Another Fair, More Ribbons

At the next country fair in our area, I entered even more items than at the previous one and brought home 6 red (firsts) and 3 blues (seconds). Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, which is too bad because they had the larger quilts displayed nicely at the fair. I took these photos at home afterwards. 
The Florence Nightingale quilt and So You Think You Can Quilt both took red ribbons again,

while this time the Scrappy Shine quilt and the Firecracker Throw got reds as well. They both placed second in the previous fair. 

There was a Paper Pieced class at this fair, so I also entered the Dreamweaver Quilt 

which was awarded a blue ribbon.

I entered two different cowls in this show, the two dropped stitch cowls. The knitted one took a blue ribbon

and the crocheted one was awarded a red. 

In the Small Crocheted Article, I entered my Argyle Crochet Pot Holder, which won a red ribbon.

And finally I decided to include my first attempt at an acrylic painting (outside of the practice ones I did in class). 

Surprisingly, my Painted Trillium won a second. 

That's it for fair season this year. Now that the "fair bug" has bitten, I intend to plan better for next year's fairs. 

Creative Expressions 2014: My Crafting Year in Review

2014 has come to an end, and I decided it would be a great opportunity to review all of the craft projects I completed this year. As I perused my blog for the past year, I was pleased by what I was able to accomplish in my hobbies in spite of working full time. 

Way back in January, I finished the Dreamweaver quilt for my daughter:

Dreamweaver Quilt

Following that, I completed Scrappy Shine:

Scrappy Shine

This one hasn't found a home yet, but I have a new great niece or nephew due in February. If it's a niece, this will be hers.

Bearly Hockey was finished in February and just recently I sent it to my great nephew, Leo.

Bearly Hockey

I had actually finished the quilt top in 2013, but didn't get it into the longarm studio right away.

In May I finished Florence Nightingale in time for Nursing Week:

Florence Nightingale Quilt

and used her as the backdrop for the nursing display:

Nursing Week 2014

In August, the Go Wild! quilt was completed:

Go Wild!

In September, I started my acrylic painting class and did this painting on my own:

Painted Trillium

Most of the class paintings are not worth sharing again, but there are a couple that I haven't completed yet that might be worth sharing eventually. 

In October I finished Wild Mustangs of the Painted Desert and gave it to friends who were moving away:

Wild Mustangs of the Painted Desert

I also finished the Law School quilt for the granddaughter of friends:

Law School

a perspective painting that I'm not ashamed to share:

Perspective Painting

and the Lace Enchantment Afghan:

Lace Enchantment Afghan

In November, my machine quilting classes gave me the courage to finish "So You Think You Can Quilt" on my domestic machine:

So You Think You Can Quilt

And a machine quilting sampler I started months before in an online class:

Machine Quilting Sampler

In December I completed Far Above Rubies for the daughter of friends:

Far Above Rubies

and shared my first Tunisian crochet project:

Tunisian Crochet Tote Bag

In the months when I didn't actually complete any projects, I was still busy: working on projects that I haven't finished yet, cooking and reviewing cookbooks, reading and reviewing other books as well, and adding to my stash of fabric and thread, of course. Throughout the year, I have been working on the Bluenose II Pixel quilt for my youngest sister, Cindy. Hopefully I will be able to share the finished project with you soon. I've got numerous other quilting, crocheting and painting projects either in progress or "on the drawing board." Unbroken is ready for the long arm and the Australian Tailor's Quilt just needs another border before it too is ready for quilting. There are at least two more bed size quilts to be produced: a Swoon quilt for my sister Judy and probably a mosaic quilt for my sister Nancy. And there are some new books from Net Galley that will need to be reviewed. It looks like 2015 will be another productive year.
Wishing everyone the best of the New Year.

Laura

Show & Tell: More Moving & Rearranging

I confess: I skipped my final acrylic painting class this week. The instructor wasn't going to teach anything new and we were just going to finish up the paintings we had already started.  So I decided I'd rather finish at home - less hassle and mess than carting everything back and forth. Since my machine quilting class finished last week, that left me with no more evening classes at all, which freed my evenings to try and catch up at home. Not that I ever catch up. But I haven't done any crafting this past, which left me with a project of a different sort to share. 

