The Middle of Our Stories

I will probably have to change the name for this piece, but so far it works. The problem is, Josh used a similar title for his NaNo, and I can't just 'borrow' it like that. The word middle describes half way so succinctly, though. I'll have to dig around for my thesaurus... ouch, okay it is just there under my desk.

Hum, navel... just too much gazing there for my taste. Median? Same as middle really. Ooh, here's one: mezzo termine. It means mid course. Hum, guess that might wind up the name of this piece. Like that one.

I started this one in June but couldn't figure out what else to do with it, so I left it alone. This month I've been busy with the Studio Journal course, so the TIF was on the back burner for the last few weeks. Not to mention I spent most of the month working on Mary Anne's lucious exquisite corpse.

In the quilt itself, there are three fabrics. One was once part of a dress my grandmother wore. It was hot pink and I over dyed it a bluish purple. One fabric came from an online connection, and one came from... somewhere. I didn't purchase it, beyond that I don't know. Originally I added two pattern pieces and a portion of my NaNo with gel medium. Those fit in with last months story theme. But of course, the piece didn't work. So I left it to sit.

Then this month, with the time crunch, I pulled it out again. I discovered that the page I'd used was exactly half way through my novel. Ooh, how weird is that? And, because this was half way done (do you see a theme here?), I could put less work into completing it. That was the thought anyway. I quilted interlocking squares, but it was still missing something.

Enter paint laden gel medium, a firm paint brush and a roll of chicken wire. I laid the chicken wire on the quilt top (already quilted) and adhered it with gel medium. I pulled the wire off before the medium completely hardened. It left behind the grid. Kind of interesting.




Unfortunately, it still seems to be missing something. Any suggestions or is it fine as is?

A Day in the Life of My Journal

It started with this photo:


And this photo:


From there, I played around with a layout in my journal and came up with this idea:
From there, I used the smaller photo, traced the major lines, cut it into squares, rearranged and did a colourwash using Derwent Graphitint pencils. The pencils go on muted and dull, but with a water wash, the colours turn vibrant. The vibrancy of the colour depends on the amount of water used. These are a couple of results:


Do you see the face too?

Circles in the House

Yesterday I went with friends to French Beach. On the way, we stopped at Sooke Harbour House. While my friends gawked at the wonderful artwork, I took pictures. It is interesting how many circles you can find when you really look.

Sooke Harbour House
Originally uploaded by victanguera

French Beach was horribly windy and cold, but we had an enjoyable picnic lunch. We drove to Point No Point and walked the path to the beach. It is almost like heading through the forests of Middle Earth. I truely expected Bilbo to pop out at me (although meeting Strider would have made me happier.) I love this tree:

I'm going to play with this image for one of the exercises for the Studio Journal course.

Beyond Notan--Even Further

A while ago, I created this piece of Notan in fabric. This was even before the Studio Journal class where creating cutouts is part of lesson three.



Then I quilted it taking it beyond notan.


Then I made a kaleidoscope out of it, taking it even further:


Now to create notan shapes out of the kaleidoscope. Hum, wonder what you would call those. Maybe back to notan?

Kaleidoscopes and Stuff

I've been playing around with an online kaleidoscope creator. A word of warning, if you have an addictive personality, watch out. Much time will be wasted. But look at what you can create:


I'm trying the colour wash with plastic wrap on fabric, but no luck yet. Will keep playing with it and see what I can come up with. Results to follow.

My daughter (the one in art school) looked at my messy journal yesterday and commented: "Looks like an artist's workbook". Cool.

Odds and Sods

The Studio Journal course is extremely interesting. This week we are working on colour. My two colour washes are interesting, but not exactly what I expected. The idea was to do a watercolour wash, place saran wrap over top and let the wrinkles in the plastic affect the paint.

Attempt number one was done on Japanese rice paper (purchased on my trip to Japan last year). I did a frottage rubbing first, added the wash and the plastic. The wrinkles don't show up at all:


So I tried again. This time, I did the wash on a page in my journal. It has a heavier weight, and I thought it might work better. The wrinkles actually show up better in the scan than in actuality, but they are still very faint.

So the variables are paper, water amount, paint quality and plastic wrap quality. I've tried it on two different types of paper without much satisfaction. I think it may be the plastic wrap, so that is the next variable to play with.

On other fronts, my black and white quilt for the "My World in Black and White" challenge is taking shape. Sorry, no photos until after the end of September as it is a juried challenge.

I finally came up with an idea for the next person's Exquisite Corpse, and I'm working away industriously at it. Looks very nice, but sorry no photos for that one either. Gee, I'm such a tease.

