On The Road Again

I'm still running to "beat the band"(complete) to get the final 2 10 ft. fabric maps to be quilted and exhibited with the Route 66 traveling exhibition which will begin exhibiting this August. I've previously done 4 large 10 foot+ panels following the historic Mother Road from Chicago, Illinois, through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico. Thats 6 of the 8 states through which Route 66 existed. Heading now into Arizona, a wide state with many landmarks along the original route. All the panels were previously background painted at the same time so we are now tackling adding the physical route and reflecting a few of the elements we anticipate the 60+ surrounding art quilts will represent. We've seen some of the pictures of finished quilts ( Spectacular!!!) and anxiously await the deadline date ( June 15th) for the rest of them. The first thing as I begin traveling again Route 66 again is to get a full size paper drawing of the route. This is a bigger challenge than I thought as the route no longer exists across all 8 states so some cities that were on Route 66 aren't anymore. It' all doable with a little patience and persistence. First things first... a pencil drawing using my necessary tools (including Kirkland chocolate) Once I've stopped erasing and redrawing, I use a black permanent marker to create a final contour drawing of various elements. There's much to see in this wide state, so this one will be extra fun to paint. Here is the big picture lying across my work table!!!