Remember I am in the process of moving my office into my smallest bedroom? I finally managed to move all of these books up from the basement and arranged them on the shelves:

Then I moved the bookcase that they were on (another one like this one) upstairs. Right now, it's just sitting in the living room. The spare bedroom where it's going is also undergoing moving/rearranging. Since I had moved all of the furniture to one side of the room to shampoo rugs, I figured it was a good time to strip the wallpaper off the wall behind the bed and dresser, something I've been wanting to do since I bought this place in 2009 (only that one wall had wallpaper on it). Unfortunately, it left a residue on the wall, so I still have to sand/wash the wall to remove the residue, shampoo that side of the carpet, and move the furniture back before I can move the bookcase in. And I really need to get that done as I think one of my nephews will probably come for a visit next weekend and he'll be staying in that room. He's just moved to Alberta this past Monday and I haven't seen him yet. 

These two filing cabinets came up from the basement as well:

And yes, they are relatively full and relatively heavy. And awkward. But not as awkward as the bookshelves! And yes, I am moving these things all by myself since the cats won't help. 

And while I was moving things up, I was also moving things down:

This dresser and chest are currently empty. The two boxes are the contents of the chest: mostly fabric! And they weren't too heavy. I will use the dresser for my art and crocheting supplies. Plus any other craft and sewing supplies that I don't have a place for. You can see that I've already got my paintbrushes on top of the dresser. I still have to move the rest of my art supplies downstairs. They have been residing in my office while I was taking the acrylic painting course, but that made it kind of cramped as it is a small room. 

There are still lots of books that need to come up from the basement and in from the garage, plus some quilting/crafting/art books that need to go downstairs, but that will get done in time. Meanwhile, I really should change the oil in my snowblower before I need to use it. Tomorrow is my scheduled day off and I was planning on getting more done at home, but then I remembered that my serger is ready at the shop, so I will probably go in to get it. I hate to make a trip to the city for just one thing, so I'm considering hitting Delta Art Supplies as I have enrolled in Acrylic Painting: Basics & Beyond (w/ Michael Lynne) from Craftsy and I need a few more supplies. I retrieved my daughter's brushes from my ex-husbands house (she had taken art classes when she was in her teens), so I don't think I need any more of those.
I've only got a couple more weeks left on my inlinkz subscription so I figured I might as well use it while I've got it. So feel free to share your link to your current projects.

An InLinkz Link-up

Acrylic Painting Class #5

For this class, we went out into the street, sketched a scene with pencil, then came back into the classroom to paint it. Here's my painting so far:

This is the county building. The instructor didn't actually want us to do a whole building, just a tree or a corner of a building or something. Not sure I understood what she actually wanted.

While we were working on our paintings, she handed out a line drawing of an apple and had us do this:

First we washed the whole paper in one direction with yellow, then in the other direction with green. Then we put red on the apple, then blue on the edge of the apple. Then we were supposed to wipe it. I forget what this technique was called, something in French, I think. It doesn't really matter because I doubt I will be using this technique again, unless I actually know what I'm doing when I use it. I was feeling rather annoyed to have my main painting interrupted to do this. I just used paint that was already on my pallet as I wasn't about to start mixing paints for 2 separate pictures at the same time. 

The instructor wants us to bring in all of our finished work for next class, our final class, and she is going to pick some for a mini art show. Seriously??? Who wants to see my incompetent art work? Sharing it on my blog is one thing, but putting it out there for public display in the town where I live is quite another. I'll have to think this one over... Meanwhile I need to finish my county building painting. But if I finish it at home, I will have to come up with something to do in class, as she's not going to present any new projects. And here's my idea: I bought this chair at the thrift store:

The price tag is still stuck on it - I have to figure out how to get it off. I bought it primarily as a prop for quilt photos. I wanted a vintage-looking chair for said photos. It was $15, but it was orange tag day at the thrift shop, which meant everything with an orange tag was 50% off, so I got it for $7.50. The seat is covered in plastic, which definitely has to go, and when we tried to load it, we discovered that the screws holding the seat on were loose. That's okay, since I have to take the seat off to remove that plastic. By the time I got it home and unloaded it, I found there was only one screw holding the seat on. Was there ever another screw or did it fall out somewhere between removing it from the upper shelf in the thrift store and getting it home. Oh well, it's still a pretty sturdy chair, and not bad for $7.50. Here it is with my Go Wild quilt:

Yikes! That quilt kind of swallows the chair! And it's not a really big quilt. Maybe I need to try one of my baby quilts for this. Not to mention that the setting isn't quite right. The hot air register on the right and the AV cabinet on the left don't really cut it. 

