Let it Fly

I know it's Thursday......:)

 So, I am posting this weeks' Friday Archive photo a day early. My son has a Field Day at his school tomorrow and I have volunteered to man the hockey section and supervise the goings on for most of the morning. Which, by the way, is really funny since I don't know a thing about hockey ;) Let's just hope nobody gets hit with a puck......yikes.

On to the Friday Archives! I did find that old Winslow Homer copy that I had done in college but can't seem to locate a photo of the original. Now I am wondering if it is a Winslow Homer copy at all. Further research is required so I decided to show you another painting I did about 3 years ago. No rhyme or reason to this one. Just picked up a brush that day and dove in. I call it "King"  :)

Check out more Friday Archives tomorrow at Loobylu.

Have a great weekend and enjoy your work where you are....

And so it goes...

Hello! I hope you all enjoyed a sunny weekend. We visited my parents and had a wonderful hike through an Audubon preserve with my family, my mom and my niece and nephew. It was a beautiful day and the kids were busy with lists we had made up in the morning of animals and plants we hoped to see on our hike that afternoon. We actually saw quite a bit of what was listed (butterflies, deer, cool rocks,ferns, buttercups, fish) and even added some things we hadn't thought of ! (horses, eagles, dragonflies) Unfortunately, I had decided NOT to bring my camera and regretted it the moment I saw the four cousins marching happily down the paths together, collecting rocks and flowers and just generally having a great time . Ah well. Next time....

I was able to spend a bit of time at the studio yesterday and began working on this current Shadow-stitch piece. Although all the other pieces in this series have been in black and white, this one cried out for color. The shadow came from a collection of glass votive candle holders and the light actually came only from the candles that were in them and not from an outside source. The holders themselves were pale shades of yellow, green, purple and pink and because the light shone from the inside the shadows cast were like tiny colored sunbursts. So beautiful to look at.....

So, I am trying to capture that here......

I chose to go with pale butter yellow and pale celery green for my threads. I took these photos with my paper propped up against the window in the studio which is why the stitch holes are so apparent in this one (kinda like that) and also why you can see the crossover stitches from the back of the paper. I just felt the need to have the light shining through this one while I photographed.

My sister (who lives in another state) should be arriving any moment to join me for lunch so I'll be back here friday. Take Care and enjoy the rest of your week .

........and thanks for stopping by....... :)

Friday Archives

Good Morning! The weather here has turned back to sunshine and warmth and it seems it will hold out through the weekend so we couldn't be happier :)

I have a pretty sunny painting to show you for Friday Archives this week.

This is a copy of Claude Monet's "La Maison du pecheur, Varengeville" that I did in college. Remember all those assignments to copy the work of the Masters? It really is a great way to learn and grow as a painter when you are starting out. You have the security of not having to make the decisions about composition or pallette because it's there for you already. You can focus on technique and color matching and learn alot about the process and the materials before you break out into your own work.

There is a copy of a Winslow Homer painting around here somewhere that I will dig out to show you next Friday.

I am staying focused with the shadow stitch series and also just recieved a box full of supplies that I ordered to make some little treasures (more later) that I will hopefully have up for sale on Etsy during the summer and beyond. I know the economy crunch is getting hard for everyone and have been trying to think of products that still allow all of us to enjoy and appreciate the arts without going broke! You can still make and give beautiful handmade work in the midst of an economical crunch and I'm trying to stay mindful of that.

Hope you are enjoying your work these days :) Have a great weekend......

Check out Loobylu for more FridayArchives!

Repeat pattern the old fashioned way...

First, I want to say that Typepad is acting a bit strange so I don't know how this post will appear when I publish!

That said, here is a link to Design Sponge that talks about how to make a repeat pattern without the help of a computer (whew!). I am very old school in my techniques anyway. I find alot of comfort in the handmade process and would hate to have everything go to computer generated status. Anyway, I used watercolor to paint my original pattern and then cut and re-assembled as per the directions and came up with this master sheet:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thankfully we have a copy machine at home so I was able to reproduce a bunch of sheets right away and start to piece them together. Although some small details got cut off during my copying efforts, I think the pattern came out pretty cool. I'll have to be more careful about lining up my master sheet on the copier next time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Something about this pattern must have reminded my daughter of the lilacs blooming in our yard right now because she was inspired to add the real thing to the pattern!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was really fun and easy to do. My daughter said this one would be great as wallpaper. Now I want to make more!

