I'm Getting Attached to My Monk

     At my art group ArtsEtc, we've decided to start each monthly meeting with a quick sketching exercise from a book called "Drawing Lab for Mixed-Media Artists: 52 Creative Exercises to Make Drawing Fun (Lab Series" by Carla Sonheim Amazon.com even though we are basically fiber artists. We only spend about 15 minutes doing it to get our creative juices going. Our sketching leader chooses the exercise and this last time the instruction was to quickly draw 30 cats. I knew I wouldn't have time for details, so I only drew the outline of the cat over and over; no eyes or whiskers or other details. I only had time to get 22 of them on my paper before time was called.
     Then the homework was to choose our favorite drawing we made and to put it on a 5 x 7 cardstock and develop it into a composition and bring it to the next meeting. Here's mine.

Guardian

I used a combination of watercolors, acrylics, Shiva paintstiks (I love those), and a black Sharpie fine point marker.

     The other homework was to bring a photo of a giraffe. Intriguing. In the meantime, I'm monoprinting and texture rubbing fabrics for a couple of quilts I'm preparing.

Moving In

Lucky Cat

Little by little I'm moving things into the studio. I put the dining room table that I just bought in first and put the storage units in that hold my fabrics. I put this little lucky cat in first, though. Opus, our 8 month-old, saw a squirrel outside the window and began to stalk it from on top of the window sill. Then he noticed Lucky Cat waving his arm and began to stalk it. He couldn't make up his mind which one had better potential and kept switching his attention from one to the other. It was very entertaining.

After Lucky Cat was moved in, I moved in this chair and pillow for a cat perch. (Have to make sure they are happy first.)
It came in handy already for them to watch the rooster that showed up in our yard yesterday. We can't find the owner and it doesn't seem to want to leave. I might have to go out and buy rooster food for it (whatever that is) and give it a name. Any suggestions?

Then we moved in the 8 ft table. I bought it to become my sewing table, but now that I've worked on it cutting and fusing for a few days, I think it would make a great cutting table. I'll buy something for under the legs to raise it about 6 inches taller. And I'll buy another dining room table for my sewing table.

 Everything is messy now because I don't have anything with shelves or drawers. After I buy the needed furniture, I'll paint it all and arrange the room into four areas.
1. Cutting Table
2. Sewing Table
3. Craft Table for painting, drilling, etc.
4. Reading chair with floor lamp and bookshelves for magazine collection and books.

Now back to my quilt. I need to pick up the pace to meet the deadline of April 30.

It's Starting to Look Like a Real Composition Now

Greetings,
Well, my prayer flag quilt is starting to look like it's coming together nicely now. Since I last posted photos, I've added some more Shiva Paintstiks in white and blue to blend the areas more. And I've machine quilted most of it. (I'll need to add quilting after the prayer flags are added). I quilted the top portion in horizontal wavy lines with beige thread to give the feeling of wind. I quilted the botton portion in circles with a light russet thread to give the feeling of rocks and cobblestone.

bottom part quilted

orb with the quilting

the entire piece quilted

I think this is the last time I'll show the whole quilt on-line. I will add the prayer flags and show you a few of those up close. Then I'll add the actual focal point and finish quilting and then finish the edges. The reason I won't show the whole quilt is that I want to enter it into some shows and I don't think the quilt should be unveiled until the show (if it gets accepted). If it's not accepted, then I'll put it on-line for all to see. I hope that you are enjoying watching the process of making an art quilt.

It was particularly difficult to do the machine quilting last night because my kitten kept jumping up on the table and darting underneath the quilt, burrowing under the machine table extension, and popping out on my lap. I had to set up a tent with an afghan for him to play in to keep him away. He loves watching the spool of thread vibrate when the machine is going as soon as he hears it, he stops what he is doing and comes by to entertain me. There is no way I can get angry, though. He's just too cute. 

So what do you think about the quilt so far? What do you think about the process?