The Start of Something #4

I have not had much time in the studio lately as I have been working at the museum. But this is another piece that was started (and it is a little further along now). This is part of a series I have in mind (also with the Start of Something #3).

I have quite a few pieces started that need hand stitching. I am realizing now that I need to slow down with the "starting" and catch up on the hand work so that I can have more "finishings".

The Finish of Something #1

Here is one piece finished with the hand stitching and the machine stitching which you can see better on the back. I put a black binding on the edge which you cannot see in this picture.

My thought behind this piece is two different abstracted views of trees.

The Start of Something #3

The Start of Something #2

Any impressions on this one, so far?

The Start of Something #1

Here is one of the pieces I have started. I have started several things as I am intending to do some hand stitching on them and I can do that when I'm too tired to do something else or am watching t.v.

The pins are there because I am hand stitching the reverse applique on this. Do you have any impressions of this at this stage?

Anthony Lake

This weekend went spent a couple of days in Baker City, Oregon. It has been a long time since we have been there in the winter. We spent Friday and Saturday night there. Saturday morning we went nordic skiing at Anthony Lake. It was cold with the wind, but pretty nice as we had intermittent sun.

Anna probably enjoyed the indoor pool at the hotel, more than the skiing.





And since Saturday was Valentine's day, we had to have chocolate!

Modern Art?

. . . or sweet treats? Here is my version of these treats that I thought were cute. However, I could not find any circle pretzels, so we had to make do with the square, waffle pretzels. They turned out o.k. But if you make them, you definitely want someone to help you unwrap all those Hershey kisses!

Happy Valentine's day!

Progress

Here are some of the quilting stitches I have done on the piece that I am working on. This is the view from the back. Below is a close-up view.


Here is what is looks like now. I also did some stitching in the yellow squares (windows) and added the trees on top. I have started the hand stitching around the trees. You might be able to see some on the lower tree on the right side.

On another note, Anna and I went to watch some of the special olympic floor hockey competition after school today. We watched a very exciting game between one of the USA teams and Uruguay. Unfortunately, USA lost.

Special Olympics

I work at the art museum this week and hope I will be able to squeeze in some time to work on art.

Yesterday however, I picked up Anna and her friend after school and we went to see some of the Special Olympic events. We went to see the figure skating. They had this ice sculpture outside where the "Olympic Village" was. It is pretty small; not anything compared to the regular Olympics.

We saw six pairs of skaters in the compulsory event. And that was all because the advertised times are pretty general. So that was a bit disappointing. We spent as much time trying to get out of the parking garage as we did watching the event. Today we will try to see the floor hockey (where we won't be in a parking garage).

Valentine on line

Our local paper has posted some of the valentines that were donated for the Valentine for Aids auction that is currently going on here in Boise. My picture is included (#3, I think) and many others. Here is the link: valentines.

Other local news: The special olympic winter games begin here in Boise next week.

Work in Progress

Here is something I have been working on this week. I have not been working on much as I caught Anna's cold and it has really dragged me down. Anyway, the above picture is before and the below picture is after I used some paintsticks on the red areas. Can you tell a difference? It looks kind of dirty now.

I wanted to tone down the pink and red some and have them blend together a little more. Not sure it succeeded but there is still more to do and then I will do some hand stitching on top.

This piece has been put together differently than what I usually do. I started with a sketch and then just started cutting the pieces by hand with scissors (no rotary cutter) and built them up from the yellow squares out using scraps I had. That is why things are a little wonky. Somehow it all went together fairly easily.

The 12 x 12 group has picked their next theme, which is windows. So many possibilities for that, including the piece above because the yellow squares are suppose to represent windows on a building.

Last night I was looking at my Paul Klee art book (as that was about all I had energy for) and one of the works had a window depicted in it. In the comments, the author was talking about how you couldn't really tell if the viewer was looking out the window or in, as the picture was abstract.

That's something to think about for the window theme. Are you looking out or in or both? Can you see out the windows? or do you see a reflection? Lots of things to think about. I know I have lots of pictures of windows from our European trips. And aren't the eyes the "window to the the soul." Hmm . . .

12 x 12 Chair Challenge

It's a bonus blog, as I remembered that the 12 x 12 group was revealing their chair theme pieces. Therefore, I have put mine up as well. I didn't have as much time to spend on this as I would have liked. I had quite a few ideas for chairs as I had already done a few before. These chairs actually started out in a different piece. But they, along with a couple more, got put away for a long time and did not get completed. After pulling them out to start working on it again, I decided I didn't want to finish the original idea and re-purposed these for the challenge.

It looks a bit like Brenda's over at the 12 x 12 group with the simple, abstract design. See all of their interpretations here.

Valentine Cat

Thank you to all who left their input on the valentine selection. I decided #4 would go to the auction and that is where it is now. Anna also made a piece for donation. It is this lovely cat below.




I thought since I have missed a few days, I would show you a piece I finished a while ago but have not put on the blog yet. I showed you the start of it here. Below is the finished piece I call Paper or Plastic? It is made with reused materials. The tree is stitched on a piece of linen shirt. The brown paper and plastic bags are obvious and the binding is from a wool jacket.