OK…on this fun, very small, closed internet group that I’m on, I’ve gotten more than a tad silly.  When wishing folks happy birthday, I used the Sandra Boynton birthday greeting (remember her fun greeting cards?  wonder if she still makes them?) I wished folks “Hippo Birdie, Two Ewes” (imagine the cartoon-like drawings to accompany that phrase.  Well, I morphed that into tunas in tutus dancing to celebrate birthdays.  So today I am a thundering and twirling 54, and it has been a wonderful day.

(there is a picture for this post, by the way, but you’ll have to read a bit…it needs to be chronological according to my feeble brain)

Actually, it began a couple days ago.  Hubby for years didn’t quite get that birthdays are important, but that it is the thought that goes into things that counts the most.  Well, this year he got it right in oh so many ways!  He thought about it ahead of time, went to a great of trouble to cross paths with our older son (who now lives on his own) and get h im and his girlfriend to sign my b-day card AND come over for dinner tonight!  Yesterday, when hubby got home from the grocery with younger son, I went to help, and he said “since I can’t sneak these into the house with you here, happy birthday!” and gave me flowers, my favorite yellow (mums since daffodils aren’t in season by a long shot).

And today was good… I started out with a bazillion greetings via FaceBook.I had resisted FB for eons, but I’ve come to enjoy it, and as of today LOVE it.  What fun to hear from so many internet friends!

Then, chores…one of the reasons I haven’t blogged is that I am at long last emptying the storage unit of mom’s stuff and liquidating the last of it.  Have two pieces of furniture on Craig’s list.  If they aren’t sold in 2 weeks, I’m donating them somewhere!  The past two days I’ve gone through 31 boxes of books, we’ve (with Paul’s help and some from Eli) gotten 8 large boxes  with China and crystal (I’ll deal with them later) to our house, and I’ve hauled 8 smaller boxes to the Salvation Army.  The unit WILL be emptied!

And today I took a bit of time between cleaning the storage locker and picking up younger son after Cross Country Practice to sketch.  A friend of his, a guy in his 30s who was a sensei of his in karate–Mark Johnson–who has multiple black belts in multiple martial arts, is also a fairly accomplished artist.  Mark has met and studied with the current Wyeth (Jamie I think, as in N.C. Wyeth and Andrew Wyeth, yes, direct line of succession).  Mark once told me that Wyeth has students do a tough exercise:  draw a white egg (or eggs) on a white piece of paper.   So I tried it! (click to see larger)

It was GREAT!  The eggs are actually gray mostly, with a dark band around the center, because light reflects up at the under side from the paper.  Who knew?  Not me!  And I loved how the lights cast those overlapping shadows, like a Venn diagram!  Anyway, a really wonderful exercise in seeing.  So good in fact that I want to try again.  Today I used four pencils:  HB, 5B, 6B and 8B.  I’d like to try again, but instead of smudging and shading with different leads, I’d like to try it in both watercolor and in a single hardness of pencil (maybe a 2B) or even pen (once I get the outlines/contours roughed in with pencil).

Over the past six weeks I’ve done an online workshop with Jane LaFazio, in part because I wanted something to force me to sketch regularly.   I want to blog about that but as usual am behind the curve–I promise I’ll share (soon I hope).  Still need to get that storage unit cleared out, plus we’re having work done at the house tomorrow, then Thursday is Eli’s next Cross Country meet, then then then….. and I’m taking another class with Jane that starts Thursday too (obviously the first one was so good I’ve gone back for more).  Stay tuned folks!

And thanks to one and all, starting with hubby!!!!, for a wonderful day.

Hi all… at 2 pm east coast time today, the SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) annual fundraising auction began here and here.  If you’d like to help support SAQA by bidding, or just would like to see and enjoy the stunning small (most are 12×12 inches)  art quilts, surf over to the SAQA site.  The price begins at $750, then is reduced this week in increments…does one risk waiting too long for a lower price and losing a gem?  If I were independently wealthy….

SAQA is a non-profit organization whose mission is to promote the art quilt through education, exhibitions, professional development and documentation.  Their quarterly journal has become one of my favorite “magazines” because it not only profiles great art quilters, but also addresses issues of interest to us from creative blocks to marketing.   Anyway, Martha Sielman, the SAQA president (and also the curator behind the two wonderful Masters Art Quilt books from Lark–click on the links for more info for Volume 1 and Volume 2) invited us to be virtual curators ourselves and pick some of our favorites as an online show.

