Something besides snow!

It's hard to believe tomorrow is the last day of January! Where has the month gone? I have to admit, I started out like gangbusters on my goals for the year, except for the one I'm supposed to do weekly - the 8x10s I said I'd do like a sketchbook. Above is really the first new one I completed, and I just did that today! Actually, I did it in three parts over the last few weeks: first, painting the white canvas with acrylic paints and inks, then adding the free-motion stitching with metallic threads, then adding in the sand, seaweed, and seahorse. Maybe step one was a sketch all by itself... And, of course, I made several of the rejected snowflake pieces, if they count (I think I may actually have to do it one more time!). Anyway, I got tired of snowflakes (see the last post), both real and stitched, so this was a nice break from all that white and blue. One new technique I came up with: the seahorse is a separate quilted piece with a back and everything, sort of like a little flat stuffed animal. He's only stitched on in a few spots. I was hoping this might give him a more three-dimensional look, but I'm not sure if you can tell from the photo. It looks much better in person. I wish I could capture that dimension with the camera! Since I'm so drawn to the seahorse and have made so many of them, I thought I'd play around with the possibility of him being a little logo or mascot to put on business cards etc. I'm not sure if he's "the one," but he's the closest I've come so far. If nothing else, at least I'm seeing improvement!

Fortunately and Unfortunately

Unfortunately, a friend in my FANE group lost her adult daughter unexpectedly last week. I met her last June at the opening of our group show at the library and she seemed like such a terrific person - great sense of humor (like her mother), active, intelligent. She was a Special Education teacher, I think. What a loss! Fortunately I thought of making a card for my friend, above. I was trying to convey a feeling of peace and hope at this difficult time. I hope it will offer her a little comfort. Unfortunately, yesterday I also found out that an acquaintance lost her mother right before Christmas (she lost her father 11 years ago and her only sister 4 years ago.). Fortunately, both my parents and both my husband's parents are alive and well and I am counting my blessings!
Unfortunately, I have not been very successful redoing my December snow poem illustration from my sketchbook! I never like redoing something, and I knew I could never really reproduce that piece exactly, but I thought I might come close and at least make something that conveys the same childlike energy, spontaneity, and fun that the other one had. Above is my first attempt. I felt I added too much blue in the snow, and then tried to use various white fabric pens and acrylic paint to make it whiter again. I decided to abandon it at this point and start all over again. Below is my next attempt. The snow stayed whiter, but I don't like where the background resist snowflakes fall in relation to the stitched ones. They look too crowded and clumped together. So I'm scratching this one too!

Fortunately, I made another resist painting over the weekend, but have not painted it yet. I've been experimenting with inks and acrylic paints on fabric, even mixing the two, to see how they compare. I definitely prefer the sheer and transparent qualities of the ink as opposed to the acrylic paint, but I think I need to experiment a little more to get more experience with them both. I recently read an article by Mickey Lawler of Skydyes and she uses Pebeo Setacolor transparent acrylic paints. Unfortunately, I couldn't find those at the garden-variety neighborhood craft store.Fortunately, I found them priced at 30% off at an online store and they shipped so quickly, I've already got them! Unfortunately, they didn't have all the colors I wanted in stock, but I'm sure I can make do. Fortunately, they also carried this alternate resist product called Batik-EZ. The glue-gel method is cheap and convenient, but a little thick and gloppy to work with and I can't get as much detail as I'd like. This product says it can be used with stamps, so rather than trying to draw on the resist snowflakes with the fat glue spout, I can try stamping them on. It's worth a shot! (Fortunately again, I just received a check for $35 from the Putnam Arts Council for the items that sold at their Christmas craft sale - that just about covered the cost of the paint!).

Unfortunately, it's snowing again and my husband is out of town, which means I'll have to shovel, but fortunately, I'll have these cool new toys to play with, if we happen to get another snow day!

Too Much of a Good Thing?

This is our fourth snow day in the last 3 weeks! There are pros and cons to snow days. Is this too much of a good thing? I am on the fence about it. Now that we've used up the four snow days built into the school district's calendar, I fear we will pay for this in the spring when we'd really enjoy a day off to spend outside. But I am enjoying some of the good things about snow days: more sleeping in and reading, less rushing around and hurrying,

interesting things to look at, even in your own backyard,

and time to cook a hot breakfast!

