When life gives you lemons

We have been fortunate for the past several years to have lemon trees in our winter retreats and yesterday I composed a piece that incorporated many parts of the tree: its leaves, the fruit and even the fragrance of the leaves. 

In my most recent book, (I am not writing one, just making an art journal), I used the lemon for not only inspiration, but also used its actual parts.  I said a wee thank you to the lemon spirits as I plucked about ten young leaves from the tree to use as textures.  When I rolled the leaves into what would become the inside covers, I could actually smell the lemon in the oil in the leaves being pressed into the polymer.  Of course it won't be detectable now that it's baked, but the smell left a lasting impression on my olfactory receptors. 

The trees have already blossomed and many of the flowers have become tiny fruits.  For the past weeks, those blossoms were so, so frragrant you could hardly walk by at night without stopping to sniff.  This time around, I didn't make any polymer lemon flowers, but rather chose to go the fruit route.

I made a small lemon-slice cane out of translucent, white and yellowish polymer; reduced it and then added a few slices and wedges to the front cover.   I purposely sliced the cane irregularly, since when I am slicing actual lemons that's the way they come off the blade.  I also made a few beads out of the lemon remnants...even textured my little lemon bead with the rind of the citrus.  I used the peel also to make the cover less than smooth. After the  covers were baked, I "antiqued" the impressions with a light green mix of paint.   It's hardly detectable on the outside cover, but pretty evident in the vein work that's on the inside covers.  

So, I say, when life gives you lemons....make journals.