Hair of the dog that bit me?

So last week I was suffering from a horrible Artfest hangover - exhausted, creatively brain dead, missing my art sisters. But I had signed up months ago for a 2-day workshop with Ohio artist Susan Shie. I've been a big fan of Susan's wonderful diary quilts for a long time and the opportunity to take a close-to-home class with her was NOT to be missed. So I threw some markers and sketchbooks in an Artfest bag and drove off to Post Falls. Ohmigosh! It turns out another 2 days of art class with an awesome, inspiring teacher and a fun group of artist friends was the perfect cure for my Artfest hangover.

Here's Susan demonstrating her technique for layering and binding a quilt. You can see some of her quilts in the background. You gotta love a teacher who starts the class by telling us the goal is to get back to the artists we were when we were 6.


Two days of total freedom and encouragement and support to draw and paint and journal all over our paintings. I LOVED this and will definitely do more with these techniques. Here's my painting from Friday, our theme was cooking so I just drew all my favorite things from my kitchen. I'm leaning toward not journaling on this one just because I'm so in love with the simple graphic quality it has right now.


I did journal on Thursday's self portrait piece, but I don't have a good pic of that one yet. If you have a chance to take a class with Susan DO IT!

This is what it's all about...

Celebrating life with my beautiful art sisters.

More stuff

Friday at the end of the work day, Liz told me to make something pretty this weekend. Yes ma'am.

OK, technically it's not finished, but I like where it's at and I'm going to glue everything down tonight. Shocking, I know, but I actually worked from idea to (mostly) finished piece in a weekend. And I started with a scary blank canvas!


I also made some more ATC's for Artfest trading.

Here's some stuff I made

Here's some stuff that I made over the last few months. Despite a fairly fallow, lazy season, there's always something I'm puttering around with. The past week or two I've been fighting the inertia of winter and self-doubt and making an effort to get my butt in the studio.

I'm fascinated with Mary lately. Here's a little nativity doll I made.


The latest dress. Still playing around with lots of ideas for these.




Several months ago I bought a bunch of blank canvases with the idea of playing around with paint and collage. It turns out canvas and paint are very intimidating. This piece has been sitting around in various stages for months. It was feeling blah so yesterday I added some outlining. The stem and leaves are fabric, the petals are my collaged, painted paper and the center is a bottle cap.

Hearts

Funny how life changes your perspective. A little more than a year ago hearts made me gag. But then my dad had his heart fixed and then someone came along and took on the job of fixing my heart. And now hearts are showing up everywhere.



A handmade valentine for my valentine.


ATC's for trading at Artfest. I can't wait!


Blistered pearls I got from Mom yesterday. The picture doesn't begin to do them justice, but I'm too lazy to go try again. I'm completely fascinated with these.

Moving forward

I took ACTION this weekend and finally did some things I've spent a lot of time thinking about the past few months. Like baking. Nothing special, just a blueberry coffee cake, a favorite recipe from Fannie Farmer's Baking Book, but a nice way to slip back into actually baking instead of thinking "hmm, I should bake something..."

Also got into the studio (now that I actually have a workspace and can find things). Again, nothing special, just get in there and slap some paint around. It's amazing how easily I get caught up in it, how ideas start to flow once I get in there and get moving. It's just a matter of overcoming the inertia.


I also took action to buy this fabric for the duvet cover from Home Sewn by Kaari Meng. OK, I know it sounds crazy that I had to TAKE ACTION to buy fabric, but while I'm excellent at buying random stuff, when it comes to a project like this I tend to...agonize..."is this the exact perfect choice that will make me happy every day? Oh dear, I'd better think about it some more..."


This is SO pretty. Action is such a good word!

A New Year

You know it just wouldn't be the same if I actually posted about things when they happen! LOL!

Anyway, as always this time of year, I've been reflecting on the year past and the year to come. Last year my resolution was to make a lot of art. What I underestimated last year, was how much of my time and energy would be required to finish unfinished business, to tie up loose ends, to get myself fully outfitted and squarely on the path of the life of my choosing. It turns out that when you have to get divorced, sell your house, get a new job, have surgery and meet someone new...well, that stuff takes a lot of energy. And that's ok. I feel good about 2008. I accomplished a lot, I had a lot of fun and a lot of wonderful time with family and friends, and I'm in a good place now.

So here's the thing, while I ran short on time and energy for doing, I did do a lot of thinking about the kinds of things I WANT to spend my time doing. And now I'm teetering on the edge of the pit of just sitting around thinking about what I want to do all the time. Sitting is SO comfortable!

So rather than make a resolution, this year I'm going to do the thing where you pick a word for the year. Christine Kane has a good guide for this and that's where I found my word: Action. I'm still getting comfortable with this word. It's not a word that's among my favorites (create, imagine, laugh, joy, kindness, etc.), but that's ok. The fact that I'm not completely comfortable with it means that it's the challenge I need. Just that little daily reminder to stop sitting and thinking and get up and start doing. Whew. Scary.

Since it is the 4th already, I'm happy to report that so far this year I've taken action to clean up and organize my studio. I never really finished unpacking that room. I just got it to a semi-functional point and went with it. 16 months later, semi-functional has deteriorated to not-functional-at-all. Lately I can't even find anything. So I've added some storage, rearranged to make better use of space and assigned permanent homes for things like fake flowers, alphabet stamps, bottle caps. Plus, I've created actual work space! LOL!

Happy New Year everyone!

Again with the snow

Or rather, again and again and again. As of yesterday morning we've had 69 inches, 61.5 in the month of December alone. I'm ready for summer now. Today. Please.