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Archive for the ‘My creations’ Category

On Creative Overload

Thursday, February 26th, 2015

greenpastures

This is a sneak peek at one of the pieces for my show. This will be titled Green Pastures, referencing Psalm 23. I had so much fun this morning, fusing and cutting into the fabric.

I am on my last week of the Photoshop Class. I have learned so much. So worth fitting it into my busy life.

I started a 5 week clay workshop at Trinity last night. It is just on Wednesday nights. He told us to make as many small objects as we could – he suggested food and body parts as well as pinch pots.

Here is some of what I did:

clayparts

claypears

It was very relaxing to play with clay.

I am on a deadline to finish this month’s homework for the EB Master Class.

I dedicated yesterday to getting it done. I have been so restricted with work space because the studio is maxed out with solo show stuff. I finally set up on the dining room table.

movementpaperpatterns

I had made freezer paper patterns for this last year. I sorted them out on the big drawing.

movementworkspace

I started with this mess and some photos of where I left off last year plus my sketch.

It took all day, but I got it assembled. I ironed it to my big teflon sheet and moved it back in to my sewing room.

 

movementfused

I almost had a disaster today. I brought batting and backing from the studio and moved the teflon sheet to the sofa while I cut the batting and backing and fused them. The teflon sheet slipped off the sofa and I had to do some finessing to get it rearranged on the backing and fused. I finished quilting it tonight, but have not photographed it yet. I will do that in the morning.

I have to get the multi-purpose room cleaned up in the morning. Lisa arrives at lunch time to start the house hunting in earnest. She will be out on Friday and again on Saturday. It would be so great if she could find something this week-end that they can move into at the end of March when they move here.

Phase 2 of An Illuminated Psalter

Monday, February 23rd, 2015

23psalmartcloth

I am starting phase 2 of the work for my solo show, An Illuminated Psalter. The description is this:

Gerrie Congdon will portray how the Psalms teach us to express our emotions and longings, articulate our anger and our compassion, and see our lives in the grand scheme of God’s creation. Her fiber art creations will use colors and forms that bring her favorite psalms to life.

I am doing the 23rd Psalm first – imagery is pretty easy to create and I hope it is not going to be hokey!! Here is my plan. For each of the colorways, the central piece will just be a length of surface designed art cloth with no stitching – 5.5 feet, finished.

Each piece in this collection will have some foiling as part of the surface. This large piece will have a foiled sun in the sky.

foilingpaper

foilinggluesun

The foiling glue is drying and I will add the foil tomorrow.

I also decided the green pastures needed some colorful flowers.

flowerdetail

Each art cloth hanging will have at least two smaller pieces mounted on wrapped gallery frames – 18 inches square. I will start them tomorrow. I am getting excited to work on these.

Last February, when I dropped out of the Master Class, I had gotten this far on the February assignment.

abstractmovementprogress

I put everything in a box and it has been sitting in my studio. So. I am attempting to put the pieces back together and finish it for this month’s homework.

Getting It Done

Thursday, January 29th, 2015

EBJanfinal

I am happy to say that despite my aches and pains this past week, I have made progress on many fronts. I finished my value assignment for the master class a couple of days early – woo hoo! I think it is a very successful piece with value doing a lot of the work and nice negative space in the dark areas.

I also finished my print for this month’s Printed Fabric Bee challenge. I will reveal that in a few days. I used the left over paint on a piece of silk and splattered it with purple.

funsilkpainting

The drawing class is over and we are on to reduction printing. It is really challenging to think ahead and do the carving in the order you need to get the colors and patterns in the order that you want. Her you can see my sketch and my initial carving. I am going to use the back side to make a rectangle of one base color.

reductioncarving

I found it very meditative to carve my block.

Fifteen yards of silk charmeuse and lots of Dynaflow paint arrived from Dharma Trading yesterday. I have spent time at the studio for a couple of days and finally have the fabric organized and put away. I am almost ready to set up for painting the silk. I am excited to get started.

On the pain front, I finally figured out the the knee pain is related to the trapped nerve in my butt for which I saw a physical therapist a while back. I stopped doing the exercises because I was no longer having pain. I have started doing them again and it is helping.

All in all, I am a happy camper for now.