I'll be on a road trip from Wed. to Thurs. but will be back here at the end of the week for Friday Archives. Enjoy the rest of your week!

~A

*** Ok, so as I said at the beginning of this post, Typepad is acting weird and my link to Design Sponge is incomplete. You'll have to type in "repeat pattern" in the search box when you get to Design Sponge to find the tutorial by Julia Rothman. It's worth the extra step, I promise! ****

Larger than the rest

Hi there :) I'm still getting shadow inspiration from the "trash can from trash" I made over the winter. The piece I'm stitching right now cast a sideways shadow because the light source was coming at the trash can from the side. It's like when you are walking down the sidewalk and the sun is on your back. Your shadow is long and thin out in front of you because the light is coming at you from one side. I wanted to try and get all sides of the trash can and see how the light would change the shadow if it was shining directly overhead. This didn't seem to work too well with the sun as my light source so I used the light in the center of my kitchen and placed the paper directly beneath it. It worked so well at catching all sides of the shadow that it almost went off the edge of the paper!

I love the way the drawing looks and can't wait to stitch this one. I am very close to completing another piece that is stashed at the studio, so as soon as that one is done, this one will have her chance. Stitching two at a time keeps a good rhythm going and it helps me to have these at different locations (studio and home) so any free time is used wisely.

Enjoy your work today :)

Friday Archives

Fine tip Sharpie marker anyone? I think this is from 1986-87 or so. I know I did a bunch of black and white drawings in college and this was part of the group. This Friday Archive experiment has been interesting so far. It didn't occur to me that there were so many similarities between the work I've done in the past and the work I'm doing now. The materials are different and the process has changed but I seem to be drawn to the same types of images. Black and white. High contrast.

What do you think?

hmmmm.....

Check out Loobylu for more Friday Archives! and have a great weekend :)

No more yellow!

Good Morning! I am making a promise to myself to work on learning more about my camera. It's a digital Nikon Coolpix L6 and I bought it a few months before I started this blog last year. Nothing too fancy but perfect for my humble photography beginnings. I was very eager to just start taking photos and posting so I spent very little time actually reading the directions about how to use all the different functions on this camera! Therefore, I have lucked out with some very pretty outdoor shots....

and some pretty bad (yellow!!) indoor shots...

So, today I will spend the afternoon at the studio with at least an hour dedicatedto reading this baby..

Wish me luck!!

Mothers' Day view

An early morning walk with my daughter collecting flowers and giggling. A sunny late afternoon walk on the beach with both my children and a fun crowd of sisters' in law and cousins. Highlights from Mothers' Day :)

Back soon...

Friday Archives

Hey, how are you? Here's my second contribution to Friday Archives. Check out Loobylu for more Friday Archives :)

This drawing is only about 7 years old and it's one of those free-form, jump-start your brain drawings that I like to do sometimes to get the creative juices flowing. I've seen many like this by other artists so it must be a popular way for people to loosen up and get the mind going in the right direction. Without any thoughts about outcome it's very helpful to just let your pen or pencil take over to form the original shape and then go back and fill in with different patterns and colors until you get something with more depth. I know I've done some of these in black and white and done the "filling in" only with different patterns. Those are fun. I'll have to see if I can dig one of those up to show you. Otherwise, I'll just do another one!

Hope you're enjoying Friday Archives....I am:)

Enjoy your weekend, and Happy Mothers' Day to all of the mom's who work so hard and give so much to their children everyday. You are making the world a better place :] :]

Tricky Shadows

Some cool shadows to be seen at a horse farm, but really tricky to think about getting them on paper. Being kicked by a horse is not my idea of fun ;)

I plan to dig out the guide that my camera came with this week so that I can spare you (and myself) from viewing those lovely yellow-tinged photos I post here from time to time. I obviously need to figure out some lighting issues......

Back soon.....