Teaching Local

Starting in March, I'll be teaching at Quiltworks Northwest in Bellevue, WA!   Some of the classes are designs from my book or pattern line, but others are brand new, like my floral vest, embellished bag, and stamp carving for quilters.  To see more and sign up for my classes go to their website HERE.

Floral Vest:

Sunflower Garden:

Stamp Carving for Quilters:

Crepe-Paper Poppies:

Beaded Bags:

Summer Blooms:

What I've been up to

is a little of everything.

Because I know many of you love Pinterest, and I had told you not to pin my work, I've decided to start placing a copyright on them, so that you can pin them if you wish.  That way, the pictures will be traceable back to me and my ownership of them will not be lost.

The Improv Berries quilt is now pin basted and ready for me to begin quilting.  This will be a slightly new adventure, since I've decided to try Tuscany Wool Batting, and it's at least twice as thick as the cotton I've been using.  My friend Richla said many of the people she does long arm quilting are requesting she use wool, and I've heard quilts with wool batting don't crease as much as those with cotton batting when they have been folded, so it's time to try it.  There just happened to be a package of Tuscany in my batting closet that was the right size for this project, so that's how I chose this brand (I also have some other battings in there to try in the future).

Here's a little watercolor from one of my journals.  The paper is handmade that I purchased in a little packet at Daniel Smith to make the journal with.  In between the watercolor pages are card stock pages that I can use for other media or notes.

I'm also taking an online class at Joggles, called "Creating History and Mystery" which is a wonderfull learning experience for me.  My homework is on several mixed media pieces on watercolor paper and art boards that are in progress at the same time.  There are many layers of paint and other materials.

This first one is on an art board.   The left portion has a transfer on the left side, which I plan to make more visible by adding color in future layers, while the right side has a dimensional, stenciled leaf, which I have painted.

The next one may be finished, but I could still add more if I change my mind.  It is painted on watercolor paper, using leftover paint from the art board paintings.

This one is an experiment with different gels and pastes, as well as other techniques, and the paper that you see will be rubbed away to reveal the transfer once it is dry.  The circles and wheel shapes were stamped on using an empty thread cone that I had saved.

The fish will hopefully appear once the paper is rubbed off of this watercolor paper painting.  The teacher referred to the ones we make with leftovers on watercolor papers as our throw away sheets, and she is right in that they are coming out just as beautiful as my "real" painting projects, just different!

I've already rubbed the paper off this passion flower transfer and will add color once it has dried.

There are already many layers on these paintings, and yet more will be added as my journey to finish them continues!

Watercolor Excercise

I've been playing with my watercolors again.  This time I'm working from a lesson in Watercolor Magazine, working in an improvisational way to make a watercolor painting that looks like it might have been a collage.  It's all free-form, adding shapes as I went and shading to create depth.  I used a screen shaped window, saved from bags of fall bulbs to stencil the grids of squares and rubber stamps to create the complex designs.

Holding Hands - Pastel Painting

Although I did complete this painting on Monday, I'm just getting around to posting it.  You know, it's that time of year when we are all busy...  Anyways, last week's challenge was LOVE, and the  only way I thought I could try to represent it with my limited pastel skills was holding hands.

My sketches:

The pastel painting:

With each painting I learn something new!

Amir's Ibis

This past week's challenge was "JOY", and although I had some ideas, I didn't know how to represent them in pastel, as I'm still such a beginner in the medium. For me, joy is time spent learning this new medium, and if I look at it that way, I did succeed, because I did a painting, and learned while working on it!

My husband took this picture of an Ibis on one of his photography trips, and I thought I'd try to recreate it in pastel.

Of course, it looks like a beginner's painting, because it is, but since it takes practice to get better, I'm practicing!  At least I can tell it's supposed to be an Ibis:-)

Details: pastel, with watercolor underpainting, on 12" x 16" on  Ampersand Pastelboard.

Current and Future Challenges

I'm continuing to participate in the Holiday Paint Out on Facebook.  This week's challenge is the word "JOY", and  I'm still trying to think of a way to represent it in a painting.

For next year, I've joined Take a Stitch Tuesday (TAST) which will be a year long challenge devoted to learning and using different embroidery stitches, as well as seeing what varieties we can come up with.  It's my hope that I'll not only learn from the challenge, but it will also inspire me to finish a large crazy quilt that I have in progress.  The crazy quilt blocks are finished, but need to be put together into a quilt, which is not as easy as it sounds, because they are very heavily embellished, and I know it all needs to be stabilized with more than the usual tacking stitches that crazy quilters use.  I'm thinking I need to be untraditional with it, using batting and hand quilting to hold it all together (machine stitching just wouldn't be right, and there is no way a machine could quilt the blocks anyways)!

Hurricane Ridge

People always seem to be amazed at all the different things I've learned to do, and although I've learned how to do some things from family and classes, I've learned even more from kits, books and videos.   This year I decided to participate in the Holiday Paint Out that CCP Videos is hosting. I missed the first prompt, which was COMMUNITY, so I'm starting with the second prompt, which is PEACE.  