La Mere de la Tranquilite by Genevieve Attinger, above, is one of my favorites.  The Title translates literally to the Mother of Tranquility, but is also a play on the French for the Sea of Tranquility on the moon.  Stunning!

Mary Pal’s study of Jane Goodall is stunning in its simplicity and its complexity.

Composition XIII, by Deidre Adams, is another favorite.  Though I generally prefer representational art, I am one who is thrilled by the quilting line, and this piece thrills.  One of these days I hope I’ll muster the courage to quilt something, then paint it!

Kate Themel’s GottaHavaCuppa is another joyous celebration of line and stitch…and steam!

In next week’s auction (there are three sessions), Terri Stegmiller’s quilt charms me:

A Little Bird Told Me, by Terri Stegmiller

Which quilts are your favorites?  I’ll try to post again in the next two weeks with more of my favorites… so many quilts, no lottery win (yet)!

Hi all… I am beginning to resurface and return to being me…what a concept!   After the tumult and demands of the past four years,  it appears I was up for a change of pace.  I NEVER do stuff spontaneously…just too much to do, too many obligations.  Then I saw Jane LaFazio‘s Facebook post about her new Joggles class, Sketchbook and Watercolor:  On Location, two days before it was to begin.  So I signed up, that day! Fortunately, I had most of the supplies on hand.   In something that hasn’t happened in about two (or more) decades, I am actually doing a class, doing the homework/assignment the week it is assigned!

Our first “location” was an easy one:  home!   We were to sketch keys, journal style…. I missed that part.  The Journal, not a whole shebang thing.  I was so excited I took plenty of time and really worked at it, and am thrilled.  My ability to draw is still tentative, but I worked at it enough to get it!

In utter decadence, I sat on the front porch, taking my art supplies with me in a basket. I used a journal sketchbook as a plain background to better see the keys.

Next, I sketched, taking my time:

Here, I have sketched the exercise in pencil, inked over it, and begun erasing the pencil marks. My 5x7 "block" of watercolor paper hadn't arrived yet so I used some student-grade watercolor paper I had in a pad in the studio.

Then it was time…GULP… to start with the watercolors.  I have two travel sets…one larger, one smaller.  I used the larger one since I was at home:

This set is "Yarka St Petersburg" which I must have ordered from Dick Blick. They seem to have a high pigment load...must have been a good price. And the blue thing is a Niji waterbrush...LOVE them!

So I started coloring in…what a different using watercolor paper makes!  It doesn’t bleed!  You get edges you can control!!!!!!

Not bad... this might have been a good place to stop as a "journal" exercise.....

But I kept going.   Learning how the colors would look on the paper was, well, a learning exercise!  I used the bottom of the page to test color:

Mucking about with the colors to see what combinations would make the color I wanted. I need to do more of this.

Not quite done…. colors need tweaking in this next photo:

I thought originally that I wanted to use my favorite Caribbean bright and clear colors. Wasn't working for me. So I went over the backround to blend in the shadows, and over the pink wihich was too little-girl bright. If you look at the key on the right, you can see the original pink next to the key and the washed-over / toned-down on the outside.

Finally, done, and I’m happy:

Done!

So far I am loving the class.  Lots of good participation by the students which makes the class even better.  Also, I really like Jane’s replies.  She comments on each and every effort posted.  And she doesn’t shy away (as some teachers do) from making suggestions or commenting when things are off.  Her replies are always kind and courteous, but you learn so much MORE when the teacher will point out what is amiss and how to fix it.  She also shared this blogpage where she lists *her* favorite supplies.  Most helpful!  Anyway, I’m having a BALL!  What an utter job to be able to relax, learn, muddle around with art, and take some time for myself.  I am sincerely hoping that the stress and tumult of the past four years are over, and I can return to something resembling normalcy.   I said in a post to the class that I feel like I’ve been in a years-long drought and have just found a spring of water and nourishment.

When my fellow Frayed Edges and I started talking about the “Letters” challenge (see the posts in July about our Frayed Edges show at the Camden Public Library), I was working on my online lino-cutting class with Dijanne Cevaal (posts here and here and here and here).  I wanted to use writing on the fabric similar to how Deborah does, and also to perhaps make some linoleum blocks or screen prints to print onto the fabric. As I thought about the title for my pieces, I thought about the conversations that happen at the lunch tables at the Getty Museum…

Lunch was lovely! (and I have NO idea why the watermark is now smack in the middle of the photo!)

and realized that words make letters  make conversations.  Then I realized that it wasn’t just about the literal conversations, but about the interplay, or the conversation, between the sky and stunning lines of the architecture, between the museum patrons and the artwork, between the straight and curved lines in the buildings, between the buildings and the equally stunning landscape.   Conversations among the elements and principles of design–line, shape, form, harmony, rhythm, contrast, repetition….  and finally, the conversation between me and the materials:  white cloth,  dyes I used to color the cloth, and  thread.

