Never Sitting with Idle Hands

I realized that I am always busy doing something. I can't even sit and watch TV without something in my hands whether it is a sketchbook or knitting or embroidery. I have always loved  to cross-stitch. It is very calming for me. Lately I've been cross-stitching little motifs that I can use on my quilted cards. They add a nice touch of colour and design to the cards. Below are a few that are waiting for the perfect card to adorn.

Quilting Retreat and Quilted Greeting Cards

Next week Monday until Thursday I will drive north to enjoy a quilting retreat for a few days. I have been feverishly working on a painting that I wanted to use to create a pattern for an art quilt but that has not been completed so I will not be working on that particular art quilt at the retreat. Instead I will be working on a table runner for my dining room table as well as  some quilted greeting cards.

As I was thinking about what I would bring for the show and share portion of the retreat, I decided that instead of a quilt, I would take some of the quilted greeting cards I have made in the past. At the retreat we will also have a "for sale" table where we can bring items we want to sell. I have been making greeting cards that I've been setting aside for future fundraisers. I have 9 made that I thought I would try to sell at the retreat in support of Timothy Christian School in Rexdale. The school has started their planned renovation and addition and is still raising money for that cause. I'm planning on selling the cards for $10 each. They are one of a kind designs and original artwork that can also be framed and come with an envelope.

If they don't all get sold at the retreat, I will post the remaining ones here and if any of my followers would like to support the school by purchasing one you can let me know via email.

Below are the cards I'm selling and I hope to make one more to make it an even 10. I'll continue to create cards for future fundraisers.

The Struggle of Switching Mediums

In my last post, I told of switching between several mediums as I work on projects. Using different mediums help to keep things fresh and I also think it keeps us learning and tweaking our techniques with those mediums.

I have realized why I tend to stick with one medium for extended art making. It's because we easily forget the techniques needed for specific mediums. Since I have started the watercolour painting that I want to use to design an art quilt, I've been struggling and am not satisfied with how it is going.
It is still in the early stages but I just feel like scrapping it.

As I was working on it today, I noticed that the canoe in the foreground looked like someone was standing on the gunwales at the back so that the nose was sticking up in the air. I decided that it was because the canoe was too narrow so I took a scrubber brush and scrubbed the paint away and using watercolour pencils tried to make it wider.

I do think it looks better so I left the paper to dry in the area of the canoe and tried to punch up the colours in other areas a bit. With watercolour you do this with layers so you can see some improvement but more needs to be done. I have left some areas with very little colour and those are areas where the mist will come in. I will accomplish this by also scrubbing the paint off in the misty areas. I also have to keep in mind that the painting is only a guide for the design of my quilt and the quilt will look very different and more vibrant when it is completed. Even so, I want to know what colours and textures I will need and also what problems I will have to solve such as how will I depict mist with fabric.

Challenge is good. It makes us better.

From Acrylic to Watercolour to Fabric

I've been continually working on my latest acrylic painting of several canoes and I like where it is going. I feel the need to let it sit for a while and let me observe it to figure out what it still needs. To me there is still something not right or not complete with it so I will move on to something else for a while.

I'm itching to do another art quilt but this time I'd like to make one that I will frame like a painting. I am still in a canoe frame of mind so I went into my photo library of my canoe trips and found two photos that I liked. I put them together in an editing program on my computer to come up with a composition I liked. I took the canoe out of one photo and placed it in a setting of another photo.

I have used this particular canoe in other artworks. I have a sketch of just the canoe and I also used it in my 2017 Calendar.

For my art quilt, as is customary, I will do a watercolour painting of the scene. From the watercolour, I will use the composition and choose my fabric from the colours I used in the painting. I will also trace the painting and enlarge the tracing for my quilt pattern. I am hoping I will get this all done before I go on my quilting retreat at the end of April so I have something to work on while I am there.

This is the beginning of my watercolour for the art quilt. I sketched the composition onto watercolour paper with watercolour pencil and will now begin to paint it.