Cassie definitely loves a good snow day. Her family is home, and often outside playing with her in the fluffy powder!

But the poor cats sit by the window waiting for spring!

Aside from the aching back from shoveling, and the feeling that we're going to pay for all this leisure time somewhere down the road, I am enjoying another day off. Perhaps it's because I started the day by reading Jon Scieszka's book Knucklehead. I brought it home for my 5th grade daughter, not sure she would really like it since it's about the author's memories of growing up in a family with six boys. Jon Scieszka is a very successful children's author and promoter of reading for all kids, especially boys. I figured the humor would be pretty juvenile, but I can honestly say I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. I would recommend this book to anyone - I think I'm even going to pass a copy on to my father! The author has some very funny stories about summer vacations, long rides in the family station wagon, the teacher nuns at his Catholic school, and generally hilarious boyhood antics. If you have a boy of any age in your family, do him a favor and hand him this book!

Now I think I'll head down to the studio to stitch a few more snowflakes (I'm redoing the "December" sketch from my sketchbook - see it here). Maybe I am getting a bit tired of snow already, and we still have 2 more months of winter!

SAQA Trunk Show entry?

Since I am now a SAQA member, I've been checking their website often to read the Calls for Entry. They always have a long list, but each show has certain particulars, and sometimes my work doesn't fit them; for instance, some shows are only accepting work from people in a certain state, or quilts of a certain size, or that fit a certain theme. But they usually have one non-juried show that all SAQA members can participate in. I thought I'd find out what the deadline is for their member show this year, since now that I'm a member, all I have to do is send it - no judging, no additional fee. I found out last week the deadline is January 21st. I thought that was a postmark date - I was wrong - it's a Received by date! Yesterday I looked through my pile of completed pieces to see if there was something that might be appropriate, but no such luck. I even thought about getting up very early this morning to try to throw something together, something similar to the "Rhythm of the Earth" piece I finished last week, only scaled down, only 10"x 10". But I ended up going back to sleep.

All morning, the idea of passing on this opportunity really nagged at me, so when I got home from work in the early afternoon, I decided to play around and see what I could come up with. I actually started it and finished it all in the same day! I don't think I've ever done that before. It's very similar to "Rhythm of the Earth" with some of the same fabrics and embellishments, but it's more symmetrical and balanced. The prospectus stated that all the pieces would be mounted behind a matte with only an 8"x 8" square showing, so I designed the piece to be viewed that way. All the embellishments fit into that 8x8 square. Now all I have to do is pare down the statement I made when I presented the larger piece to the FANE group in the fall, e-mail that off, and get this piece to California by Friday!!!!!

Mid-month Thaw

I was feeling pretty good about getting two goals done by the middle of January, so I took a bit of a breather this weekend, while the icicles dripped outside. Rather than spend every free moment being goal-oriented, I laid back a little, tried to sleep in, went out for dinner and a movie date night, took an afternoon nap, and started reading a new juvenile fiction novel (Keeper by Kathi Appelt). It was nice to just relax a bit.

I did take on a quick project that desperately needed to be done. Below is a picture of my daughter's baby blankie. It's actually the replacement blankie I made for her seven years ago; my mother-in-law made the original tied crib quilt for her soon after she was born. That one had a whole flannel top cloth which was printed with little rosebuds all over for her middle name, Rose, and my mother-in-law stitched on little ribbon roses. I tried to replicate it as closely as I could and it's held up pretty well for seven years. She takes it everywhere, including vacations and sleepovers, so it has gotten extremely threadbare. It's so fragile now it can no longer be washed, and the backing fabric has almost completely torn away.I was planning on trying to refurbish it somehow, with a new backing, batting and binding, maybe even make a completely new quilt, but I couldn't find a similar flannel with little rosebuds printed on it, not even on the web, and I looked. I ended up buying plain white flannel and stamping little rosebuds and leaves on it and making a completely new quilt. I machine stitched a little quilting, rather than do the tying, because I think it will hold together better. But of course, even though she's got this replacement blankie to take with her everywhere, she can't give up the old one and it still needs to be repaired somehow! So now I've got to pick up some more white flannel and see if I can't stitch it up a little, at least well enough that it can be washed and kept under her pillow. At a glance, it really looks remarkable like her original one. I'll have to pick up some ribbon roses too...

