Experimenting with Aspens and Masking Fluid

I have a visual obsession with Aspen trees.  

I should have taken more pictures of this process, but you sort of get the idea.  It was sort of like print-making, or Ukrainian egg-dying.  I took masking fluid (rubber-cement-like stuff that blocks paint) and painted the shape of the white trees.  Then I painted light yellow over the whole page.  Once that was dry, I made a layer of dots with the masking fluid. Once that was dry, I painted a darker yellow over the whole page...and then I continued this process, until almost the whole page was covered in masking fluid and layers of paint.  It actually looked pretty cool, and had a bumpy, glossy texture from all of the dried masking fluid.  But next was the fun part--slowly peeling it all off to see what was underneath!  It was a fun little art adventure.  

I'm still in Utah, and the Aspen leaves are mostly turned brown and fallen off now, but there are still a few around and they're still beautiful.  On top of that, the last of the rollerski biathlon trials races was yesterday, and I hit all of my targets for the first time ever in a race!  It was a good feeling, and solidified my ticket to Europe in November.  It feels like a weight has been lifted off of my shoulders!