This is somewhat of an improvement, but I forgot that brand new cotton batting doesn't drape very well until it's washed a few times. So the quilt looks kind of stiff. (The Go Wild quilt has polyester fibrefil batting, so it drapes better).  And the background is boring. I need a little more "something" in this photo.

Yogi, my vintage teddy bear (yes, he's my original teddy bear), joined in, then I added a "milk can" as another prop and took away the mat. Still not quite what I wanted. I'm going to have to set up a proper studio area if I want to do good quilt photos...

But back to my idea - if I can get a quilt photo that I like, I will then paint it. 

Hmm, there's always the wicker peacock chair...

Acrylic Painting Class #4

Finally! I have been able to produce a painting in class that I am reasonably pleased with:

It was a lesson in perspective. And no, it's not perfect, but it is just a lesson. And it actually looks like something. And I think the difference was that she allowed us to use a pencil to sketch it in beforehand. Honestly, who made the rule that you're not allowed to sketch the picture before you paint it? If it makes your painting better, why not? 
Anyway, remember last week's post, when I told about the instructor trying to teach us how to draw cubes using vantage points? Well, we all had to do that first in this class and we all ended up with envelopes. With a strange-looking cube in the middle. I decided this was one painting I was not taking home. My cube looked like Salvador Dali had painted it. I didn't want that stupid thing in my house. However, when I think about how much a Salvador Dali painting is worth, maybe I should have kept it. LOL!
Each week, I debate about whether or not I should go to class. And so far I keep deciding to go back. We'll see what happens next week. Meanwhile, I need to go get my stuff together for tomorrow night's Machine Quilting class.

Third Acrylic Painting Class - 30/09/14

This class's masterpiece: 

Actually, this came at the end of the class and I had to add the coloured spots ("flowers") after class. Our class started with this:

The instructor calls it gesturals. Gesturals? Maybe I'm misunderstanding the term, but fruit and vegetables can't gesture. I call them charcoal sketches. She actually had the nerve to take my charcoal and add lines to my apple on the right. Grrr!. I don't think that's very good art instructor technique. Tell me how to do it, or demonstrate on your own paper how to do it, but don't touch my drawing. Anyway, I still think I'm better at sketching than I am at painting. And  maybe I will take a drawing class, but not from her. 
Next, we folded our "gesturals" in half (hence the smudges you can see in my picture) and did this on the other side:

My purple looks more purple in real life than it does in this picture. She called this a colour wheel. How it qualifies as a wheel when it's a rectangle is anyone's guess. And didn't we cover mixing colours in the first class (as well as in kindergarten)? Why am I doing this anyway?
Next we did this:

Ah, now this makes sense. It actually is an art lesson. Except that, as usual, she didn't go into detail on exactly how we should blend our colours to make them gradually fade from light to dark. And you should have seen how she was trying to teach us to draw a cube. She started going on about vanishing points and drawing in different vanishing points - I think there were three of them. I was just watching in mostly stunned silence and then picked up my brush and made my own cube, while everyone else in the class was trying to follow the instructor and they ended up with what looked more like envelopes. Or something that didn't at all resemble a cube. Then she had to go around the class and take each person's brush (except mine) and draw a cube on their papers for them since she had helped them all mess it up so badly. Her remark to me: "Oh, you drew one freehand?" Amazing concept that I could actually draw one freehand!
And then, with 15 minutes left in the class, we began the painting that's at the top of this post. She said she would teach us how to do a quick flower painting. This is certainly not what I expected when she said that. Oh and she took my brush and was marking lines on my painting for me to show me where each different shade in the foreground should begin and end. I had to grit my teeth as she got muddy coloured paint in my purple strokes. Well, it took longer than 15 minutes and I wasn't having so much fun that I wanted to stay that late. That's why I added my coloured blobs afterwards. And I really don't think they look great. And here's my facebook post from after class:
Leaving my third acrylic painting class tonight, I was carrying two large pieces of art paper that I had painted on plus a small canvas board painting, in addition to my box of art supplies, as well as a bag for the supplies that didn't fit in the box. And my purse. None of the paintings were completely dry. As a result, they shared the paint among themselves and generously bestowed some on my purse as well.
The next morning when I went to get into my truck, I discovered that I had also gotten paint on the side of the seat. So not impressed. I haven't had a chance to try to clean it off yet, but I did manage to clean my purse. You can also see some of the resulting mess on my paintings. I did manage to keep the front of the canvas board clean, however, not that this picture is anything I intend to hang anywhere. Maybe if I had an outhouse... 

