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I have so many projects going on that I can’t possibly get bored! I am making a bit of progress of filling in the movement piece for my class with Elizabeth Barton. It is tedious, but I think I will like the end result. Here is my workspace:
I have a teflon sheet over the pattern that I printed and my sketch nearby so that I can work on the values.
I am also quilting Paige’s quilt. We are going to CA in mid-March for her birthday and it needs to be finished. I am doing tedious straight line quilting on the diagonal through the squares.
I have been plagued with aches and pains. First, I have had a flare up of carpal tunnel in my tight hand. I tend to cramp my hand at night when I am stressed so I have found that if I wear a wrist stabilizer to bed, it really helps. I also have developed a cantankerous lower back pain. I am icing it, doing stretches and bought some new walking shoes.
On another note, we have decided that a condo or townhouse to purchase may not become available any time soon, so we are renting a very small (718 sq. ft.) apartment in downtown, near the art museum ane the theater where we attend the symphony and close to the light rail and the street car. We move in April 7th and will have a moving sale soon after that.
Only four more posts until my 2000th. Stay tuned for some nice giveaways in celebration!
I was supposed to turn in my blocked out movement piece for the master class today. This is as far as I got. I have had a really bad sinus headache for 3 days. I had a SAQA meeting yesterday morning. Today, we had to go to the title company and sign all the papers to sell our house. Then, we went to our realtor’s office to discuss our options since there is nothing on the market for us right now. Tomorrow, we are going to look at a potential rental that we can rent for as little as 2 months. We have to be out of here mid-April.
Here is how I attacked this layout. I printed a rasterized version on 15 sheets of paper and taped them together. Then I cut freezer paper patterns for all of the black pieces.
I fused all my fabrics while watching figure skating on tv. You can see Paige’s quilt waiting for me to return to the quilting!
I laid a large teflon sheet over the pattern and ironed the black pieces in place. I am now adding the color pieces. Here is my palette.
I checked the values because this is someting Elizabeth Barton drums into the heads of her students.
Unfortunately, I did not get as far along as I had hoped.
The highlight of my week was attending a screening of Tim’s Vermeer. The Tim in this documentary is the husband of my good friend and co-curator of the Dinner at Eight exhibits at IQF, Leslie Tucker Jenison. He is an extraordinarily talented engineer. He read a book about Vermeer and the speculation of how he painted the photograph like images. He became obsessed (so to speak) with this and set out to duplicate the process. It was amazing to see how a non- artist, untrained oil painter ultimately painted a replica of a Vermeer painting. I highly recommend this movie. It was wonderful.
After a few glitches, I finally have Paige’s quilt ready for sandwiching and quilting. Two more to go and I wonder if I can fit them in to my busy schedule. I know I am going to get slammed with moving household stuff at some time in the near future, whether we find a new place or end up renting for a while. I am scheduled to give a talk at the Oregon SAQA conference on my creative process or something like that. I know there are many in the group who would be as qualified as me to do this and so I am feeling a bit intimidated.
I am also taking the year long online Master Class with Elizabeth Barton. I skipped the first month for a couple of reasons. I was pretty busy with house stuff, and it was on value which I have done with her in another online class and in a workshop here in Portland.
This month’s assignment is to show movement in your work. Sketches were due on the 10th and we are to have it done in the cloth (no stitches) by the 20th. Here are my sketches — a difficult task for me, as I like to work in my head and then just start cutting and designing with fabric.
This one is flames. She suggested that the darker values should be in the front it it is flames, but it could be a plant. I tried inverting the values. I like that version better, I think.
Next was forest stream. I like this a lot because I do like to do simplified tree landscapes.
And this is the one she liked best and I love it too. I want to make it really large so getting it done by the 20th could be problematic. I would like to do it in silk with lots of black, setting off the colors.
So that is what we are up to. Now, I must get myself together to go out to a Valentine thing at Trinity with Mr. C. I haven’t posted a photo of our lovable Scooter so here he is to wish you a happy heart day!
