Lots of Inspiration but no Time

It's Spring and that means I'm really busy with work as well as the planning of a fund raising golf tournament which will be happening on Monday. This means that I haven't been able to spend a lot of time in the studio. Hopefully after next week, I will once again, take up my creativity. I have so many ideas and plans for future art and it is really frustrating that I can't get to it right now.
I've found that if I'm not creative, I am stressed and antsy. I'm realizing that creativity is something I need to continue to do for my sanity and sense of well-being. Today I spent time tweeking my landscape quilt. Last week I posted that it was complete but it still needed a little adjusting. I also had to sew a hanging sleeve to the back of it. Now I think it is totally done and I am pleased with it. I really get the sense of rushing water. I'm also glad that I did not include a border around it. This is the first quilt I have done without a border. This quilt is also smaller than my other landscape quilts but still bigger than a regular painting. In future, I'd like to do more painting sized landscape quilts but I'm not sure the effect will be the same as the larger ones. Also with smaller quilts the fabric pieces are also smaller and can be a challenge to work with.

Algonquin Rapids Quilt Completed

I have finally finished my latest Art Quilt. I started it in the middle of February and blogged about it on Feb28/14 once I had started it. I worked constantly putting the quilt top together and then I hung it on my design board for a few weeks to let it tell me what it needed as far as embellishing. Once the top was done, I had to find ways to separate the foreground trees from the rest of the design and then a separation of background woods from the rocks and a separation of the water from the rocks.
The watercolour at the right of this blog is the sketch I had done from one of my canoe trips to Algonquin and it was my inspiration for this quilt.
To make the trees stand out I couched some yarn along the trunks and also used it to make marks on the bark. I darkened some of the rocks in the background to bring the water forward a little. To make the water look like it was foaming and moving I added some white tulle and some pieces of a sparkly white scarf that I found at Value Village on top of the completed top. Then I added white thread painting to give the illusion of the directional flow of the water. I also machine quilted certain areas of the quilt to give the background woods some depth.
I decided not to put a quilt border around this one, thinking that it looked more contemporary without one.

If you are interested in watching the progressions of this project being put together, I've made a YouTube slide show. Here is the link:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RasRXK8lqoo

Detail of foreground trees and water

Detail of water

Algonquin Rapids

Sketchbook Skool Final

Our last klass of sketchbook skool has come and gone. I really enjoyed the video lessons and the various ways the different artist teachers approached sketching. It did get me really thinking of sketching anything, anywhere and it also got me sketching more. I even think I have conquered my fear of sketching in public! However, I don't think I'll sign up for the next semester due to the fact that I can't keep up with all the sketching that needs to be done. Instead I've promised myself that I will sketch regularly (even in public) when I can.

Because of this course I have decided that I will log our business year at the Garden Centre with sketches. Every year I do a scrapbook of our business year with photos and a few drawings. I've been doing this since we started the business, more than 30 years. But a book filled with just sketches and some commentary will be really unique.

Below are the first of the sketches that will be part of the book.

These sketches were done with a Pitt marker that is waterproof so I could also use watercolour once the drawing was done without the pen bleeding like in some of my other sketches.

Also, if you are interested, I've added a few gallery pages to this blog. You'll find them at the top right of the blog. Just click on the gallery you'd like to see.  I've posted some of my quilt work, acrylic paintings and watercolour paintings. Enjoy!