Here are my three pieces (click to see larger):

I based the center piece on two photos:

This was the main photo; I used the two chairs on the far side of the table, but didn't like the position of the chair close to me

The chair in the foreground became the one on the near side of the table, but I had to account for the change in the location of the sun

And the smaller pieces were based on photographs I took of the buildings.

It is the contrast in straight and curved line, stark stone against the brilliant blue sky, and the shadows cast by the lines of the architecture and the lines of the bistro tables and chairs in the patio that sang to me.  At first I was going to make the center piece based on one of the buildings.  Then I realized I’d really to have a least a snowball’s chance in a very hot place of selling my work, and the chances of selling a quilt of the Getty Museum (located in Los Angeles) while based in Maine was pretty much less than zero.  So I switched gears and focused on those wonderful tables and lines and shadows.

With all the tumult in my life, the lino-cutting and screen printing, which I thought I would use to texture the cream colored cloth for the stone used to face the buildings and pave the courtyard,  just didn’t happen…I ran out of time and just didn’t get to explore the use of letters in the way I had hoped.   But I did write on the quilt to create the shadows on the table and chairs where there are vertical surfaces on the slats.  It is *really* subtle now that it is quilted…I’ll confess even I have a hard time reading the words! But I promise…the words ARE there (maybe it’s the way conversations fade and vanish into dim memory?).

Before I got to the writing, however, I had to make the cloth.

The fabric dyed for the tables and chairs, on my green-painted studio floor

Then I had to mess around with the cloth.  I couldnt decide how to make the shadows.  I tried darkening the light stone cloth.  I tried lightening the dark gray cloth.  I used various methods.  I didn’t like them!  It looked like paint on the paving stones–not shadows.  Somehow I needed more transparency, and any sheer fabrics in my stash were to shiny/cheezy-prom-dress stuff.  So I decided to try doing the shadows with thread at the quilting stage.  Hmmm.

I tried paint, pencil, ink, assorted other painats, bleaches and discharge agens. Nothing quite worked for the picture in my head. Hmmm....

Then there were the table legs…here, the freezer paper patterns for all the table and chair components that were metal.

No, not white spaghetti, but to-be table and chair legs

Then the construction process began.  I decided to try something new.  Having tried it, I can tell you I will NOT do this again!   Usually when I create a fused top, it is an independent thing… I fuse the top on my non-stick sheet, moving around as needed.  This time, I decided to try fusing things to a base, in this case a large piece of embroidery stabilizer.  This stabilizer is (when used under embroidery or applique) water-soluble and turns into little bits of polyester fiber, which helps add loft to the applique or become a bit more batting.  What I didn’t think was that by fusing the fabric to it, I would make it impossible for the stuff to “dissolve”.  Erk.  Not so great.

Here’s the top in progress:

The initial "sketch;" I used my digital projector to project the photos onto the paper, then outlined and created the composition from a couple photos.

The fusing begins. I cut freezer paper patterns for the paving stones, then cut from various light and dark areas of the hand-dyed cloth to get the varied appearance of the terrace.

Placing the chairs and table top.

Checking out the sky fabric. This railing and table scene doesn't really exist... but I so wanted the contrast of stone and sky, and most of the tables are in a courtyard area. So I made up a terrace that has a railing and sky in the distance!

Next, I had to figure out what my made-up railing and side wall would look like.  Straight across was too boring, so I added the angled wall.

This looks like it can work

Finally, the top is done:

The top, done, before it started looking like a brown paper bag, wrinkled!

Next post I’ll talk about the quilting, at least the first part of it.

A few weeks ago a bit of art appeared on the side of the road not long after the last (FINALLY!) snow of April… one of those moments of whimsy and suprise that pop up hither and yon.  I decided that along with Moments of Beauty, I need to begin a series of posts about unexpected delights, whatever those might be.  This one is art, and is currently alongside Route 105 which runs (at least hearabouts…it goes beyond, too) from Hope to Camden.

At first I didn't really get to see the art, as it blends in to the side of the barn...

But I could tell it was worth slowing down, pulling over, and having the camera!

I just love this...if I ever win the lottery, maybe I'll be able to afford to buy art, not just admire it

and the artist’s sign over the garage door:

Art by Ron Russell

Have I said recently how much I love living in Maine?