Art Journal—A Creative Journey

It’s time to blog again and I feel a little bit lost as to topic.  This week has mainly been a week of just doing a little of this and that and tying up loose ends on stuff.  I can’t say that I have accomplished anything major.

I did manage to get a tote bag sample made up for a class in June so that I could deliver it when I went to Evansville on Thursday.  You can see it at the bottom of the page, Classes In Evansville.  I like how it turned out, all bright and cheerful.  And yesterday I worked on blocks for another class I am planning for the fall, the 4 Patch Posy.  You can see those blocks on the Coming Soon page.  I have this group of girls from Indiana that are keeping me quite busy.  You see, they have full time jobs, and they just love getting out for a day and coming to the shop, taking a class and learning something new.  So it’s keeping me hopping, planning classes and making the samples.  But they help out quite well.  They choose the class and usually the date they can come.  I just schedule it and get the sample made if I don’t already have one.  Does anyone want to buy samples?  I am getting quite a collection!  I do schedule the classes several times to maximize the use of my samples.

I did do some playing around with some art earlier in the week.  You see, I will be in a group exhibit at the Arts Council gallery in Evansville in August and have been mulling over what I will plan to put in and what I should make before that time for the exhibit.  My workroom is full of scraps of cloth.  I am such a hoarder.  I even have started keeping the plastic tabs from potato bags, because when I look at them I think, I just know something can be done with that in my art!  But my room (needs to be cleaned) has a tableload of “stuff” laying around so I played.

See?  Discharged cotton, scraps of painted dryer sheet and painted white cotton with writing on it, a scrap of joint tape, black cotton, dyed paper.  I must not forget the scrap of plasticized (from heat) onion bag.  It was laying around…can’t let it go to waste.  It’s too cool for texture.  I really love the challenge of using my imagination and the scraps on my table.  I think I could do it all day long and use up the scraps, but then I realize they multiply way faster than I can use them.

I am also working on this.  I really like the red free motion zig zag stitching and I think I will find other ways to use this technique.

So what artsy things are you doing today?

I’m back from Paducah…and it was a great trip.  ! saw friends from other places, did lots of walking and shopping, and spent too much.  I ran into Kathy Arnett again working for Embellishment Village.  The last time I posted about meeting her, I didn’t know that she had a fabulous website that tells about the retreat she organizes every year, so here it is…www.fabricationsretreat.com.  Be sure to check it out!

I purchased all the fun stuff…ceramic beads, dyes, paints, etc.  I did buy some commercial fabrics that I thought I would cut the motifs from and use in something and some stripes.  I also got some great cinnamon colored solids that I will put some surface design on. I also found some newsprint fabric and tape measure fabric.

There were new vendors on ParkAvenue across from Bluegrass Honda—good stuff there!  A really great hand dyer with wonderful shibori pieces. A wonderful “black/white and one other color” challenge was hung in there as well as two solo quilt exhibits.  Of course, the quilts at the show were great as usual.  It was interesting listening to people comment about certain ones.  One comment was that one person “cheated” by painting ovals on her quilt instead of appliqueing them. (Of course, I loved it.)  Others were surprised at the choice of Best of Show.  There were several whole cloth quilted pieces that had been painted or inked after the quilting, and I thought they were quite stunning.

I was hoping I would find some Adirondack Dabbers for sale there, but was unable to locate them.  I did find some Adirondack paints in these yummy colors…Butterscotch, Raisin, Denim, Terra Cotta, Eggplant and Bottie..and the price was VERY good.  I have some little wooden daubers I can use with them.

I probably can’t say enough about our stay at the Drury Inn and Suites.  They provided a wonderful dinner and breakfast for us.  It was awesome. And of course, to get to spend the time with good friends from back home is totally awesome too.  Now that all of my running around is done, I can get back to “normal life”.  I have a baby quilt waiting for me to finish quilting, then I have an art festival next weekend.  I am looking forward to that and hoping it won’t be hot or rainy.  I’m not asking for much, eh?

I have been doing some playing tonight. The stamps are made from Pentel erasers as well as the erasers that Dick Blick sells. Some of the stamps are EZ cut block and MasterCarve. You all should be surprised that I have a partially finished piece to show, because I sure am! After doing surface design, sometimes it takes me a long time to put a piece together. My brain is, like, satisfied to just create cloth. But my husband is gone for the evening and I have kept working. Also, this is small. I have lately been wanting to do some more journal pieces. I stamped white cloth with several layers and colors. Boy do I love the new Adirondack dabbers. Talk about convenience. Ya’ gotta try them. I think I will be getting more colors. The flowers, for now, are paper. I printed the photo on silk but the colors didn’t come out as vivid as the paper. This will give you an idea of where I’m going with this. Not sure about a name yet, but I am thinking garden something. The background definitely reminds me of a greenhouse or floral shop…or someone’s garden. I used pigment inks, acrylic paint (the dabbers), and colored pencils on cotton to create the background cloth. Ciao!

I printed this out on photo paper, 8 x 10 inch. This is my blooming Bradford pear. What an awesome picture. Digital cameras are the best, don’t ya’ think?  The 8 x 10 looks like  a painting!

This was supposed to be my 100th post.  Evidently my host, who shall remain nameless, has crashed my blog AGAIN.  It was just barely a year ago that they did it to me.  I am still trying to investigate how to get all of my posts onto this blog.