Time Out

     I took time out this week to run errands and take a field trip. I visited a recently opened art museum in Daytona Beach, Florida. You wouldn't expect such a location to have a huge fine art collection. But there it is. It is located at The Cici and Hyatt Brown Museum of Art.  And not only is it a marvelous and varied collection, but it is a wonderful building as well. If you have a membership to a museum already, check to see if this one is part of its reciprocal membership list. You may be able to use your membership to get in free.
     When you first enter, you see a huge mural that depicts a typical day of wildlife in Florida. Here are three photos of parts of mural.

The way the museum is organized is that they have a main gallery that has the paintings of the masters and then the other galleries are arranged by themes. Here is a view from the main gallery.

Wonderfully vaulted space

I will definitely revisit this museum many times especially since they have only a small sampling of their collection on display and will be rotating it. I'm linking this to Off The Wall Friday where you can find other art quilt blogs. Please make comments on their posts to let the artists know you stopped by. Thanks for visiting.

Is It Time For New Beginnings?

     Now that all deadlines have been met, rejection letters and acceptance letters received, sewing machine back in place, I'm ready to march into Spring with new growth. Before I show you my newest idea, here is a finished one that was a lot of fun. It was to honor the penguins of Argentina and my cat, Opus, who is always with me in my studio. I've named it My Pingüino (Penguin in Spanish).

My Pingüino

It's only 9x9. I found that small size very difficult to work with, but it was the size designated for a challenge. 

     Now onto the new things. Years ago, I discovered leaf skeletons in my forest and wanted to use them in my art somehow. I created several pieces like this one.

painted leaf

I painted the leaf skeleton with fabric paints, painted fabric to match, covered the leaf area with tulle, pieced, quilted it, and placed it under a mat and onto foam board. Then I thought I'd try to sell them on ETSY. Over the space of 5 years, I sold one. I sold a few others locally in gift shops. So decided to take them off the ETSY store awhile ago and I'm going to revamp the store completely. If, by chance, there was anything you saw in my Etsy store you were thinking about purchasing, contact me before I decide to cut them up. :)

     This week at our art meeting we had a "garage sale" and I picked up some nice sheer fabrics that coordinate with my leaves and had an idea. I took the mats and foam board off of them and dug up some other fabrics I had and laid out three of the leaves on top.

with sheers and other fabrics

I'm going to play with making a long scroll with three of these hanging down vertically with some of these fabrics around them. Better than having them sit in storage or throwing them away. All the colors of Spring and new leaves popping out have inspired me to play with nature's designs.

     I'm linking this to Off The Wall Friday where you can find other art quilt blogs. Please make comments on the artists' posts so that they know you stopped by. Thanks for visiting.

How Addictive Is Small Sketching?

     Is sketching this way in choosing a background format and keeping the same element in the foreground addictive? Well it turns out I look forward to it each day. I not only think of which compositional background I want to use, but I also try to think of a pun or fun title to use with it. This is probably the last post in which I'll share the sketches with you. I'll continue on with them in my weekly sketch group and modify them as I go and move on to other types of sketches in the future when I get tired of these. Here are the ones from this week. If you haven't been following my posts, you can see my previous post here if you want to see the other ones and the types of background formats. I think (again) that my watercolor techniques have improved. It really is true that you do have to get in there and practice.

strata format

                                                   (I had to do one with a rock cairn.)

grid format

bridge format

radiating lines format

So there it is. In my art quilts, I usually stick to the grid format. Now I have an idea of more backgrounds to work with and by doing these with the lamp, I've come up with a way to make quick designs.

     And now for some good news. My art quilt, Contemplation, was juried into the show Sacred Threads. 

I've wanted to be in that show for several years, but didn't have a piece that was appropriate. I'm very happy that Contemplation will be exhibited alongside works by artists I admire. The show is at Floris United Methodist Church in Herndon, Virginia from July 10 - 26. Here is a link about Sacred Threads. http://www.sacredthreadsquilts.com/  

I'm linking this to Off The Wall Friday where you can find other art quilt blogs. Please make comments on their posts so that the artists know you stopped by. Thanks for visiting.

What Is The Value Of Working In A Series?

