Starting The Route

Some of you may know I am co curating an exciting traveling exhibit (just announced... see the link on top left or click here to go to http://www.route66quilts.blogspot.com . Check it out, you may want to play.. (We hope so!) It's time to honor Main Street U.S.A. otherwise known as "The Mother Road- Route 66" This exhibit will include 24" x 30" portrait or landscape orientation art quilt interpretations of sites along the historic route. First things first for me.. I needed to create the beginning ( Chicago, Illinois), while my co curator will create the ending ( Santa Monica, California) and participants get open range for spots along the 8 state route. The quilts are small enough not to make anyone crazy so let's get started.
You may have read previous, I am in Mexico at present. It's my annual journey to 'mecca' so to speak. I create drawings in advance, have the print shop enlarge them to desired size, and pack a suitcase full of art supplies including my inks, fabric, reference photos , etc.

Traveling with inks is easy and compact. Ink bottle lids insured to be 'tight' before packing into a hard plastic case...the case placed inside a plastic bag (as insurance).. bag taped shut and into checked baggage. In years of doing this, I've never had a spill. YEAH!

A few brand new bottles to be opened by finger tip release of plastic covering at perferated (?sp) tab on the bottom of the bottle.

Please...never use scissors or the like to remove the plastic... too easy to puncture the lightweight plastic bottle containing ink.

Use a sharpie to write on the cap the number of the ink. ( It's shown on the front of the bottle.) Do the same numbering on a clean blank fantastix and you're ready to go with the inks.

Next getting the drawing ready ... with plastic covering the work table ( as insurance the ink doesn't bleed thru to the mexican marble table, and off we go.

This process always starts slow... This image will include three points of interest in the beginning city of the historic highway beginning with... Wrigley Field ( home of the beloved Chicago Cubs baseball team) This being a more graphic piece, I'll use some fabric markers in addition to inks,

It will take a couple hours of painting for this to begin to take shape. The Cubs are loved by the entire nation. There is something special about this team, their undying spirit having fought for a World Series win for decades. I was ofcourse using a reference photo of the stadium, but chose to substitute the final score shown on the scoreboard with that of the clubs long ago world series win in 1908.