Centered and Focused -- Once Again.....

I've taken a "techno" break the last few weeks in an attempt to get some things accomplished, stepping away from phones and computers and regrouping. Breathing. Taking in the beautiful Carolina sunrises, sunsets and cool air -- clearing my head in an attempt to become centered and focused.

The re-harnessing of energy has enabled me to be rather productive in the studio -- finishing up some gifts, starting work on others and doing a bit of experimentation with new media. Sabrina has also been working very hard on her handmade gifts -- it's inspiring to watch her grow and develop as an artist. She is really turning some interesting corners with her work.

At Sabrina's urging, we did take a break from the studio and ventured to a movie Wednesday. She picked the movie and decided we should go see "Twilight." I can see why it is so wildly popular. Oh so good.

I will be posting pictures this weekend -- right after I pay some of my favorite blogs a visit and do some catching up.

Go outside. Take a walk. Look up at the sky and breathe.

I wish that for you today.

A Little of This & a Little of That.....

I came across the pattern for this cute little mouse pin cushion the other day. Thought it would look so cute in black and white with Turquoise Swavrovski crystal eyes and a pink pearl straight pin for his nose.

True story: no sooner than I sewed on his whiskers and got him dressed with pins and thread, Sabrina snatched him off my table, took the pins out, the thread off and said he is much better suited for this job.

When asked, Mr. Mouse made it quite clear that he would much rather sit on Sabrina's counter and hold her colorful rings on his tail and nose than house my pins of various shapes and sizes in his backside.

A few weeks ago after visiting Jude's blog and seeing a stunning piece she had woven, I decided to tear up some black and white batik fabric and weave a background. Right now it's about 16x21, but I'm still playing around with it. May utilize it in my resonse to Art Quilting Magazine's challenge for their fledgling issue which poses the challenge to make an art quilt based upon a beautiful quote from The Little Prince, "One sees clearly on with the Heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes." I painted a Neocolor heart (about 7") and may do something with that on it. I am really beginning to gain an appreciation for the beauty of organic edges.

Also played around with the Neocolors a bit making some bookmarks.

And finally, as I mentioned earlier in the week, Sabrina and I worked the the make and take table the Carolina Mixed Media Art Guild set up for the Art of the Carolinas event, which gave us the opportunity to hang out and make ATC's all day. It was so enjoyable as I typically don't work with just paper and collage materials. Sabrina was right at home with the glue, paint, glitter, rubber stamps and ink - so she did a lot of teaching that day. I even learned a few things. Here are a few of the atcs that came out of our day. Oh, and I used Gouache for the very first time and immediately fell in love. It can be used thick for dense color or thin like a wash - and it dries so quick. Definitely on my "wish list" along with some really cool Mica Watercolor paints I tried that again - were very dense with color. Really, really cool.


It was a great weekend -- full of inspiration, experimentation, trial, error and some success.

I'm looking forward to seeing where this may take me.

It's Time to Begin Something New...

A New Journal
Old Memories

New Memories

Life, Death, Happiness, Sadness, Aspirations, Inspirations

Dreams Realized, Dreams Dashed, Dreams yet to be Dreamt.....

It all Starts with the First Word, on the First Page.

I've been wanting to begin an art journal for a very long time now. It's something that has been looming in the back of my mind. I have a list two pages of long of subjects I want to journal about. I've even bought several types of books (notebook, moleskin and sketchbook) to transform into journals. But it wasn't until I read 1000 Journal Pages cover to cover that I became motivated enough to stop thinking and start writing.

Artistically Designed Diversions (Jennifer,) has posted a weekly journal challenge beginning tomorrow November 10th, with a weekly prompt being posted every Monday. You've got a week to sign up and get started. I'm going to participate in this one as it coincides nicely with my motivation right now. I'm going to keep two journals - one for my artwork (concepts, ideas, swatches, jots, scribbles, doodlings and drawings, and one for personal thoughts and reflections.