Second Art Class

I don't think I enjoyed this art class any more than the previous one. We did the lesson that we were supposed to do last week with the black and white paint. The lesson was on value. Here's my finished product:

Before we did this, we did what the instructor calls "gesturals." Each of the class members went to the front and struck a pose. Then the rest of us had two minutes to sketch her with fine charcoal, looking at our paper as little as possible. I actually enjoyed that part of the class more than anything as I think I probably have more sketching talent than painting talent. Unfortunately, I did not take a picture of my gesturals as they are on the back of my value study above. As you can see, it's still a little wet. Not only that, but light sketching on charcoal probably wouldn't show up well on camera. Especially not when it's got wet black paint on the reverse side.
After doing the value study, we had to do a still life in grayscale. For your information, I really do not like most still life pictures. We were not to add any perspective, so here's my result:

It was a fish-shaped bowl and a spoon. And we could do anything we wanted with the background. On the right is my value study I completed at home. However, I used math for calculating the colours and ended up with too much dark. How did I use math, you ask? Well the first square is 8/8 white, the next square is 7/8 white, followed by 6/8 white and so on down to 8/8 black. Quite different from the one I did in class today, but you can still tell that they are all different colours. 
So far, my paintings for class are so kindergarten-ish. I suppose I shouldn't feel bad about that since a lot of the so-called great painters' works look pretty kindergarten-ish as well. And speaking of great painters, the instructor has a computer projecting on the screen at the front of the class, so while we are working, she will look up different artists and display their work. She asks us which artists we want to see. I'm not sure who decides what great art is, but most of it is not so great to me. A lot of it looks like just blobs of paint on a canvas. Seriously, I really do like Thomas Kinkade's paintings, but the instructor just ignored me when I mentioned him. I know they're not considered great art. But they are so pretty. And peaceful. I would like to just walk into one of them and never come back. And they certainly are popular. Obviously, "the people" think they are pretty great. It's the artistic authorities (whoever they are) that have determined that they are not great art. Perhaps they are just jealous that Thomas Kinkade's art actually sells. 
So I asked for Glen Loates. The instructor didn't even know who he is. But she did google him and bring up some of his images. I don't think she really likes art that actually looks like what it's supposed to look like. But I do. If I had the choice between hanging a Van Gogh or a Kinkade in my living room, I'd definitely pick the Kinkade. Or the Loates or the Bateman. Currently, I have some of my daughter's and my mother's paintings in my living room. And that's good enough for me. 
Here's my very first painting (I'm not counting the lesson paintings that I did for class):

I actually completed it last night. It's a Painted Trillium. Not great, but not bad for my first attempt. I didn't do this for class, either. I just did it because I wanted to do it. And I think I wanted to prove to myself that I could do better than that horrible thing I did for my first class. 

Anyway, I have also enrolled in a couple of painting classes on Craftsy. I think I will probably enjoy them more than my night school class. We'll see. I thought after I left class tonight: "Only 4 more classes to go. I'm 1/3 of the way through." LOL. That's pretty sad to feel that way about a class that I'm supposed to be taking for fun.

Meanwhile, Mystery developed an eye problem - he was actually bleeding from his eye. So I had to take time off work to take him to the vet today. Now I'm having to put eye drops in twice daily. But the eye already looks much better. I've got a follow up appointment October 1st.