Friday, April 17, 2015

How Long Can I Go Without Sewing?

     My sewing machine is back in its spot, but can I continue with my short term goal of practicing sketching and painting? Last post I wrote and showed some formats of how to set up backgrounds to anchor compositions. This seemed to be particularly geared well to art quilts in laying out fabrics. I thought I would try it out with a sketching/painting series about an oil lamp I have. This would help with my drawing and painting skills, my composition skills, and my creativity. Here's the oil lamp that I bought in a small town in Italy one summer.
small lamp about 5 inches across

     I decided it had a lot of mystery to it and I would play that up and have fun with it and morph the lamp in each of the iterations. I started with a simple pencil sketch.
L shaped background
     For the next one, I used watercolors.
Triangular background (sort of)
     Then, I went to the hairdresser and I took off my eyeglasses. As I was having my hair cut and seeing everything in a blur, I noticed a yellow round thing on his tabletop that was surrounded by dark blue and I was thinking it reminded me of a moon in a dark night sky. That sparked the next idea. (When I put my glasses back on I saw that the yellow thing was actually a metal award he won.)
Circular background

     I'm having fun with this series, but I need to get a handle on how to use watercolors. I'll take a look at some YouTube videos this week and keep going with the series. But I may start some sewing, too (I do miss the touch of fabric.) I'm linking this to Off The Wall Friday Where you can find other art quilt blogs. Please make comments on the artists' posts to let them know you stopped by. Thanks for visiting.

11 comments:

  1. What a wonderful find in that lamp! Very cool and each sketch/ painting has it's own charm. You need to sew something though, even if it's a potholder - you need to feel that fabric and listen to the purr of your well liked machine :-)

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    1. I do like that lamp very much. I'll probably start to sew something small this week, but continue with the lamp series, too.

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  2. Second attempt at a comment! First one timed out! Love the shape of that wee lamp -- indeed a treasure. I'm sure you'll have fun translating it to fabric.

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    1. It does have great curves. I made a quilt from it years ago. I'm not sure another one is in my future, though. But it is useful as a subject for improving designing skills.

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  3. ack, did you read my latest post about the need to sew?? Painting is great, and I quite like the line and color you're getting, but....I gotta sew! LeeAnna at not afraid of color

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    1. I did read your post about the need to sew. My machine is set up and ready to go. I do need to stitch soon.

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    2. I did read your post about the need to sew. My machine is set up and ready to go. I do need to stitch soon.

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  4. What great variations, Regina! Hope as you start sewing that you keep sketching!

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    1. Thanks, Judy. I do intend to keep sketching. I think it will improve my art quilt designs, too.

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  5. I really like the third one with the moon behind. It would make a great quilt.

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    1. I could see it making a nice hand sewn, hand quilted piece. A nice story quilt. It would be a good thing to have in a bag to take traveling to work on when I don't have a machine handy.

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