The journal pictured above is actually one Sabrina made while I was working on mine. She bought this at Panopolie. It's got envelopes for pages and a heavy cardstock cover. She put a 7 Gypsies orange crystal look doorknob on it. It's so cute. My journals are quite a bit larger than hers and I covered them both with tissue and paper towel pieces to add texture, then I painted them heavily with Mod Podge -- so they are still sticky. I'm going to paint them tomorrow morning and prime some of the pages to get ready for Jen's first prompt (which will be posted tomorrow.)

Don't you think it's time you started a journal????

Windows of the Soul....

Pink
Artist

Love
Squared

Part II


As a continuation of the Love Squared project, Monica doled out the squares that were left over after making Love's dress to 20 artists. We were each instructed to make a 10x10 art quilt out of the squares dealt us. Upon completion, our little art quilts are to be forwarded back to Monica who is going to attach them all to create one large art quilt. Cool.

I spread the squares I received out on a worktable in my studio and let them sit for a few weeks, rearranging them most times I walked by. I played with them off and on trying to decide what to do with them. I was getting frustrated as I could not decide which squares to feature - so I decided to feature them ALL -- each square being a window into the soul, into love, loss and hope of its creator.

I used a piece of black and white fabric as the base, and tore pieces of black and white batik into strips (leaving the edges raw and frayed - alla Jude!) which I then couched down to form a grid. I layered each art square onto two pieces of either hand made silk fusion, and/or hand painted fabric or silk for dimension, then stitched around each set with perle cotton or embroidery floss for texture. The plan was for the grid to be the front of the piece.

The dream hand (which I already showed you) has one solitary square (rounded off) for the orb in the center. I think I will give Monica artistic license to make the decision as to which side should be the front and which side should be the back to best suit the cooperative piece best.

Eventually cooperative art quilt will be sold with all proceeds once again going to the Susan G. Komen Foundation. We may get a chance to see somewhere prior to the sale. If that occurs, I'll be sure and let you know.

The little quilts are all due to be in Monica's hot little hands by December 1st. I'm a bit ahead of schedule (for once). I'm looking forward to seeing what the other artists do with their squares. Inasmuch as there is quite a variety of artists participating in this project, it will be fascinating (stylistically speaking) to see what each individual artist does with his/her selection of squares. I'll keep you posted as this wonderful project progresses.

Breathe deep - nourish your soul with this beautiful Autumn day.

Neocolors A"muse" Me......

Neocolors - water soluble "wax" crayons.

Who doesn't LOVE crayons? I've had a love affair with crayons since my grandmother bought me my first box of Prang. To this day when I see a box laying around (and we've got them all over this house) I open the box, pick out my favorite one (teal, or magenta) and stroke it across the nearest piece of paper. I even love how they smell. Wierd, I know.

My "leafy" blog header up there ..... was my first experiment with Neocolors. Suffice it to say - I think I'm in love.

I played around by drawing some flowers and leaves on a piece of canvas home dec fabric. Scribbling blues, teal and greens around the leaves, I filled up the white space around the leaves and flowers. After loading a paintbrush (I used a sable hair fan brush) with water, I lightly painted it over the surface -- THAT is when the magic happens.

Depending upon how much water you load on to the brush, as well

as how absorbent your fabric is, AND whether or not you air dry, sun dry, or heat applied dry - has a lot to do with how your colors run and blend. I just let mine dry on their own - slowly - as I wanted to see to what extent they would run and bleed. How cool!

After the picture dried, I loaded my sewing machine with

variegated threads (to match each

leaf) and just did a little threadpainting. Then I put an aqua, green and silver variegated thread in the machine and stitched windy swirls in the blue background. I kept my stitching to a minimum, because I didn't want to cover up the beautiful colors . I can however, see enormous possibilities threadpainting over a Neocolor base.

I am absolutely head over heals in love with the color saturation I can get with these, as well as the blending and layering capabilities. In recent months I've been experimenting with Tsukineko Inks, acrylic paint, Lumiere paints, etc., and while they all have their merits -- I truly think I have found my muse in these little crayons. You can also do encaustic work with these -- which is next on the agenda.

Don't worry Crayola and Prang - I still love you.

You will always hold a special place in my heart!