I still haven't had any brainstorm for the July TIF challenge. Aargh. It is already a week into the month and I'm clueless. Ah well, somewhere during the journal course, maybe inspiration will hit. One can only hope.

July TIF

This month Sharon asks: “What is it to be at the half way mark... “Half”, “Way” and “Mark” all lead off into interesting directions that can be represented in all sorts of ways. So that is the challenge for this month.”

An interesting question. Nothing comes to mind. I've just started Sharon's Studio Journal course, I've got the Exquisite Corpse challenge in progress (finally came up with an idea for the next one last night) and I'm hoping to do something for a black and white challenge. I'm almost 1/2 way through the editing in my novel. There is a half. And a way. No mark though.

Another thing that comes to mind is to leave certain projects half finished. I can then return to them when I have more time and quilt or whatever needs doing. Or maybe I can add marks to things that are presently half finished? I have the second shoe quilt I started, but have yet to quilt. That would be adding a mark to something that is presently half way done. Then I could half start another project and I've done it all!

If I work through exercises in the studio journal course and in the Art Quilt Workbook, but only get them to a certain stage, they would qualify. In lesson one, we were to translate an image into marks like we would stitch. This could also be an idea--to take a painting and make marks in my journal, but translate it into fibre when I'm less busy.

So many ideas. So little time!

Studio Journal Course

Yesterday I received the first lesson for Sharon B's course Studio Journal as Designers Work Horse. Wow, what an amazing amount of information in the first lesson. It's like Sharon read my mind and designed the course to meet the needs I have right now.

A few things stood out at the very beginning. The first is to work at your own pace. That was a blessing is disguise. I am so busy right now that I wasn't sure how this course would fit in my life, even though I know I need to do it. This will make it fit. I can do it around other tasks, or as part of other tasks.

I highlighted one line that sticks out: Get your imagination going. I signed up for this class because some times my imagination fails. Or starts and peters out. Hopefully, this will help me sort out the entire process. Sharon likens a studio journal to a compost heap where things are added and new things grow from what you add. I already do that with my writing, so I understand how this works.

Our journals are a place to take responsibility for our own creative development. I love Sharon's statement that a journal "declares to yourself and your family that personal creativity is of value and important." Yep, that about sums it up.

I'm not sure whether to compress everything into one journal. Because I write and do fibre art, I'm not sure that keeping the two ideas in one journal is the best for me. For my writing, I have a notebook in my purse so I can jot down ideas no matter when I have them, and one by my bed so I can sleep at night. I'm more inclined to jot notes in one of those and transfer it to an art journal, but I'll see as things progress.

A creative journal can help stave off creative blues. You mean those one where I think my work is boring? Cool.

It will also help to solidify ideas. How many times have I come up with a great idea and run off half-cocked, only to have it fizzle because I couldn't figure out where to go with it? June's TIF is a perfect example.

In the front of my journal, I've now written:

Get your imagination going!

Discover your own path.

Take responsibility.

Value your creativity--make time for it and defend it.

Scraps are the threads of my creative life.

Patterns are recognized over time.

Work out direction before investing energy. (This one speaks directly to me and is the main reason I'm taking this course).

Now on to exercise two.

Beyond Notan

I guess this is my June TIF.


And a close up shot:


This started as a quick project on balance and notan was used as the example. I fused the leaves onto the background last month, and tossed it in a corner. I kept thinking about quilting to take it beyond notan. It became the story that is possible.

However, I'm at a loss how to quilt the other piece, even after a week on my design wall. It is missing something, but I don't quite know what, so I'm going to let it sit for a bit more. I have a large pile of those WIVSP (works in very slow progress). I realized that often I have partially formed ideas in my mind and don't know how to bring them to fruition. As a result, I'm frustrated with the results. They are exactly what I thought of, unfortunately it isn't a finished product. Hopefully the journal class will help with fully forming ideas before I start to create. Or at least give me tools to figure out how to fix something that isn't working.

Studio Journal Course

I received the supply list for Sharon B's studio journal class through Joggles. Ooh, one more thing to do. At the Cirque, I purchased The Spark: Igniting the Creative Fire That Lives Within Us All. One thing mentioned is that deadlines feed our creativity. When we are pushed to the wall time-wise, it forces our mind to come up with alternate solutions to problems. From experience, I know this is true. I wrote a novel in two months because I had a deadline. Editing is harder as there isn't the deadline to work under.

Initially, I signed up for the Take It Further challenge to give myself art deadlines. I wanted the same intense need to be creative in the visual field. Although I've done the projects each month, some haven't seemed very creative to me, so I signed up for the Studio Journal class.