In late summer, my husband and I took a trip to Olympic National Park, and traveled up Hurricane Ridge.  The views are spectacular, and when we hiked along the ridge it was so peaceful, and if it is possible, a more beautiful view around every bend in the trail.  So after thinking of several ways to represent peace, I decided I wanted to paint from one of the pictures I took when we were there.  It is painted in pastel.

Here's the first layer:

My finished painting:

The original photograph:

Details:  pastel on 9" x 12" Wallis sanded paper.

Watercolor Pumpkins

A couple weeks ago, we harvested some little sugar pumpkins from our garden, and I've been trying to paint them ever since.  I'm fairly happy with the first two, but the last one is still in need of help, but I think it will be left as is, because it is the best I can do at this time:-)

For the first two pumpkin paintings, I decided to paint first and outline afterwards, and being an experiment of sorts, I took pictures before inking, and although I liked the pumpkins without the ink, I really needed ink on the sign and decided to go ahead and ink them, so I would be able to compare them later.  I think in this case, the pumpkins looked more realistic without the ink.  What can I say, other than don't be afraid to experiment, live and learn!

This one was painted last week.  I did the outlines before painting and was very unhappy with the way I left it.  This weekend, I did the best I could to fix the sign, which was really bothering me.  No, the finished painting (above) isn't perfect, but it looks better than it did (below), and I learned a lot about the paper and paints I've been using for these.

Fall Flowers in Watercolor

It's amazing what a little ink can do!  This little painting was begun with the intention of creating a traditional watercolor painting (without the black outlines), however, the painting had other ideas and I was very unhappy with it until I added them.

Madrona Collage

Using some of my hand painted collage papers, paint and painting mediums, on a larger than I've ever worked canvas, I've tried to combine abstract and realistic forms in this Madrona collage.

More Watercolor Practice

I'll probably add some words or something else when I get back to the teapot, cream and sugar.

Little Watercolor Paintings

Still practicing watercolor painting! 

These two are still a work in progress:

with this one being a bit larger.

Watercolor Practice

I've been practicing my painting skills (more like learning by doing), and have been a bit slow to post the pictures that have been hiding in my camera, so here are a few:

As you can probably tell, I'm painting things in my kitchen, because I'm painting IN the kitchen:-)

Painting Homework

For those of you who hadn't noticed, I tend to work in batches and bursts, working, playing and learning in other media, which help me to re-fuel and also find their way back into my work (sometimes).  In the background of everything else I have had going on recently, I've been working on some watercolor paintings for the online class, Sketchbook and Watercolor: Journal Style class with Jane LaFazio, and thought you might like to see my newest paintings.

First the apple.  Simple fruit shapes are usually what artists are assigned to paint first.  I think it is because many have an overall simple shape that is easier to get started with, but then you need to find a way to make it interesting, by looking for details in the fruit.

Hopefully, I've managed to make it appear real in my painting:

While I'm not a fan of figs (too sweet), my husband is, and I wouldn't let him eat all of them before I had a chance to paint them too:

And then when he was out mowing the grass, he came across some beautiful mushrooms, and was nice enough to bring one inside for me to paint (I only kept it in as long as I had to, and we used gloves to move it, because we thought it might be the poisonous variety he looked up on the internet).

Painting With Jane LaFazio - continued

I'm way behind on my homework in Jane's class (Sketchbook & Watercolor:  Journal Style, at Joggles), but making progress (yea, I still have quite a bit of a mess to clean up after bringing all the vendor booth stuff home, but I'm temporarily ignoring it, in order to get things done that need to get done right now).  Last night, I drew and painted a Sweet dumpling squash, beginning with a pencil drawing, ink, and then painting.  I wish my pictures were better, but at least I'm showing my "model" and the painting:-)

This morning, in between, bouts on the computer, I've been painting again, this time a dark green winter squash that didn't have a label.  I'm thinking it might be a Kabocha squash, but don't know for sure.  This one was "straight to pen", drawing with my pen without a pencil sketch to start with:

Painting With Jane LaFazio

In between everything else, I'm also taking an online class, Sketchbook and Watercolor:  Journal Style at Joggles with Jane LaFazio.  I must admit to be behind with my homework, but am reading the lessons as they are posted, and hoping to catch up later.

This past weekend I was able to do a couple quick paintings in a tiny journal in my hotel room, from leaves collected outside.  The lesson was on "green" leaves, but sometimes we have to make do, and use what we can find, and since the leaves had turned in that area, mine aren't green.  When painting the first one, I forgot to leave some white (oops), but I remembered when painting the second leaf.  I do love the way the second leaf came out, and am hoping to do more painting in the future. 

Mountain Meadow - landscape

With just the illusion of flower fields, I think it's finished. What do you think?