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Archive for June, 2010

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Raindrops Keep Falling

Wednesday, June 16th, 2010

We Portlanders are consumed by our terrible weather. We are only half way through June and have broken the rainfall record. I think we have record cold temps, too. I am so tired of my winter layers of clothes and socks. Not to mention that I now have a scratchy throat and probably have caught a crappy cold. Oh woe is me!!

Anyway, for today’s fiber sketchbook, I grabbed a piece of fabric that was gray, brown and white and reminded me of how the day had looked — like the middle of winter. I thought about how to represent rain. I grabbed some gray Perle cotton and started stitching. I did some more controlled and even stitches, but felt happier with the more random stitching on the right. Rain is random, right?

Here is a tease of what is really making me happy.

I just love this organza that I painted and the interplay of the colors.

Today, I received a packet of postcards for the Beneath the Surface special exhibit which is premiering at IQF, Long Beach, in July, and then going on to IQF, Houston, in November. The postcard is really well done and eye-catching.

Posted in 12X12 challenge, Juried Shows, Sketchbook Project | 2 Comments »

Channelling Ellsworth Kelly

Tuesday, June 15th, 2010

For today’s fiber sketch, I took a challenge from Kathleen Loomis. Her blog is Art With a Needle. She does a quilt date once a month and invites readers to try something she has done.

Today, she featured the work of Ellsworth Kelly, whose work is very quilterly.  I was particularly taken with this piece.

Ellsworth Kelly — Study for “Cite”: Brushstrokes Cut into   Twenty Squares and Arranged by Chance, collage of ink on paper, 1951

I do not like to spend a lot of time on the fiber sketches. So, I quickly cut strips of black and white and then fused them together.

I cut them into into squares and “arranged them by chance”. The size of the sketchbook limited the size I could do, but it whet my appetite to try a larger piece using this technique.

On another note, the Quilt Art @ 15 entries were revealed today on the QA website. Click the link and look at all of the fun quilts made to celebrate the 15 years that QA has been in existance. Here is the piece that I made – Pearls of Wisdom.

It consists of 15 hands holding “pearls of wisdom” that are generously shared amongst the members, new and old.

Today, I had the preliminary work done for the new crown to cover the tooth that I broke last month. I had to go to the funky Japanese run dental lab and meet with a technician to select just the right shade to match my other teeth. There are loads of colors to choose from — who knew?

I also got some work done on the purple yellow challenge, which I can’t show you! And because you love to see him — here is a photo of Mr Cuteness in my studio today.



Posted in My creations, Quilting Organizations, Sketchbook Project | 2 Comments »

Blue Skies

Sunday, June 13th, 2010

…Blue skies  Smiling at me   Nothing but blue skies   Do I see

What a gorgeous week-end. The perfect culmination to my frenzied week of meetings and other social activities!!

I love to work with my fused scraps, cutting skinny bits that I can turn into a composition. I love grasses – color, shape, composition. My fiber sketch for today is titled grasses. Here are some of the scraps that I have been using.

It was good to go down to my pristine studio tonight and start on my yellow/purple themed Twelve by Twelve piece. Here is what I accomplished tonight. This will be the last photo until the reveal on July 1.

Today, we walked down to our neighborhood park for the annual milk carton races on the casting pond.

Scooter and Steve kept waiting for me to catch up because I was taking photos.

This boat won best Show Boat. It is the Dairy Air.

Scooter met lots of friendly pooches.

There were lots of free dairy products because the event was sponsored by Oregon Dairy Farmers. We enjoyed a root beer float.

Tonight the family came over for dinner on the deck. We had fresh tuna burgers with Asian slaw. It was delish.

I hope you had a great week-end, too.

Posted in 12X12 challenge, My neighborhood, Scooter, Sketchbook Project | 2 Comments »

Social Butterfly

Thursday, June 10th, 2010

I have been flitting here and there — attending meetings and hanging out with friends.

And when I am home, I have been finishing up the studio spring cleaning. The cleaning is pretty much done except for my office.

I didn’t want to get to off track with the Sketchbook so I went down to the studio tonight to come up with an idea. I was brain dead!! I just started cutting up some black fabric and decided to do a wonky grid with a punch of red. Not very elegant or creative, but it was fun.

I had a guild meeting last night. Our guest speaker was Jiseon Lee Iabara who is Fibers department head at Oregon College of Arts and Craft. She does amazing pieces using Korean Pojagi.

Today was STASH at Reva’s house. She prepared a fabulous lunch. It was Gale’s birthday and another quilter/fiber artist joined us. It was delightful.

After lunch, Mr C and I drove down to Dundee in the Oregon wine country to pick up our wine club shipment. It was rainy, but still a pretty drive.

We had missed picking up our wine for the last 3 times so we had a lot of good wine to bring home.

Tomorrow, I am off to lunch and an art date with Reva and Anita Kaplan who is in town visiting her daughter. Reva used to live at Sea Ranch in Mendocino County where Anita lives. If you are not familiar with Anita’s work, click on her name and check out her fantastic art quilts.

By Saturday, we are supposed to have sunny days and temps in the 80s. This morning the weather man said we better enjoy the rain while it lasts. Ha!! What a sense of humor.

Posted in Out and About in Portland, Quilting Friends, Sketchbook Project | 5 Comments »

No Rain = Happy Day

Tuesday, June 8th, 2010

We had no rain today! It was raining tonight when I left my meeting at Trinity, but I was so energized and productive all day long. I started the day with a phone call with the Interim Executive Director for SDA – mainly talking website issues.

I painted some more fabric and hung it out to dry before I took Scooter for his morning walk.  After lunch I worked on the studio once again. It is just about ready for cleaning the paint and dye splattered floor. I try to do a good cleaning of the floor about twice a year. I am a messy artist, and I do not want to muddle up my studio time worrying about paint on the floor!!

Tonight, I received delivery of a print that I fell in love with at the Artist’s Among Us show last month. It is titled Midwinter Moon Mystery and is by Dorothy Freudenberg who lives in Bend.

This is a description of how she works.

Dorothy is a photographer who has left the confines of traditional photography and embraced the new digital technologies, producing works that are in a sense, multi-media. By combining photography with the capabilities of a digital darkroom, working in programs that allow her to build multi-layered pieces, she transforms her factual photography renditions into expressions of internal emotional conditions, with brilliantly-colored, painterly qualities. Years of study in black and white photography have expanded into a new art form, whose tools leave room for a limitless range of possibilities, challenging her to continually engage in experimenting and expanding her expressive capabilities.

It won viewer’s choice at the show. I really love it.

I didn’t get to do a fiber sketch today – maybe not tomorrow. I have Guild meeting tomorrow night and I need to be there at 6 pm.

Posted in Art in our home, painting fabric | 4 Comments »

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