A Final Piece

I've posted a photo of this piece before, but today I added some

lines of stitching to the scene, and a frame.

It is my last piece for this weekend's show.

I'll be putting my cards together tomorrow, then on to cleaning

up all the messes I've created all over the house lately!

Being in an art/craft show is a good experience - it's nice

to put your work on display, talk about it to interested people

and hopefully sell a piece or two.

But it is also a tremendous amount of work and this will be my second show this Fall.

I'm looking forward to drawing, doodling, making faces with little stories

and generally, being creative at a more leisurely pace.

Thank you for stopping by!

Hope your week has gone well!

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!!!

Moving Along

I've been working on my latest landscape this morning, adding some layered, painted netting for foliage, and some shadows on the house. Since I really like this piece, I've been fearful of ruining it by adding the "wrong" elements. Finally I had to say to myself, "Get a grip and do what you want. It's YOUR artwork!!" We perfectionists can be pretty irrational at times! I have more I want to do to it, including some simple stitching, and I hope I'll have the finished result to share in a few days!

On a different note, I've been observing the hydrangea in front of our house

getting larger than ever before - nearly 5 feet across, with so many buds!!

The very first blue blossoms are appearing, which really makes me happy!

Poor Rosie sits inside the front screen door, longing to come out,

but we live in a busy corner, so she will have to be content being an "inside cat"!

I wish everyone who reads this a wonderful week!

Landscape with Handpainted Fabric

I finally finished this picture! I added stitching and a bit of shading with Prismacolor pencils, and also deepened the colors of the front piece of grass. I used some freeform machine embroidery and added a few beads. Also decided not to add trees - just go with the fluid flow of the different levels of ground. It was a fun exercise and I'm happy with the result.