Art Every Day Month and Happy November!

I love November. The weather is getting cooler, the leaves are falling, and the holidays are right around the corner. My favorite thing is when it rains and tree trunks look black, contrasting with the beautiful colored leaves. I once did this fabric picture inspired by Autumn rain.

And today begins Art Every Day Month, a traditional challenge hosted by Leah Piken Kolidas.

You can get information about it by clicking the AEDM button on the right.

I'm starting the month off with this fiber weaving, which incorporates yarn, fabric and ribbon. I'm going to work on it a bit more, but this is a start. My theme for AEDM is to do whatever strikes my fancy. I've participated 6 times in this challenge and have always enjoyed it. I'm planning to post once or twice a week, hopefully with creative work I've been working on. It feels good this year not to have any shows or sales to plan for during the holidays, so I have time to play!

I hope that you are enjoying your week. Thanks for visiting and please stop by again!

Cacti and Stitches

Hello Friends,

My husband and I went to an Antiques Marketplace in New Hampshire recently, and I came home with this sweet dish garden of succulents. The elderly couple who sold it to us seemed really delighted with the sale, which made it seem all the sweeter.

Honestly,  I've been feeling a bit down in the dumps lately. I try to stay "up",  realizing that others have far worse problems than I have, but the constant negativity in politics, plus the strain of dealing with a family member with dementia has been taking its toll on me. Also, I've been doing a lot of thinking about my artwork, as I skip around from one medium to another, trying different things. I'm often influenced by what I see on Pinterest or Instagram and get too engrossed in the work of other creatives, admiring and praising their work, while being unsure about my own. I'd like to find one medium I love (I'm pretty sure it's fabric!) and stick with it.

What keep me going are my classes with Amy, and my Thursday morning stitch group - creative women working and laughing together. A few friends and I meet at Amy's house on Tuesday nights, taking a continuous stream of classes. There are usually little dogs under our feet, cats making rare appearances, and a parrot or two talking (or singing) in the background. In our last class, Amy made a digital copy on fabric of a photo chosen by each of us. I chose a print of Matisse's "Goldfish Bowl". I stitched the goldfish with some slightly metallic thread, which gave them a little shimmer. I'm still working on the leaves and will post the finished piece when it's done. Our next class, which begins this week, is an introduction to weaving.

And finally, that Thursday morning stitch group I mentioned has moved from our friend Susie's dining room, to a cottage she had built in her back yard. She named it "Freedom Cottage", filled it with a large table and chairs, sewing and ironing tables and two comfy armchairs. I made her this fabric picture as a "cottage warming" gift. Such a charming place for our meetings!

We're moving into cooler weather, although warmer days keep popping up. Soon enough the snow will come, so I'm planning to get out and enjoy these fall days as much as possible!

Here's wishing you a wonderful week to come!

Work in Progress

Before the holidays I cut out a couple of windows from white fabric backed with fusible web, then added some landscape fabric in the background. Then they went into a drawer and were forgotten.

I just came across one of them and decided to put a woman and her cat in front of the window. I made a little sketch and tried it out.

I got my inspiration from this pretty vintage photo I found on the internet, which I modernized.

Then I wondered whether the figure in my first sketch was a bit small, so I enlarged it. Better, I think.

I think there needs to be a table with a lamp or flowers in front of the widow. We'll see!

 Fun to play!

This is how I do many of my appliqué pictures. Now to transfer the elements to fabric, cut out the small pieces, put them all back together and sew.  I'll share it when it's done.

Thanks for visiting.

Hope you're having a very good week!

Friday Faces - "Suzie"

Here's a hand embroidered piece I finished today.

I hope to add a new character with a little story every Friday.

Let's see how it goes!

Susie

She was a child of the 1940's.

Her mother was an immigrant  

who impressed upon her daughter the importance of education.

She heard the words "you are intelligent, strong and capable"

throughout her childhood, and she grew up believing them.

When she was an adult, with a successful career,

she was thankful that her mother's influence had shaped her life,

and she honored her memory by doing the same

for her own daughter.

Here's wishing you

a wonderful weekend!

AEDM Day 12

I've been taking a class in quilted collage for the last three weeks

and I'm just now finishing up this fabric landscape with some hand embroidery.

I'm planning to add some color in the foreground and some birds in the sky.

