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Archive for the ‘12X12 challenge’ Category

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Look! Our Book!

Monday, February 14th, 2011

I was about to give up that the UPS guy would bring my author copies today. About 5:10 pm, Scooter started barking. He hears much better than Mr C and I. Mr C went out the front door and came back in with my box of 5 author copies. Sorry for the weird photo. It was taken with my Macbook Photobooth cam.

The book is really gorgeous — just chock full of beautiful photos of our quilts and our own personal stories. If you want an autographed copy from me, I will be setting up a buy now button as soon as I have some time and know how.

The Lark blog is doing Twelve Days of Twelves. I was the featured artist today. Be sure to follow along. They may have a give away of our book at the end.

At breakfast, I found this lovely plant in a pot that Mr C knew I would love. He was right!!

I have my sage/blue/brown piece done except for sewing down the facings. Here is a sneak peek of the work in progress.

Today, I started a mini-Photoshop Elements class. I am totally self taught in Photoshop and Illustrator, meaning, I don’t know much, at all!!

Here is my first project — a cropped photo with text — color matched to the stem of the daisy!

I have to tell you that listening to Stephanie talk about her photography job in Savannah was such a thrill for me. She had fun, learned a lot and was very successful. Now, they wait for the client to make some decisions. Soon, I can tell you the name of the client.

Lisa says she can die now because she was mentioned in the NY Times magazine yesterday. Click here to read about her. My kids continue to amaze me.

I haven’t shown you a photo of the lovable, Scooter, lately. Here he is, sacked out in the tv room. He lies right at my feet. Sometimes, I forget he is there and trip over him. Such a sweetie.

Posted in 12X12 challenge, Holidays, My Brilliant Daughters, Scooter, workshop | 10 Comments »

Art Crush February

Friday, February 11th, 2011

I think it was June Underwood who introduced me to the art of Helen Frankenthaler. She is a major contributor to the history of postwar American painting. Having exhibited her work in six decades she has spanned several generations of abstract painters while continuing to produce vital and ever-changing new work. I love the bold colors that she incorporates in her paintings. I was reminded of her work when I saw a listing for an exhibition of her work in the New York Times, today. The exhibit is titled, East and Beyond and is at Knoedler & Company.

She is described as the doyenne of color field painting.  Color Field is about the tension created by overlapping and interacting areas of flat color. These areas of color can be amorphous or clearly geometric. This tension is the “action” or the content. It’s more subtle and cerebral than Action Painting. (think Jackson Pollack)

Here is a photo from the exhibit:

These photos are Brother Angel on the left and Tattoo. The Times article said the following about these paintings:

Two of the most striking paintings achieve a supreme balance between East and West, and less and more. These are the exquisitely Minimalist “Brother Angel” and “Tattoo,” both from 1983, in which wavering monochrome fields of cream and pale red are inflected with little dabs and scraps of color that seem to be on the verge of sinking from view, like flower petals on a watery surface. Daringly Whistlerian and indisputably modernist, they whet the appetite for a fuller account of Ms. Frankenthaler’s long, resolutely focused career.

I hope you enjoyed seeing some of her work and hearing a bit about Helen Frankenthaler. She was born in 1928 and still is alive and painting.

I had a good time working on my landscape for the sage/blue/brown challenge. I made a lot of progress today. I think I can finish it tomorrow and move on to my next exciting work which is top secret. I will not be able to reveal much.

If you like hearing about my daughter, Lisa, there is a great article about her scheduled for the San Francisco Chronicle Style Maker section,  this week-end.

We are all excited to have Steph come home from her photography adventure in Savannah, GA, tomorrow.  So proud of my brilliant daughters.  Hope you will have a great week-end.


Posted in 12X12 challenge, Art Cloth, My Brilliant Daughters | 4 Comments »

A Clean Slate

Thursday, February 10th, 2011

I love my print table cloth. I finally got everything put away from my print table and my ironing/design table today. I washed the coverings. As I was putting this back on the print table, it made me smile. I had to take a photo.

I have been creatively frozen, and I know it was because of the mess in  my studio. I went down early this morning and went to work. It did not take that long once I got going. While I was cleaning, I was also grabbing fabrics for the sage/blue/brown colorplay challenge. I thought I would need to go shopping for some fabric. Instead, I carefully went through my stash.

I added these to my pile of fabrics.

These colors definitely say landscape to me so that is my plan. Tonight, I mocked up a possible scene. I think it is going to work.

And, yes, that messy studio was holding me back. I wish I could be more organized as I work, but then, I wouldn’t be me.

Posted in 12X12 challenge, Inspiration, My creations | 3 Comments »

Oh, Eau Finished

Monday, February 7th, 2011

It is hanging a little wonky, but, I am happy to say that I finished this piece. It needed to be 28 inches in length and, whew, it came out perfectly.

Here is a detail:

It will be fun to see it hanging with all of the other entries from SDA members.

I have a couple of things that I need to get done as soon as possible. One, is the next Twelve X Twelve colorplay. Here are the colors that Deborah selected.

Tonight, I went on a search in my stash for these colors. This is the best I could do:

The blues are pretty good, the browns are too warm and the green is not sage enough. I have lots of greens, but you know what greens they are, right — they don’t fit in this palette. What to do? Guess I will go shopping. I have no desire to spend time trying to dye or paint these colors.

I do think I have the start of a nice landscape!

I have a pile of 32 quilts in my living room. Tomorrow, we are going to jury our new High Fiber Diet show for Trinity, titled Back To Nature. Tomorrow night, M & M are coming to spend the night. Jack has an early morning meeting so I will feed them and get them ready for school. They have a late start day so he will pick them up and take them to school so that I can get to my pilates class. I hope Steph is having a good time in Savannah.

Posted in 12X12 challenge, M & M, My creations, Surface Design Association | 8 Comments »

The Birthday Girl

Saturday, January 15th, 2011

My daughter, Lisa, and her partner, Clay, are here for a long week-end to celebrate her birthday. They are both vegans so her local vegan friend invited us to her home for dinner. She made fried vegan chicken (an oxymoron, you say?), mashed potatoes, mac and cheese and the most divine mushroom gravy. Steph brought cole slaw and collard greens. I contributed the vegan birthday cake and wine. I bought the cake at a local bakery — Irish Oatmeal cake — and it was delish. The whole meal was fantastic.

The photos were taken in a dark room with my new iPhone. Not too bad!

I rephotographed my Twelve X Twelve quilts. The color is more true, now.

The last one is the one which will be the official Twelve X Twelve piece.

I am really getting the urge to get in my studio and do some playing and experimenting. I am postponing my weekly challenge for one more week unless I get to it tomorrow. The girls are here until Monday morning. I have to get up early that day for some training on Drupel for the new SDA website. Drupel is a free and open source content management system for the web. Then, I have a field of vision test at 9:10.  So the week is starting off on a busy note.

It has been a week since the violation of our home. It has been a long week. I think I am beginning to feel as if I am getting my life back on track. There have been so many little things to take care of, not to mention the emotional strain of something like this. I just want to say a big thank you for all of your kind comments. It is very appreciated.

Posted in 12X12 challenge, Cooking and Recipes, Family | 5 Comments »

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