Unfortunately, I'd managed to pull a Scarlet O'Hara and put off thinking about it until tomorrow. Now I need to find ways to amalgamate some of my projects. My black and white entry can also work as my roosting robin challenge. Work from the journal class will give me sketches to work from for the TIF challenge (something I desperately need). I've also joined a local group to work through Jane Davila's book. Ah well, what's one more thing?

Here's where June's TIF is at. Does it need anything else, or should I just quilt it? Any earthshaking suggestions for quilting? I'm thinking maybe a fashion photo like on a pattern cover, and maybe scissors and measuring tape. Feel free to discuss.

Corteo

One more sleep! Woo hoo :-}

The Strength of Love

I decided to do my piece for the Breaking Traditions show early (so I have more time for other projects). The photos are taken by my youngest daughter sporkiee.deviantart.com (used with permission). She took pictures of her older sister and her boyfriend. I overlaid the two photos using Photoshop and printed them on fabric. The borders are rust dyed fabric. I wanted to use rusty washers, but instead used stone beads that look somewhat rusty.

A Bit of This, A Bit of That

I finished the first section on my Exquisite Corpse (well probably, I'm letting it sit on my design wall today just to make sure). And that is all I will mention--no hints, no clues and definitely no pictures. What, you wanted me to wreck Christmas?

I worked a bit on my quilt for the Breaking Traditions challenge. I've almost got it quilted. There are two small sections with rust dyed fabric I wasn't sure how to quilt. I had one of those ah ha moments. I thought rusty washers attached to the surface in those two sections would be perfect. I tramped over to Canadian Tire to peruse their washers. Galvanized steel. Stainless steel. Zinc. Hum. Don't think any of those will rust for me. I bought a couple packages anyway, and put them in a dish with some water. This morning, pristine and beautiful still. So I threw some fabric and nails on top and will rust dye some more fabric instead.

And I got bored. So I turned this:


Into this:

Stories That Are (Possible).

Does anyone else see how the TIF challenges dovetail together? The month I did my SpiroFloral quilt, I didn't like it. I would look at it from across the room, and it had no visual impact. Trying to pull the viewer in, I took something that worked and made something that didn't.

The following month, the challenge was on details. I so wanted to flip the two challenges. If I'd thought of the SpiroFloral in terms of details, I would have left it alone and had a stronger piece as a result.

Last month, the question was "what do you call yourself and why?" I write, that is one of the things that I've been doing almost to distraction since the end of last year after NaNo, but it didn't work with the art idea. Stories on a page, hum how to make that into fabric. Couldn't wrap my head around it, so did something completely unrelated.

And this months challenge: think about stories that are and stories that are possible. Hum, isn't that what a writer does? We create possible stories out of nothing but words. If you want a glimpse of my thoughts on writing, I've created a blog just for that. I might take part of my novel and adhere it to fabric, quilting over it. Or I might not.

I also recently joined a round robin group called Exquisite Corpses. We all played the game as a kid, but if you are like me, didn't know there was a name for it. Do you remember drawing something on a piece of paper, folding it over so only a few lines showed and passing it to the next person? What started as a giraffe ended as a kangaroo, creating a girroo. Or something. Maybe a kangaraffe. Because of the rules in this challenge, I can't say what I'm working on. So that is a story that is and a story that is possible. Once I send it on to the next person, who knows what will become of the concept rattling around in my head.

So I have a number of possibilities. Semi-related--I have a start on my piece for the Breaking Traditions challenge. I'm rust dying a piece of fabric for the backing, then it will be quilted and sent off. Early, but done. That piece is all about a story that is and a story that could be, so it could work. Ooh, killing two birds with one stone, now there's a concept. Now to settle on an idea and run with it. Maybe I'll even like it this time.

Just in Time

What do I call myself? I still don't know. I know I'm creative, passionate and energetic. I love to push my own boundaries. The last couple of months, I've been extremely bored. During that time, I made a wedding dress for my daughter. The dress itself is beautiful, and took alterations from the pattern, but no originality. Hence, I think, the boredom. Everything I made looked ugly to me. The reality--I was bored. Bored, bored, bored.

I get cranky when I'm bored. Yeah, I know you noticed. Some of those blog posts were brutal. I also find the line between creation and obligation thins and what I'm creating no longer has that personal love behind it. I think that at times like these, the much maligned word craft is very important here. Craft (I'm not meaning toilet paper covers here, but honing of skills) speaks to me of love, intensity, stretching our abilities to perfection. It speaks of time, and labour.

