Arkansas Adventure BOM

 Wow! Where does the time go? I had decided it was time to set a day to work a little on some of my UFO's. I chose to finish my Arkansas Adventure Block of Month that I had purchased. I figured I better re-read the instructions on the paper piecing cause it had been so long since I paper pieced. The two blocks up above is all that I had gotten done on this quilt top. This BOM was mailed to me from Jaynette Huff in Conway Arkansas. She had come up with this quilt top. The blocks are civil war fabrics but the borders I'm not so sure. I guess that is what happens when you wait seven years to work on something. I found the info, 2005 was when this BOM was to begin. WOW! So I got busy this afternoon and completed block #3. Hey at least it is a start. I am hoping to work on these blocks every Friday.

Once I get this quilt top done and assembled then I will start on my next BOM project that never got finished.

Let's SWAP 50-cents Worth...Open to ALL!

Kathy over at Shawkl is doing a fabric swap. Go on over to her blog and read all about it. Above are the fabrics I will be swapping with. I have lots of Civil War Fabrics, A few of the Baltimore Album 1840-1850, and there are a few I am not for sure what they are. lol! The swatches are 5x5".

I have been busy lately, if you would like to see what I have been up to, just visit my dyeing blog .

Chikan Embroidery

I wanted to let all my readers know of this wonderful class that is being offered on India Embroidery. You can read all about it here at
http://artisticfingers.blogspot.in/

Being Creative

It's been awhile since the last post. Life sure has a way of keeping you from doing the things you love, but that's ok. I have been a little creative toward the last of the year and this year. Doing what I so love in studying color. Take a look at my dyeing blog here to see what I have been up to lately.
There is so much I want to do in my creative time but can't seem to make it all happen. lol
Just going to have to make choices on which paths to take.
For any of you out there that would love to learn to dye your own fabrics , there is an online class fixing to start soon.
Take a look here , and see if it is something you would love to do. I can't wait!!!

Workshop 2-1 and March Challenge

I decided to combine the Strathmore Visual Journal workshop 2 lessons with Mary Green of greenpaper monthly challenge.
The first lesson of the workshop is to make pockets in your journal for storing ephemera. So I used all the pieces Mary had for the challenge to make the pocket.
I decided to use a decorative brad for this pocket.

Collage Lab 13 Basic Theory

I had purchased this book a good while back. Finally got a chance to do some work out of it. Suppose to do a lab experience a week but with my schedule that’s not going to happen. lol

You can work these lab experiments in any order you want so when I saw basic color theory you know I’m going to work on that first.

All the following experiments are done in acrylic paints. I got ticked off cause I ran out of acrylic paint on two of the most important colors I was needing for this project. So I will show what I got done , then I’m going to go through all the process again using watercolors, setacolors and whatever other kind of paints I have.

First is making of the color wheel.

Play and Experiment

The Food for thought on this one is:

***Compare the color chips and the effect of the surronding colors. Take note of which combinations push the focus color back and which ones make it pop.

***Think about ways to use this in your work.

For now I’m going to keep my thoughts to myself, I would like for you to answer what you think on this experiment. Then I will share what I think.

Just leave a message in the comment section on what you think!

 

Another thing that I have been working on is learning to draw. I have been taking Darrel Tank’s Five Pencil Method classes. If your interested in learning to draw go to www.fivepencilmethod.com and get signed up for the free lessons. Once I get good at this and go through the free lessons Darrel provides, then I’m going to buy his dvd’s starting with the eyes first, then on. One day maybe I can draw a portrait. That’s my goal.

I don’t get much time to play, so I get what I can do done in the amount of time I do get to get. I have almost used a pad of drawing paper just trying to learn the tapered stroke. I know I have to master this in order to come near as good as Darrel is in his drawings. Hope the pic shows good, but here’s where I have been studying values in my pencils. Using 4h,2h, hb, 2b, 4b

 

Now back to Collage Lab. I had skipped to Lab 16 Shadow and Light and got the value bar completed going from black to white. Then I couldn’t continue for running out of paint. URRRR!!!

So this is what I have been up to since the last post. Hope to be able to post some more soon.

Next week the new class at the Strathmore Workshop begins. Looking forward to that.

WOOHOO! I'm a Winner!!

Today has been a great day for me. I received an email from Mary Green of Green Paper telling me I had won her prize she was giving away. You can see all the awesome goodies here

I am so excited!!! I can't wait to receive my goodies. Once I receive them I will scan each item so that I will always have them to use for projects in the future. I'm jumping up and down with excitement here, woohoo!!!

Thank you so much Mary for having such an awesome give away!!! I will let you know when the goodies arrive.

Strathmore Visual Journal - Workshop 1-Lesson 4

Woohoo! I have completed the first workshop with Strathmore Visual Journal. Below is the completed lesson and the first lesson. I really liked how this technique makes the collage look more like a painting than collage. I still have issues with the oil pastels, but believe I may be able to overcome it. lol
The next class doesn't start till March 1st. Bummer. But that will give me time to practice on my drawing lessons with Darrel Tank. I am taking his 5 Pencil Method classes. He is an awesome artist! I'm very excited about this and want to thank Carol Sloan of the Sketchbook Challenge for telling us about him.

Strathmore Visual Journal - Workshop 1-Lesson 2

I finally made it past lesson 2. Woohoo! It's not the greatest but at least I have got something to show. Two more lessons to go and it will be completed.

I believe I am going to like this technique and will definately be doing more. Practice makes perfect.

Strathmore Visual Journal - Workshop 1 REDO

YOU MAY BE DISAPPOINTED IF YOU FAIL, BUT YOU ARE DOOMED IF YOU DON'T TRY.
Beverly Sills

The quote above has so much meaning to me, because I definately failed with the previous lessons from the Srathmore Visual Journal workshop. Gotta learn to make sure I have added enough water to the gesso before I apply it to my work. But hopefully with this new project I will get it right. lol

I think I am liking this one a lot better than the other one anyways. So maybe it was a good thing I messed up on the first one.

I am a member of Milliande's Art Journal group. If you would like to see what the group is about click on the link on my side bar. She does an art journal a day and makes a video of her process to give us inspiration on making one similar. Using her templates for day 4, I chose to do the zebra woman. I printed off her pattern, then traced the elements I wanted to work with. Then to keep true to the strathmore workshop , I used pen inks to paint in the black, then made a copy of that and cut it out to use as collage. I printed off the zebra strips from Milliande's templates and cut them out for collage. So below is what I have finished for lesson one of the Strathmore workshop.




Lesson Two consists of using pastels, (which I have never gotten use to using pastels) and then using the gesso . Wish me luck that I get it right this time.


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