August

You haven't seen much of me lately, I know.

I have been...

eating New England fried clams at

Woodman's in Essex, MA,

while having a lovely visit from our daughter.

We walked by the lake,

saw some interesting trees,

with amazing roots,

and beautiful birches.

Had such a great visit. Sorry to see it end.

Then we celebrated our 36th wedding anniversary

at Longfellow's Wayside Inn,

saw the beautiful chapel next door where we exchanged vows,

and walked through the lovely gardens.

Life has been busy, and now we are about to go off on vacation.

I'll tell you all about it when we get back!!

Hope you're having a great August!

Painting Fabric

Yesterday a thunderstorm broke the heatwave we've been experiencing for the past week, and today was breezy enough to spend some time painting fabric on the porch. I want to work on landscapes for a while, so I prewashed some textured cotton fabrics from my stash and went at them with my Setacolor fabric paints. I painted a few layers on this one, using brushes and a sea sponge for stippling.

I love the textural fringed edges!

I took a few minutes to use leftover paint for some leaves...

                                     

                                                                  and a potential rose!

These will be backed with fusible interfacing, trimmed and appliquéd. As always, painting was a lot of fun and I hope to get to those landscapes soon!

Hope you've had a great weekend!

Gone, but, I hope, Not Forgotten!

I've been a bit of an absentee blogger lately, more because of a lack of creativity on my part than lack of interest in blogging. We are going through yet another heat wave right now, and, even though I have an air conditioned home, the heat somehow seeps into my mind and makes me feel lazy and unproductive.

I did enter into the spirit of excitement last week as an Arts Collaborative friend, AnnMarie Gallivan, opened her artisan studio called CREATE. She'll be offering classes in all sorts of arty things, and I made her a flag to celebrate her opening. It has sparkly embellishments which don't show up in this photo, and invaded my ribbon stash for the fringe.

I've also pulled out this appliqué picture of my house, which I had started years ago. I've been stitching in the details, but plan to embellish it quite a bit with hand and machine embroidery. I also have several stitched drawings in process, but have been slow to finish them up. As I said earlier, lazy!!!

I hope to get back on track soon. Sorry I have not been visiting you, my  blogger friends, but I'll be by soon!

Hope your summer is going well!

Sketching with Stitches

Today I was determined to get one of my sketches into a stitched form. I tend to hold on to my ideas and not execute them, for fear of doing a bad job and being disappointed in the results.

Enough of that! My new approach is to make mistakes and learn from them and, besides, how can you make a mistake in art anyway?

I jumped right in, making a sketch directly on to some linen fabric backed with white flannel, using a Pilot 'Frixion' pen. This pen erases with friction or heat, so as soon as you apply an iron to it, it disappears! Great for embroidery! How many times have I used a purple or blue "disappearing ink" pen, only to have the marks show up again after removing them. With this pen, the marks could reappear if the piece is left in extreme cold, but, no problem - I usually don't put my embroidery in the freezer!

I machine stitched with regular black thread over the lines of the sketch, at times changing things as I went along.

Here is the back of the piece with threads pulled to the back. I had fused white flannel to the back to hide threads and make the fabric more stable. I've been doing this for a while and find that it works well.

Here we are with all threads pulled to the back, pen lines removed by ironing, and a few extra hand stitches here and there to finish it off.

I'm beginning a series of stitched sketches of women. I usually sketch from imagination, or may use a real person or magazine photo for inspiration, but I try not to directly copy any image. This one was totally free form. I love drawing people and am working on sharpening my skills. I love the irregularities of the human face. Most people have one eye larger than or higher than the other, and no one's face is absolutely symmetrical. I also like strong features. And, I must admit, I'm strongly influenced by the line drawings of Henri Matisse. They are so fluid and effortless - really gorgeous!

Well, thanks for visiting and

I hope you're having a very good day!

Drawing at the Library

Today was a very hot day - high 90's - and my house was noisy with workmen and plasterers. After a while, I felt like I needed to escape, so I took my sketch pad and headed to the library. It was cool and quiet there, and I tucked myself into a study carrel with my Pigma pens and began to draw. I felt myself going into a state of total absorption, totally unaware of what was going on around me, and I drew for nearly two hours.

I'm working on some drawings to use for line embroidery, and I feel like I got off to a good start today. It was such a good feeling to work without distraction. I'll definitely be going back.

Hope you've had a creative day, too!

Happy Summer!

I'm a bit late in wishing you a happy summer!

Our house is looking like a construction zone right now (which it is!), as our second bathroom is being renovated. 

the driveway

the garage

the demolished bathroom

plastic walls to cut down on dust

Rosie giving herself a bath on the porch table...

a thorough job!

I'm tucked away in the dining room with my sewing machine, content to be out of the way. The kitties are out on the porch, out of harm's way, basking in the sun.

I'm hoping to have some new work to share soon!

Hope you're having a wonderful Day!

Busy Times!

These days I hardly know what I'm doing- 

Busy times, but time filled with good things.

My dear sisters-in-law came from California 

and Wisconsin for a family visit...

We all traveled up to New Hampshire for our nephews' graduations...

 

Back home, we visited the Wenham Tea House and had a nice lunch.

Our downstairs bathroom renovation was completed...



And now onto renovations on our upstairs bathroom and kitchen!
Demolition begins Saturday!!

Where is creativity in the midst of so much activity?
I'm searching for it, but feeling distinctly uninspired!!

While my "sisters" were here, we spent time around the dining
room table cutting up magazines and making collages.

These were mine.

It's a fun activity and can actually be meditative in a way.

I wish I could focus on some artwork. I'm getting that scary feeling that I'll never again make 

another worthwhile thing! Say it isn't so!!

I have committed to doing a show/sale in October, so I can concentrate on that.

I need to set up a work area where there are no workmen and where it will be cool.

So...all good things, and I'm grateful for that.

Hope your June has been going well!