Art Every Day Month is Back!

Well, I'm doing it again - jumping into Leah Piken Kolidas' Art Every Day Month November challenge. I've done it a few times before and I wonder, what is it that  motivates me to do this at such a busy time of year. I don't know, there's an excitement to it and it gets me moving creatively. I can promise you, I will skip days, but let's see how I do!

My first piece is something I finished up yesterday - 

a stitched and painted narrative portrait of a fierce lady...

Angela
"Strong willed, stubborn, never takes no for an answer,
always generous to a fault, quick to recognize an injustice."

Thanks for visiting - hope you have a great day!

After the Fair

The artisan fair was wonderful! It was held in the press room of our town's local paper, which provided an interesting backdrop to the pottery, jewelry, woodcrafts and other handmade items for sale. I was situated right beside the table of the Popover Lady, who usually sells her baked goods at our farmers' market. Lovely aroma, and of course I bought a few. I did well with sales, met many interesting people,  spent much of the day explaining how I create my work and enjoyed the reactions of passersby who thought they were looking at paintings, only to find they were fabric art! I'm happy that I made cards as they sold well. All in all, a great day!

I'm happy to have it behind me, but there is another show coming up at the beginning of December, so I'll be finishing up a few pieces to replace the ones I sold. 

Thanks for reading

and here's to a wonderful week!

Artisan Show on an Autumn Day

It is a beautiful day here in New England, 

and I am off to the artisan show I have been preparing for!

Pictures are framed,

some free cut cards are prepared,

I have had my personal cards printed up

and I am ready for an enjoyable show!

Hope you are having a wonderful day!!

Sewing Landscapes!

As I prepare for a show in October, I've been busy, busy, busy, sewing and framing landscapes. Here are a few in-progress photos…

I did this picture last year, but added a few more touches, as well as a linen mat and a frame.

This is an older picture which, again, I touched up and matted, and I will add a frame.

 

I'm sewing some French knot flowers in the foreground here - again it will have a mat and frame.

This picture combines faux suede, cotton and kimono fabric scraps. I'm keeping it pretty simple. 

This is the lace tree from my last post. I need to add a few more touches to this.

I worked for years in art and framing galleries and my experience is coming in handy lately.

This is my trusty hand mat cutter. It does a good job and I have a lot of mat board scraps to use.

There are a few more pictures which I'll show later. The show is October 15, so I'm in pretty good shape. I keep saying that this is the last show I'll do, with landscapes at least. They are a lot of work! What I'm looking forward to doing is more fun things - little stitched sketches, some collages, maybe a doll or two? I do have a little crafty addition I'm working on for this show - I'll post pictures next time!

I hope that everyone who reads this is enjoying these final days of summer.

Coming up - my favorite season:

F A L L

*********

Have a great rest of the week!!

Building Landscapes

Fall shows are coming up and I'm working away at getting some new work done before deadlines loom too ominously! Right now I'm working on stitched landscapes, including this one with a lacy tree.

I took a few types of lace and painted them with acrylic paint, then cut out motifs and pinned them in place - a long process. I'll run over all of the lace pieces with a loose machine stitch in a color which I hope will more or less disappear. You can see a bit of the trunk in the next photo and the fact that it is made from many strips of different colored fabrics. All in all, this is a very labor intensive piece and, so far, I'm not in love with it. Hopefully, adding more contrasting colors will make it come alive.

I usually set up my landscapes by pinning fabrics to a piece of foam core. The fabrics are culled from the numerous disorganized boxes of fabric which are piled in my studio, which is right now more of a storage room.  My dream is an organized, peaceful studio - will it ever happen? Not at the moment, that's for sure, as I have too much on my plate to attack it. Maybe I'll give myself a Christmas gift of hiring a helper/organizer to do it with me in the winter months. Anyone interested?

The above piece is shaping up. I'm picturing some strong tree shapes in silhouette. I'll cut some out and see how they look. Hanging below the landscape is some great wool embroidery thread I'll probably incorporate also.

And, of course, as I work on the porch, Rosie is curled up near my feet. When we had our porch rebuilt years ago, we actually chose extra windows near the floor for our cats' viewing pleasure.  The things we do for our furry friends!

And, if you should remember the new blog header I was so excited about making awhile ago - it's still in process. I'm just a little bit scattered lately but it will get done eventually.

I hope that everyone who reads this is having a fabulous week. 

Enjoy these last days of August!

Scenes from Monday...

It is a beautiful, breezy late summer Monday afternoon and I am sitting on my porch, drawing pictures of my new blog header which I will post soon. Life is good.

Wishing you a happy week to come!

A Letter to My Blog...

I'm working on a new blog design. 

Please come back and visit me next week.

Have a great weekend!