April has gone by so fast.  April 3rd would have been my mom's 61st birthday.  We are both Aries and what used to be a really exciting month, was really sad.  It's hard to think about how last year we didn't get to celebrate our birthday's together like we usually did because of COVID. It's hard to think about the fact that we could have celebrated ours together this year, safely.  She would have been vaccinated already if she was still alive.  I see some of my friends and family finally getting to reunite with their loved ones and it hurts to know I won't be able to with her.  I try to feel grateful that I did get to see her twice last year and give her a  hug, but I'd be lying if I said this was easy.

I think about her every day and I try to channel my emotions into my art.  

At the beginning of the month I found and read my mom's copy of Charlotte's Web that was given to her by her parents the Christmas of 1969.  She would have been 9 years old.  I found myself searching for objects of hers to hold onto, and I was struggling, but I was very happy when I remembered I had kept this safe with me in our many moves.  I felt like I was seeing a part of my Mom when I read this book.  I saw her in Charlotte, I saw her in Wilbur, and I saw her in Fern.  I saw myself, too.  

I will say: the inner cover of this copy has the most lovely, delicate illustrations of spider webs.  I started making my own with watercolors and masking fluids, and inserting my own words into the webs.  I was thinking a lot about my dreams I've had where I've seen my mom, the voicemails I have left, and memories I have of her, and I've begun the process of placing them in my own webbed paintings.  I started this process this month and will continue to explore this.  

Thank you for reading if you did all the way through.  I hope there are brighter days ahead for us.  I hope you've started to feel the changes of spring, and enjoy the colors of all the blooming flowers of May.  

-Raquel

 These are some examples of the webs I've been making. I've probably made about 10 so far, and have paused for a little while. I first began by using scraps of Khadi Paper, a thick, fibrous, textured watercolor paper.  It feels really wonderful to hold in your hand, and allowed me to use a lot of water.  I tried my hand at two different kinds of masking fluid: the Winsor & Newton, and the Masquepen Art Masking Fluid, which I ultimately prefer for this project because you can get such a fine line for the webs and dew. I think the goal is to make one of these, or more, at a larger scale.   

A small, simple, successful painting.  

I've been working on some smaller watercolors for the last couple of weeks.  The webs got a little heavy, so in my moments of processing and pause, I started a bunch of small watercolors.  I like to tear up a big sheet of paper, and let the presence of the blank pages fuel new paintings.  One of them is bound to be good so it's nice to just make as many as I can and see what comes of it.  

I think I'm going to keep it at that for this past month.  Here's a little studio shot featuring the plants I just moved in there, my new Sta-Wet Palette, and my hairdryer I've been using to speed up drying time because I'm impatieeeent.