I love birds and have decided to add them to my work on a regular basis.

This tree in our backyard absolutely touches my soul at this time of year,

especially late in the day when the setting sun sets it aglow.

Our entire porch fills with golden color

and I feel like it's such a gift.

I hope that, if you're stopping by,

you are having a wonderful weekend!

AEDM Day 10

The thing I'm enjoying most about Art Every Day Month this year

is the fact that I've decided to use the month to finish up old projects

as well as to create some new ones.

This is a piece that has been hanging around my studio, unfinished,

for quite a while. 

I added embroidered details and finished it up today - a great feeling!

I was also so happy to see my Christmas cacti blooming today.

They always remind me of my mom!

Hope you are having a good week -

Thanks for visiting!

AEDM Day 2

For today, a small snipped and fused fabric landscape. I will use this for a card design.

Thanks for stopping by -

Hope you're enjoying a very good day!

In Creative Mode

I feel like I've been an absentee blogger lately. My head is full of concerns for a family member and preparations for a trip which is coming up soon. On top of that, our arts collaborative is having a show next week, so I am in full creative mode!
This is how I get ready for something like this - I have a large trifold piece of foam board that I tape to the front of our dining room hutch, out of the way of nosy cats. I then lay out possible landscapes, using all of the hand painted and dyed, as well as commercial fabrics that I have in my stash. I had actually spent some time last week painting fabrics with acrylic paint thinned with fabric medium, as well as painting lace with this mixture.

 On the piece below, I used acrylic paint on Warm and Natural batting for the textured pink and purple flower fields - just trying out all sorts of things.

The piece below has a beautiful sky, fabric I purchased somewhere along the line. I think I overpainted the purple on a piece of green commercial fabric for the mid ground and the foreground is felted wool. I'm auditioning some gauze which I may use for flowers in the front.

Today I'm cutting out some little houses to plant in these landscapes to, hopefully, make them more interesting. Then stitching and matting and I'm done! I'll share the final results.

Thank you so much for stopping by. I know it's hard to follow a blog with big gaps between the posts, and I appreciate your  visit! I hope to blog more frequently in the future.

Hope everyone had a great Easter holiday!!

Smiles, 

Judy

New Work

Is anyone finding, as I am, that November is slipping by very quickly? Where do the days go? I'm doing some new work, but here are a few more photos of the pieces I completed recently for an artisan show.

My photos are not great - sorry! This picture is mounted on white linen and 

is made with fabric, hand embroidery, beading, trims and machine stitching.

This little tree sold quickly. I used similar materials on it, 

with the addition of painted green lace in the foreground.

This piece has a lot of machine stitching and hand painted fabric for the sky.

It was framed with a black frame and also sold.

I love purple and this is my favorite piece from this group.

Terrible photo! I must make a little photo booth - I've seen some on Pinterset!

I'm working out a simpler method of mounting pictures and I'll share it with

you soon. Meanwhile, here's a photo of me at that last show. You can see here that 

the linen borders were very crisp, and outlined with black chenille yarn.

Hope you're enjoying your weekend and not too stressed out preparing for

Thanksgiving next week. We are keeping ours simple this year!

A friend of mine passed away this year - very suddenly - 

and I always loved the way he ended his Facebook posts. In memory of 

Joe Donovan, a very sweet guy, I'm going to end my blog posts the same way.

Have a good week.

Smiles...

     Judy

Landscapes in Process

Today was a full day of designing, preparing and sewing landscapes.

 I feel like I have a handle on the pieces I'll be offering

 in the local show on November 1.

I have many of the pieces pinned up on some foam core on the mantle

 in our living room. I'm preparing white linen borders for all of them. 

Hopefully my system will work and I can get them mounted

 assembly line style. And, of course, I need to add more details

(such as leaves) to some of the pictures. 

Time to quit for the day, make dinner and rest my eyes!

Hope you've had a very good day!

Little Trees

First of all, many thanks to everyone for your good wishes after my recent fall.

Bruises are healing and I'm feeling a bit better every day.

Today I felt like I really needed to stay put, so I set about cutting some

little trees for my landscapes. I think I could describe my style in making fabric

art as a discovery expedition. By this I mean that I look at variegated fabric, especially

batiks, and find the areas that 'speak to me'. No, I'm not a fabric psychic, but I do look

 for passages in the design that remind me of nature and elements I want to depict.

