February Respite

Been away for awhile and wish I could show you great things I have accomplished. While I know I am not alone, it has been a struggle to find a direction the past week or so. We have had a small family crisis to work through and my beloved sun just can't find a hold with all the storms coming in from the Pacific. My 80 year old mother is coming for a two month visit this weekend and I am so excited but this has also kept me out of my studio. I keep my fabric stash in our guest bedroom and somehow organizing that closet led to a major cleaning and purging of every closet in the house! There is one truth I am starting to realize about myself and that is I am a hoarder. There is not one thing that if I can't wear it, use it or eat it that I don't think, well, I can make something out of it. I do feel a bit justified that I am doing my bit to save the planet by recycling stuff, however, some of my 'stuff' is over 30 years old!

 

Since I have no new work, I thought I would share the quilt I made for mom last June for her birthday. I learned so much with this as it was only the second 'real' quilt I have ever made. All the photos were transferred to fabric using Bubble Jet Set after my daughter Julie and I spent months finding, scanning and restoring every picture we could get our hands on of  her. I used some left-over upholstery fabric, pillow ticking, cotton batting, lace, ribbons and buttons. The six pieced friendship stars were to represent her six children and the 'moon men' appliques to show that Cancerians are ruled by the moon. The Friendship Star pattern can be found here.

It has just started raining big fat droplets and is to go on all day and night. I see on the news a big snowstorm is spreading all over the NE and people are bracing for it, so I guess the groundhog just might be right this year. I think I will go make a cup of hot tea and finish the ATC's I had started before getting into closet cleaning. All four of the first ones I made (that you can see below) have been traded! The cards I received in return are beautiful so I can see how this just might be addicting. But really, it fits right in with my hoarding tendencies don't you think? 

The Angst of It All

Here is a scan of the first ATC's I have ever made. I think am calling these finished and have quite a few backgrounds ready to go. Maybe I am ready to join a swap but feel I have to experiment a bit more. The background for 3 of them are painted baby wipes. They stayed soft after the paint and have a fabric feel to them. All are done on playing cards - I have a never-ending supply of those here in Las Vegas. The metal circle with the painted 6 was made from the cover of a coffee can.
As I was making these and thinking about starting some altered books and art journals, I came across a 30 year old fabric covered sketchbook of mine that had many unfilled pages. Some of the drawings and notes that I had done where near and dear to my heart so I have vowed to complete the entire thing. Problem is I will have to give up on a theme but I have decided it will have only my own drawings with maybe a few embellishments here and there.

This is the first pages I sketched yesterday from a flier of the Phantom of the Opera which is playing here at the Venetian. It is done with gesso and water-soluble graphite pencils. Drawing in ink is a favorite technique of mine with the pencils coming in second.

One of the drawings from 1983 that I liked were of clowns so I did a sketch (on the left) of some others from a magazine clipping that I have kept for as long.

And finally, this one done in 1984 with brush and ink is a self portrait. Maybe not so well-done but expressive. It expresses some heavy-duty angst I was going trough at that time of my life. Although I am quite happy to not be in that place again, I want to be able to bring back the 'feeling' that I had in my sketching so long ago. When I get to the last two pages I will do the Phantom of the Opera again in the hopes that with all the practice more of my hand and style will be gained again.

Odds and Ends

 It was my resolution to get this blog off the ground at the beginning of 2010 so I pushed it out there without too many frills. I wanted to have made my own header and background by now but have been having too much fun playing in my studio. Couldn't bear looking at my sterile page any longer, so went over to The Graphics Fairy and grabbed a background and to Cute and Cool  for a header that matched. They have great tutorials there to help you make your blog pretty! I am very grateful to these and all the other awesome, inspirational and talented sites I have been following.
The rain has finally left us and will be back to 60 by the weekend. Totally enjoying the sunshine today and happy that I can finally take some things outside that need to be done there. I am spray painting some journal pages that I will be posting later. Trying to get a batch of ATC's done also. Even with the small size, they seem to take up more time than I thought they would. Maybe I am over thinking too much which happens more than not!
My mini-quilt project will be on its way to Georgayne (the raffle winner) in the morning. I have decided to make a pillow out of the 'Power of Women' flour resist piece. It sits next to my sewing machine waiting to be free-motioned stitched with pretty rayon threads.