Making Progress

I feel like I'm learning valuable skills on this first crazy quilt. I may enter all my quilts from this year into the Show in October. Hopefully it will be several! It will be nice to participate and see them shown off. I'm working still on the more colorful quilt. I have a large portion of the machine quilting done, and am going back in to the other sections in a loop-de-spiral pattern. Hey, that's a good name for it! I haven't drawn in several days, but the quilting is creative work at any rate. Drawing is still on my mind. I'm thinking of doing a big drawing of the fence post photo. It is such a striking photo, that I think a drawing would be just lovely, frameable, artwork.

So Exciting

I'm just so excited to finally be learning how to free motion quilt. I feel good doing it and its happy work. My back hurts a bit but that's to be expected, I'm taking frequent breaks. I may need to raise my chair up and use the desk chair if it would help. I am hesitant to change the chair because I don't want it to be wrong for my computer! I do things pretty ergonomically wrong.

I loved using the long arm machine this summer, and doing it on a short arm sewing machine (especially mom's bernina!) is a joy as well. I need to plan how I'm going to quilt Momma's quilt, too. I'm working on  my quilt now. I am quilting it a bit "tightly" but I figure better too much quilting than too little. First I did the main lines stitch-in-the-ditch with the walking foot. Next was the square of blocks bordering the center, then now I'm on one of the outer lines of blocks. I suppose quilting in a less obvious thread would be a good thing but its all good! I'm using dark brown. Its cheap thread and breaking every so often but its going well. I broke many needles this morning but that phase seems to be leaving. I'll post a quilt and close ups when I'm done!

I'm So Good

This is Momma's quilt that I jsut finished, the teal is more... tealy than blue but i didn't feel like messing with it too much in photoshop. It is really lovely. Backing and binding are muslin. This is the colors/vibe that I "see" my mom's new house as.

I'm so productive today!

My lovely quilt top. Fabric purchased at the International Quilt Festival October 2011. I'm so glad this is finished! It is a beautiful top to re-learn quilting skills on. This is the second top I've ever finished...

Quiltie Goodness

Yay, I got my quilting stuff out and am working on the batik/Kaffe Fassett quilt. It is going swimmingly. It is very busy but it all jives. I am thinking about doing some embroidery on it, maybe. Something to make it stand out (like it doesn't already!) I don't want to mess with the washability though, so I may just finish it off normally. I need to look at my stash and see what I got for the backing and binding. It will be lovely when completed.

Drawings So Far

Well, I'm making an effort to draw each day, but unfortunately it isn't always working. In fact, its working less than half the time. But, I will continue to draw. I look forward to finishing this sketch book, 70 pages, there is always such a sense of accomplishment at filling a sketchbook. Without further ado, here are my drawings!

My first drawing in years. The chair across the living foom from where I was sitting :) I love the texture the shading gives, and have decided to run with that for a little while.

Ho Hum, a cylinder and a box. Not drawn from life, mostly, though I did look at a candle on the ottoman. The whitespace here is interesting.

This is the self portraite I wrote about earlier. It is still disturbing to me. The lower photo is of the drawing it came from. Interestingly, I think the facial features are captured in the drawing, but some of the proportions are off, so it doesn't look human really.

A couple of easy drawings, just doodling around. Again, the whitespace in the chair knob is interesting. In my drawing experience I tend to not leave any whitespace, but cover it all, regardless of the lighting. This is a much better technique.

Now, I shall knit.

What holds me back?

I think I have the same issue as quite a lot of artists. I tend to want to make art, but not make it happen. I had the goal of drawing daily this year, and its not happening. I need to play catch up or just resign that I have skipped several days. I've wanted to draw, especially with charcoal, but haven't done it. I'm instead spending my time knitting, a much safer pass-time. I am making uber progress on my design project though! And by the time this project is done it will have spawned several more spin offs. yay!

Now, today I must draw, several drawings, or just one, either way I need to stop putting it off. I also want to photograph my drawing so far and post them. They are quite interesting.

Expressive Art

Today I made an actually expressive drawing. Art is "supposed" to be expressive, however I am such a process oriented artist that generally the process is the expression, rather than the end product.

It was very cathartic to see my finished drawing and realize (self portrait) that while it isn't even recognizable as me, it is an expression of how I feel at this point in my life. Each feature separately has a bit of "me" in it but the whole is not reflective. And I'm ok with that. That was my first sketched self portrait, and I am proud of it. Once I threw on a dark background it was even recognizable as a piece of art.

Farm and GW Pics, Jan 3 and 4

Drawing has always intimidated me, and I'm not quite sure why. Perhaps I yearn for the precision of drafting but have the hands for more abstract work. The fact that the medium can span so much is part of its lure.

I will refine my drawing skills this year. Pen, pencil, pen and ink, brush, charcoal, graphite, wire... let there be no bounds to the tool used. I am going to do this using a dual pronged approach. Daily drawings and weekly drawings. The daily drawings will start out as gesture, contour, and blind contour drawings-exploring light and relationships in expressing 3D space on a 2D page. The weekly drawing will be more intensive, on nicer paper, and reflect the results of the exploration of the daily drawings. Some weeks may also be more abstract drawing, but realism is the focus this year. I never thought I'd say that! The source material will be from either life, or my own photographs. I will start the year working with objects and architecture, move into figure drawing, and finish off with portraiture. This will give a broad understanding of different types of drawing. My art teachers would be proud!

The Purpose

The purpose of this blog is to document my art adventures this new year and in the years to come. I hope to make art daily, and keep track of it here, posting at least once per week. This year I am going to focus on drawing primarily, and on collage/assemblage secondarily, toward the end of the year combining the two. I also will pretty much always have my knitting going, so that may get a little attention too!