When I cut out trees and other things, the fabric has already been backed 

with Wonder Under, which makes for a nice crisp cut.

These pieces are just tossed on a background of hand painted sky fabric.

More cut-outs...

and here is a hand embroidered tree which I tried recently.

This technique should work well with soft grounds like wool felting.

Finally, I feel like I'm making progress on my landscape-making journey!!

Hope you're having a good week!

Feeling Creative

I always say there's nothing like a deadline to stir up creativity, and I'm scheduled to participate in  two shows this Fall, which is right around the corner! If you talked to me yesterday, you would have heard how anxious I was about this, but I feel much better today, having broken through the creative block I had been dealing with.

This morning, I spread out my materials - my hand painted fabrics, roving, etc. - and propped up a piece of foam board with the beginnings of some landscapes pinned to it.

I worked on the two top landscapes simultaneously, concentrating first on the lower one. I do love purple and green together, so this one had me excited. I audition many fabrics as I go along and lightly tack the pieces to some white flannel, which I use as the base for my landscapes. So, I started with this...

and proceeded to this point...

Here's a higher contrast photo, where you can see that I draped the dark green sheer fabric in the foreground and ironed it down, but not entirely flat. I'm happy with this technique which I had been wanting to try. I need to mull over this now and decide where to add details with roving, threads or beads. And I need to decide where and whether to add trees, so I'll just sit with it for a few days.

The second landscape started with this orange/pink fabric I had painted some time ago. I really just wanted to experiment with it, but it seemed to come together pretty quickly (meaning, in about two hours with auditioning fabrics, etc) and I went out on a limb and added some bits of wool roving and hand dyed cheesecloth for texture, then finally, a setting sun. Or is it dawn? That will be up to the viewer!

I'm happy to have started this journey, which will be going on until November.

Thanks for reading, and hope you're having a lovely week!

Now to clean up my mess for the day!!!

A Completed Project

I'm finally able to post a photo of this appliquéd picture

which I finished recently for someone who is very dear to me.

It is a project I have worked on for many years, due both to its complexity

and to my own procrastination. I'm so happy to have completed it and sent it to its owner.

I do very few house/building portraits these days, but this one has

a special meaning for its owner, and I was happy be able to do it.

Hope you're having a wonderful weekend!

AEDM Day 5 - Tree Silhouette

Last night I worked on this silhouette of trees I had started a few weeks ago.

I had hand painted the sky and sewn down the trunks and branches previously,

then it needed "leaves" which I cut out randomly. I want to make the edges less "tight"

so I'll cut out some individual leaves for the edges. All of this is fused to the background.

I'll also be adding a foreground. The white is the cotton flannel I use as a base.

And, as I promised, here are more photos from the International Quilt Festival 

in Houston, from which I just returned.

The Grand Prize winner:

and another winner:

and another favorite of mine:

More tomorrow!

Hope you're having a wonderful day!

An Art-Filled Weekend!

Last Saturday was a beautiful, sunny, Fall day - perfect for two art events in our town.

Both took place on the same street, so the flow of traffic benefitted both!

                         

Create Artisan Studio!

                               

I had a table at the "Artisan Affair" show, which had painting, ceramics, pottery and jewelry!

It was held in the Press Room of our local paper, The Daily Item,

with newspaper presses and machinery in the background. Very funky!

I had worked hard to create some new work, and mixed with older work.

it made a decent display.

                              

                              

These are some newer landscapes...

                       

It was worth the effort, because I sold 5 pieces of work, which came as quite a surprise!

(Although it was hard to let go of some pieces that I was particularly fond of!)

This is the lady who had the table next to mine - gorgeous pottery!

I bought the red bowl on the right side of the table!

Across the street and further down the street, our Arts Collaborative had two gallery displays 

and all kinds of entertainment!

A demonstration by my friend Andrea on using a Gelli Plate for 

fabric and paper printing! I want to try this!

And in the evening, a reception for the artists and some beautiful

music from a very talented singer, Molly Mae!

                                         

It was a fantastic weekend, and I'm so glad to have been part of such 

exciting efforts to promote the arts!

Hope you're having a

terrific weekend!