Oops! I Forgot to Blog…

Sunday, January 25th, 2015

onefootfigure

It has been a busy week! I had a SAQA meeting on Wednesday and lots of SDA work. Here is an update on the drawing class. We had our last session this week and he showed us how to draw the whole body and show different postures. Drawing a skellie first can help you get the right angles on the body parts. For instance, the above drawing was taken from this skellie.

skellie

Did you know that the perfect proportioned body is 8 heads tall, but most of us are 7 – 7 1/2. The torso is two heads, the pelic area is one head and the legs are 4 heads. So you can take a piece of paper and divide it into 8 portions to draw your pefect human specimen. The photo’s perspective is off because the drawing was on the table.

8headfigure2

Another interesting fact is that an infant is 3 heads tall. Many paintings of babies have the head too small. As a child grows, the number of heads change. We also practiced other figure positions. This one is supposed to be standing on his right foot.

leaningfigure

Here is another figure that I did.

8headstall

I doubt that I will be doing a lot of figure drawing, but I so enjoyed this process.  It has made me look at figures in paintings with a whole new eye. Next week, we start reduction printing. I am going to assist the teacher. I hope I get to participate, too.

I was able to get to the studio one day and made a lot of progress getting the fabric stash under control. I also painted some silk samples. I think I am going to paint silk for my solo show instead of dyeing. I worry about the cool weather and getting the depth of color that I want. I used Jacquard’s Dynaflow paint on silk charmeuse and silk/cotton blend. I decided that I like the heavier weight charmeuse best. It is on the second fabric, below.

silkpainttest1

wilkpainttest2

So, today, I ordered 15 yards of silk charmeuse from Dharma and copious amounts of Dynaflow paint. I can’t wait until it gets here.

Thursday was Mr C’s 75th birthday. On Friday night we went out with Jack and Steph to a marvelous French restaurant in our neighborhood where we had a most excellent meal. Then we had birthday cheesecake back at The Congdo with M & M. It is always fun to catch up with these two and hear how well they are doing in school and life.

My new glasses came in early and I must say, they have really made a difference. So  happy to be done with the eye strain and headaches. Who knew?? LOL

Yesterday, Terry Grant and I drove south about an hour and so to see the Stitches in Bloom show at the Oregon Garden. We both had work in the show. It was an interesting show with art quilts and traditional quilts sharing the same crowded space. There were quite a few vendors selling quilt fabric and notions. We had a nice lunch at the resort restaurant and then listened to a lecture by Cynthia Corbin from the Seattle area. I so love her work. Click here for a look at her website, if you are not familiar with her work. She has great sense of humor, too. I am looking forward to her workshop with the guild in March.

Here is a blurry photo of my leaf quilt at the show.

blurryleafphoto

It was a beautiful day to drive through the bucolic Oregon countryside. We saw Mt. Hood showing itself in all different directions.

mtHoodjan15

My goal for tomorrow is to do some more work in the studio and quilt my January EB piece.

 

Master Class Update

Monday, January 19th, 2015

janmockuprev

I decided to do the one color value study of the leave photo. Here is the mockup from the sketch. I need to get it quilted and finished by the end of the month. It is 12 x 12 so I think that is doable.

I tried to work on this here at home in my multi-purpose room, but I have way too many things going on here and I work better at a higher table like I have at the studio. I have been avoiding the studio. It is such a mess, but I went there today and I got this done and I feel energized and ready to clean house, er studio, and get on with my creative life.

I pulled out these sort of icky yellow green pieces, but truth be told, I love working with colors like these.

valuefabrics

valuefabricsbw

The looked like a good enough value change to do what I wanted to do.

I started cutting leaves and laying out my piece.

valueleaves

valueleavesbw

Here is the mock up that I sent to EB.

janmockup

I felt the lightest value was to light and was not working in the composition. EB agreed. I was following the values in the sketch. I used some color pencil on the light yellow/green and used it in smaller pieces in the central area of the piece. That is what is up at the top of the page.

I spent the week-end doing SDA work and living on Aleve. I was in serious pain after working on the studio at Trinity! I did get my hair cut and the color freshened on Friday and also saw the eye Dr. I went in because I lost my red glasses in San Francisco and needed to get new ones. I am glad I went in as I had a big change in my prescription. I have been having headaches and irritated eyes of late. Here are the two new frames I selected.

red glass frames

blue glass frames

Can’t wait for them to come in next week.