I decided out of my boredom, just to make something that didn't necessarily fit inside any rules or boundaries. It doesn't really fit the May TIF as it doesn't define who I am (not that I can any way), and doesn't quite fit the colour scheme. But it does fit the idea of taking things further. I used an art theory textbook from my art school days. The problem given was: "...create four interesting line patterns. One should be composed of vertical and horizontal lines only, one of diagonal lines, one of curved lines, and one of a combination of lines in all direction. Vary the length, thickness, spacing, and colour of the lines so as to make the pattern interesting." (Art Fundamentals Theory and Practice by Ocvirk, Bone, Stinson and Wigg Third Edition)


As you can see, I didn't do three of the four patterns, and in mine, didn't add any vertical or horizontal lines, but it got me creating something again, and I enjoyed every minute of it. I've also started my piece for the Breaking Tradition challenge, signed up for a round robin group, joined a group to work through an art quilt book, signed up with stitching fingers and have been working like crazy on editing my NaNo. All the way up to chapter five in my editing, not that that is very far in the grand scheme of things, but it is progress.

I'm not feeling quite so bored now. More oh shit, what have I done? Can I do all this? But hey I always did like a challenge. As my granddaughter would say "bring it on."

An idea

I can't seem to figure out anything for the May TIF challenge. I started a piece, but don't like it at all. I haven't worked on anything since. There was the whole wedding thing this weekend, so that took up time. But I haven't felt very focused lately, so haven't had any luck with the creative process.

I took out my March TIF and changed a few things (but not enough to make me happy with it yet), but that still wasn't what it. So I went back to the drawing board, so to speak.

I have this art theory book (Art Fundaments--Theory and Practice by Ocvik, Bone, Stinson and Wigg). There are exercises in form, line, shape etc. This book has given me the impetus to try experimenting with things with no obligation to make 'art'.

The exercise I chose was one where you were to use horizontal, vertical, diagonal and circular lines. The intention was to create four different pieces, but I only did one, and chose not to use horizontal lines as they didn't seem to work (although I'll probably add them yet--maybe when I quilt it.)

So here is a potential start on the May TIF (almost the right colours too).

Of Weddings

Well, what a beautiful wedding. Here it is in photos.

The Grooms party:


The Bridesmaids (youngest daughter on the far right):

The flower girls (granddaughter is on the right):


The Bride (sorry about the ex in the picture, but what are you going to do):


And exchanging vows:


And dancing:



At the end, we were all pretty tired (but happy).



Now back to regularly scheduled programing. Hopefully I still have time to put something together for the May TIF challenge. I can use the dress, after all I am a seamstress too.

What Do I Call Myself?

This month, the challenge question is "what do you call yourself and why?" Hum, good question. Thinking back, I've never used labels to define myself. I have grown kids, was once a wife, create stuff that might be termed art (but might not) write and tango. But those aren't terms I use to define myself. At one time, I did cross stitch, I've knit and crocheted, sewed and I quilt. I read copious amounts of books across multiple genres depending on my mood and what strikes my fancy. I guess if I had to use any term to define myself, it would be multi-faceted or maybe diverse.

Ruminating on this more, I would tend to think of what I do more at the craft end of things than the art end. Craft speaks of intense labour, honing of skills, time and love. Art is often lofty, holier somehow, what I work toward. Craft is the step toward art (in any form). In my writing, I hone words to create a certain lyricism. In quilting, I've spent hours in free motion quilting honing skills that I wouldn't otherwise have. Writers have it easier. We are told to spend the hours necessary to hone our craft, and there is no shame in doing so; to be published, this is necessary. An author is just a published writer. At one time, would this same have held true for artists? If you create, spend time labour or love on any project, that is craft. If you have cash in the pocket, you are an artist.

I have unfinished cross stitch projects, left over yarn from my knitting days, paints and pastels, and fabric in my stash of stuff, and I also have a novel in the process of editing. I like the term diverse, so this month I would like to find a way to incorporate everything I've tried and where it has brought me.

Bored (or Boring)

Looking back over some of my recent quilt attempts, I've realized that they are pretty boring. I need to do something about that. So in the interest of growth, any constructive criticism will be greatly appreciated.

Coffee Consumption

I've decided to stop drinking coffee. Yesterday, I came across a link for our sustainability in the world. It is a quick little game that asks you questions about the size of your home, the amount you drive etc. I wasn't doing too badly until I reached the question about food. I had no idea that coffee is the second largest import into America after gasoline. Wow. It would take 4.5 acres to support the amount of coffee I drink. Ouch. OMG, that is horrible. So yesterday I decided to quit drinking coffee.

Embellisher talks about our urgent need to change to avert climate change. Maybe this one small thing I do will help.