     How long should I keep on working on my watercolor sketches of my oil lamp? I asked myself that this week. I was starting to miss sewing and there isn't time to do everything. I decided to do a few more sketches because they are small (about 4x6)  and quicker than pieces that I can sew. I want to improve my watercolor technique because I thought that would improve my painting technique on fabrics. Secondly, I want to free up and get more creative with ideas on ways to include the oil lamp in the sketches because that would help me come up with creative designs for my art quilts. And thirdly, I want more practice using the compositional background formats I learned in the class I took that I blogged about here. All of these couldn't but help improve the composition of my art quilts. That's the plan anyway. (But I do now have plans for a series of art quilts and plan to start sewing some small samples this week.) They have nothing to do with oil lamps, though.
     To keep on the creative side, I decided to put the lamp in places that a lamp wouldn't fit. And use some humor, too. Here are my sketches from last week. And here are my sketches for this week.

The S-Format

The Cruciform Format

The T-Format (sort of)

The last one was for Earth Day. So I think I'm discovering the value of working in a series for me is that I'm working more quickly, I'm coming up with ideas faster, I'm less afraid to try things out, my technique with watercolors is improving, and I'm developing a style with watercolors.  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.

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.

Do You Think About Your Backgrounds First?

     Do you plan out your background arrangements when you design an art piece? Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don't. I recently attended a class about design and the topic was about formatting the background first. Our teacher showed us that if we place our main object of attention onto a plain background the piece was a bit boring. But if we arranged a recognized formatted background first and then placed our main object on top of that, it was much more interesting. I went back and looked at some books on design I had at home and sure enough that topic was covered in those books, too. But our teacher, Carolyn Land,  did such a great job showing us how it was done and was much more convincing by showing us with her examples. She also showed us many more hints. I highly recommend you take a class from her.
     So I went home and did homework and practiced each type of format. I monoprinted papers in coordinated color sets and made one of each format.

one set

second set

third set

And here's an example of how to use them. Imagine if you wanted to make an art quilt of a basket on a mottled background. You could fuse or appliqué it and then quilt the background and it would look OK. But it would look much better if you first set up a background with one of those layouts.

basket added

     The background gives a place to anchor your object. Now realize, these are only paper cutouts. It would look much more attractive with fabric and stitching. But it gives you the general idea. So if it sparks an interest in you, perhaps take a look at some books on the topic of compositional formats or look some up on Pinterest. And practice some of your own. I'm linking this to Off The Wall Friday where you can find other art quilt blogs. Please make comments on the artists posts so that they know you stopped by. Thanks for visiting.

What Would You Do Without Your Sewing Machine For A Few Weeks?

     Would you go through withdrawal if you had to do without your sewing machine for a few weeks?  A part in my bobbin area broke off a few weeks ago but the machine could still be used if I was careful. There were several deadlines to meet and a workshop to attend so I didn't want to take it in to the shop right away. I kept on using it and luckily it kept on working just fine. Now the workshop is over and the deadlines are met so Tuesday I took it in. I knew they would probably have to order the part.  Plus it was time for its general cleaning and tuning. Usually it takes two weeks just for the general cleaning and tuning because it's a busy shop.  Here's a photo of the empty space left on my sewing table.

sad, empty space

     So I made plans on how to occupy my time for while my precious machine is gone. I decided to focus on sketching and painting for the next few weeks. I have a book called  "Drawing On The Right Side Of The Brain"  which I bought many years ago and learned to draw from it. I thought I would go through the part about portrait drawing again. Also, for Christmas this past year, my husband got me the book, "Art Escapes", and I thought I would do some of the fun things in that. Plus I have some nice views in my yard that I thought I might spend this time sketching.
     So after mentally preparing for being without my "friend" for an extended amount of time, the phone rang yesterday and the Bernina store told me my machine was ready for pick up! Hmmm. So I think since I don't have any deadlines and my drawing and painting skills could be improved, I'll follow through with my plans anyway. I wonder how long I'll actually go without sewing once my machine is back in its proper place. How would you use your creative energy if you couldn't sew for a few weeks?
     I'm linking this to Off The Wall Friday where you can find other art quilt blogs. Please make comments on their posts to let the artists know you stopped by. Thanks for visiting.