No Bull for My Man!!

Many of you knew my hubby has been in Pamplona Spain for the running of the bulls. There were several injuries, none my hubby's.  Our agreement... rent a veranda, and so he did.  He emails me to say the excitement is everything advertised and more.  But thank you Ray.... for being sane and staying safe above the crowds.

Through This Door Tomorrow

I am packed and ready to travel to Cabo San Lucas and enter this door tomorrow afternoon. How cool is that?!  Drawings and inks easily travel with me so art can vacation too.... when I'm not cooking breakfast for grandson Max anyway.  Out of state family meets me there!! YEAH!!

Who wouldn't want  to take care of this cute guy?

Bigger sissy Kaley will be there too. I am one happy Grammie!!

See You in Asilomar next March

Check it out.  5 days of painting and quilting on the shore of the Pacific Ocean. Pretty sweet.  I will be teaching Mar 14 -19. It should be great fun. Hope to see you there.  Click Here to go to the hosts web site.

Quilting a Roundabout

Well... this was certainly a time consuming challenge. First, the finished product ( sounds backward for a story yet to be told).

The center of the quilt started the process in Jan 2012 where I free motion embroidered Santa in the center and sashed him some solid red and white plus an interesting baltic-like red and white print. I placed the center piece in a basket with multiple "retayned" reds and whites and began a month by month basket pass amongst quilting buddies ( We all  take turns with each others projects) .  Each added whatever they wanted as the bed sized quilt top grew. The first 'round' of addition embroidered different names of Father Christmas in different languages/countries. Way fun!!  Once it returned to me at years end...I added a final print border and then the challenge of how to quilt presented itself. I quickly decided the quilting (but for maybe around Santa himself) was less important than the quilt tops design, so I chose to use the quilt top as terrain for a quilting motif sampler of sorts.  I'll try a bunch of different things.  Why not???   I'm working on my long arm which is largely unfamiliar territory so let's play. I gave myself permission NOT to try to create a masterpiece.   Good plan!!

Around Santa.... I used exagerated swirling motifs of different sizes, and a bit of Mucha-like lines immediately around his body. (Click on photos for enlarged images.)

I added various other leaves, trees, berry shapes in other sashings.... nothing exciting.  I admit I rather enjoyed this loose half-feather look in the outer sashing on each side.  Pretty fast to do too.

Nothing is ever really done 'til the label goes on. I love the busy back fabric on this piece...  Just 3 weeks back, I found it on a bargain table in a little shop in Solvang, Ca.   Little Denmark U. S. A. had just what I needed to get me moving to the finish line.

Simplest and Favorite Lehman Trick

Libby Lehman is fighting her way back to a new health. Go Libby.  I think of Libby often... She's soooo smart about sewing machines and what works.  Though I am known as an art quilter, I do for fun with friends do more traditional work.... and thats where Libby's machine tips come in extra handy.

Before any blanket stitch is machine done or finished.... I do a forward and reverse straight line stitch and mentally thank Libby EVERY time.  This method eliminates those over time loose ends on a blanket stitch  DUH!!!!  Why didn't I think of that on my own???  It seems so simple.

 LIBBY... you are genius!!!

I'll be working upside down on the tail of this fused kitty.  First a forward and reversed straight stitch at the edge of the fused fabric.  I will then reset my machine to a blanket stitch and make sure the needle position aligns with the just completed straight stitch.

Then the blanket stitch all the way around to the other side of his little green tail. I now change the stitch to a straight stitch position at the same point I finished the blanket stitching.

And again a forward and reverse straight stitch to lock stitches in ..
THANKS LIBBY!!!!!!

Living On "The Right Side"

This is a challenging and interesting post for me. Some weeks ago I had a request for a critique for improvement on a new artists piece of work. The work was quite nice to begin with so providing a worthwhile and positive critique seemed critical itself.  I am the last person wishing to stop an emerging artist with insensitive words.   So I've answered it with a couple pics of my older work wherein I also was and still am on a journey to be a better storyteller through what I do.  I feel like I will always be emerging/ moving forward to a better relationship with my painting/quilting.  We don't ever fully ARRIVE!"

I've chosen post comments on the lion "King" and a few long ago pics of my painting technique. I created The lion "King" as my first ready to go drawing so students who maybe never painted before could join me and create an exciting art piece to take home and show the world and themselves the talent that had been dormant or at least hiding inside them.

first here's the info I shared with a student asking for a specific critique of sorts on how to improve.   "    This is not "THE" panacea answer but it's an important thing to consider....   What I might suggest can be about more choice more than painting  technique/skill. I often say in class... "I'm pretty sure Michaelangelo didn't create "DAVID" right out of the gate.  So be nice to yourself.... It took one of the  best artists ever time to get where he wanted. I remain on my own journey, never to "fully arrive."  

One of the things in displaying elements in an art composition ( even within a live being) is to help the viewer see and enjoy a unified composition... "It makes the brain happy." (This honestly can apply to quilting patterns as well as painting, but let's just think about this for painting right now)  One way to do that is to soften transitions as the viewer's eye moves from one area to another. This sounds good lest everything is soft and the piece loses the viewers interest.  This underscores that old "everything in moderation" approach to life.  So, I like seeing some things in "focus" and others less so. This requires some self questioning on "whats really important to see clearly vs. what isn't?"  

I might interpret that question to myself on a portrait of the King of lions this way.  I want to see his piercing eyes quite clearly.... thus I may put them in focus!!! Bear in mind, I designed this piece for an absolute beginner so the details of painting an eye was not part of my goal. I kept it simple but still important from a viewed distance.   When I think of his mane, it's the feel/gesture of the mane that seems important to me. The ability to distinguish individual fur hairs or even groupings of fur is less important so I may keep the edges of elements a bit more soft...  slightly blurred if you will.  Maybe the 'bad hair day" spikey edges on the top of his head/mane could translate the gesture of his mane if slightly out of focus.

  And so the dance of art goes. 

What I'm really getting at is the path to improving is most about the questions we create for ourselves on how to best tell the story we want to tell.  If one can answer the in vs out of focus question for themselves, the how to do it on the page(or in this case fabric) will start to solve itself.  I do hope the ink rub or test cloth is always handy as I've long believed the success of our painted piece is largely dependent on our use and experimentation on our white scrap fabric BFF(best friend fabric) . One could say...the "what" needs to be solved comes through our brain ... the how to solve it oft comes through our fingers, intuition, and experimentation.

This  started to sound like a book... I hate sounding like a book but it is what I do with my own work... and now, you know my thinking. Use it or not... all your choice as some like everything in clear focus to begin, and the other game of in and out may come in play as time goes on. It did for me and the dance indeed continues.

I'd love comments on whether this was helpful to you. 

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA! 

Trudy's Purple Santa

Okay... How fun is this...?   Flying Geese Quilt Guild Class student Trudy painted this Santa and stepped way outside the box to do it.  WHY limit Santa to either a red suit or ( as often seen in Europeon images) a blue one?   Trudy is one happy lady who saw Santa in a whole new light.  While the photo received didn't show all the border fabric.. I thought her border fabric choice was fun too so let what I got stay in frame and be seen.  Go Trudy!

 I love her words accompanying the photo she sent ...

 Patt
 Thank you for this class in fabric painting. Very enjoyable. 
 Here is my happiest Santa ever, dressed up and ready to sew. 
 In the infamous words Ho Ho Ho here is Shhhhh Elves Working. 
 Trudy Teshima