was 0.05 inches in the rain gauge earlier. I'm hoping to find considerably more than that in the gauge tomorrow morning.

[Update: Yes, 0.65 inches in the rain gauge--the first real rain of the 2015-2016 rain year. That brings our total so far to 1.15 inches using a rain year from July 1, 2015 through June 30 2016--which has been traditional here for decades. It's just come to my attention, however, that official totals are shifting to a rain year that runs from October 1 through the following September 30. Using the new rain year, this would be the first rain of the 2015-2016 season, and our total would therefore be 0.65 inches.]

Books I'm Reading: Wood

Harvey Green's Wood: Craft, Culture, History (Penguin, 2006) is a detailed cultural history of wood that touches also on the biology of trees and the physics of wood, but mostly considers how wood has provided for mankind since ancient times. It dramatically demonstrates the pervasiveness and importance of wood in almost every sphere of human life until very recently, when plastics and other synthetic materials have replaced wood in many applications. At the same time, it demonstrates just how much wood the Earth has lost to human consumption, particularly for fuel, for the construction of dwellings, for ships, and for containers (most especially, barrels). Refreshingly wide-ranging, the book recognizes the importance of wood to cultures from around the world and the contributions of these cultures to woodworking and carpentry. Word geeks and Scrabble fans will enjoy it for the large number of obscure words for woodworking tools mentioned. Educational and entertaining.  

Art I'm Making: Two More Collages

These are the last of the collages I made during and just after the recent Sonoma County Art Trails open studio event using some new papers I've made in browns, oranges, and pinks. They are Untitled Collage No. 116 (Santa Rosa) and Untitled Collage No. 117 (Santa Rosa), both from the third week of October.

No. 116 (upper image) uses paper made by monoprinting off a sheet of glass that I deliberately left uncleaned from the print that preceded it. I like the map-like effect the overlap of colors created. October 22, 2015. Acrylic on paper, acrylic monoprint, collage. Image size 17.1 x 17.6cm. Matted to 16 x 20 inches. Signed and dated on reverse. Signed on the mat.

No. 117 (lower image) is a very small piece, less than 2 x 3 inches, using some scraps of the new papers and bits and pieces from older work. October 23, 2015. Acrylic on paper, acrylic monoprint, collage. Image size 6 x 7cm. Matted to 11 x 14 inches. Signed and dated on reverse. Signed on the mat.

Click on the images for larger views. For more, visit my collage website at http://ctalcroft.wix.com/collage-site/.