Very little as satisfying as watching paint dry.... welcome to this week's creativity round-up
I'll start with the color of the month at rainbow scrap challenge, Red:
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| box of RED scraps |
I eased into this color by pulling the really little scraps and sewing them together, watching the pattern show up, watching the colors blend,
sewing one little section to another til I had two major sections to fit together into this...
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| about 18" X 13" |
my improv work lately looks like houses or cityscapes to me
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| Little doggie peeking out an upstairs window |
I start by arranging the tiny scraps by shape into piles, then sewing a strip of tiny rectangles for instance, or geese, or squares cut at 1.5" etc.
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| always a pile of shoes by the door |
Using what's there, adding or trimming to make a section fit to another. It's so satisfying to see what lines are formed in the final piecing. So many pieces and so complex, come together to form this bedside table topper
like sourdough there is always a bit left over to start the next project, scraps are seldom "used up"
My friend Sonja in Hawaii sent me a link to a watercolor tulips video and I used my new journal, and tried washi tape to section off the page
I loved the tape, (bought off amazon in a set of 12 rolls) and it felt good to paint...
then I wanted to see it done in gouache paint (opaque watercolor) to compare
I'm slowly learning to control gouache but love using them. I used plastic lids as a palette and when they truly dry out and are unusable, I can discard them. I used less valuable brushes as it's hard on them.
the color is vibrant and opaque so it's easy to add color on top. I especially like the small yellow bud on the left, and the sky blending. I also love moving the paint around with my brush to see what happens
I didn't want to waste the expensive paint, so thought I'd do a background with it
I ended up loving it just the way it is.... the brush strokes and blending at horizon line. I mixed green and golden yellow on the palette first and it was too flat, so I just brushed on pure yellow gold onto the green and loved the subtle color, and light. Then went over the horizon line with a wet brush. It reminds me of art galleries that showed the "big red door" art, you know one color on a canvass.... I used to wonder how that was appealing til I did this.
back to quilt making...
A few months ago I wanted a mindless sewing project so pulled out two charm packs (precut 5" squares)
I arranged them on the design wall then sewed them together. This week I finished the quilting on my little Janome Gem which is not meant to do heavy duty work. Two bernina's are out of commission and it's what's left.
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| About 46" X 60"+ |
I sewed on this while Milo was battling his last illness, and started quilting it when DH called from the doggie ER to say he was dying.
I put it away as grief took me. This week I finished quilting it and did a machine binding with this fabric
when strips are cut the pattern shows like this on the edge
very simple quilting yet time consuming
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pretty golden shiny hoffman vintage fabric on back
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the squares are not pretty to me all together but they were a deep discount and I ordered them from the thumbnail pics online. As I worked with them, each was okay alone but all together I don't like them.
I paired a scientific print I got long ago for my husband, which worked but the whole quilt is meh to me when finished. I learned life is too short to make and finish something you don't love.
it was therapeutic to move to red after that. I am hoping to paint more gouache works this week. Happy creating y'all
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