I also played around with some of my canvas "sketches," the ones I'm supposed to do weekly. I should have two completely finished by now, and I have painted backgrounds and played around a bit, but no stitching has been done... maybe by next post.

Celebrating small steps

Well, I did it! I managed to get these two pieces finished and photographed in time to put them on a disc and get them in the mail.

These are the four shots I included in my submission: above, the complete shot of "Rhythm of the Earth" with a detail shot, right.

And below, a complete shot of "Portrait of the Viewer in Mixed Media with Found Objects," with a detail shot, below and right.

It actually took longer than I thought to get the digital images to the specs they wanted. We tend to keep our camera set on a very high resolution which makes for large files. They wanted the files no larger than 3MB and I was able to do that with a combination of cropping and reshooting at a lower resolution. I also redid the discs a few times to get everything exactly the way I wanted it. I'm not sure what my chances will be of actually getting juried into the show (last year they took about one in three submissions), but at least I gave it my best shot (I think it was Wayne Gretsky who said "You always miss 100% of the shots you don't take")! After mailing the entry form and disc, I felt like celebrating, but without spending a lot or taking in a lot of calories! I settled for photographing the icicles hanging off the post office:

And then I went home and baked double chocolate cookies! Happy weekend, everyone!

A Few Tiny Things

In The Creativity Book (goal #7), the author suggests you do one tiny creative thing each day in pursuit of your goal. I managed to do several tiny things each day over the last few days. I do think it really helps to break things down into very small steps and do them one by one. On Monday afternoon, I bought a 16x20" canvas and painted it with neutral gray gesso. When it was dry, I stitched my piece, "Portrait of the Viewer," to the canvas with a metallic gray thread, to resemble staples. This is one of the pieces I'm considering entering in the "Made in NY" show (goal #3 ). I photographed it under the best circumstances I could devise with my current lighting situation, and it's okay, but still not as good as I'd like it (goal #5). You can probably see how the left side of the photo is darker than the right. I'm still trying to remedy that.

Here are some detail shots. I like this piece, although I still think it is kind of out of character for me, with the monotone gray, distressed metal, and raw edges. My husband asked me what I'm trying to say. I think I'm trying to say that it's possible to make interesting art out of discarded objects, and that by inserting yourself into the art (the reflections of the viewer), you make it more colorful and more personal. How's that for a statement?

A few more of the tiny things I accomplished:

Here are three more detail shots of embellishing and stitching I've done on the "conceptual art" piece I did for the FANE challenge back in the fall. I think I'm going to call it "Rhythm of the Earth" because it has a lot of natural rhythmic symbols in it, like waves, seasons, and rain. I'm working on how it will be hung, and then I hope to get the entire thing photographed well by the end of the week.

I'd love to enter the two pieces in that show, since you can enter up to two for the fee (and I love to get my money's worth!). These pieces are similar, both being abstract and mostly composed of squares and rectangles with embellishments. But one is so monotone and the other so colorful and varied. I wonder what the juror's first impressions of me will be, after looking only at these two pieces.

I also joined SAQA online (goal #1 completed!) and mailed out the sketchbook (insert audible gasp here). I tried to do it quickly, like removing a bandaid, without thinking too much about the possibility of never seeing it again - just shoved it in the envelope and sealed it up. So it's going out into the world, a little ambassador for me and my art!

If you're wondering if I really did post this at 4:30 am, yes I did! Sometimes the only uninterrupted time I have is in the wee hours of the morning. It is snowing heavily right now and we already know there will be no school today, so when I woke up for no particular reason around 2, I decided to get up and do a few more tiny things. Now I think I'll go back to bed and enjoy sleeping in, and the excitement and leisure a snow day brings (as long as we don't lose power!). But first I'm going to have a slice of banana bread with cream cheese and maybe some hot chocolate...