watching paint dry this week.... stretching my creativity

 

For my quilt making update, I did baste the three layers of this quilt (my Portal) together. I safety pin the layers, backing is a lovely fall print, batting is warm and natural, the top was made a bit ago. It's the back breaking task I dislike the most in quilting. It's ready to machine quilt now! yea! but....

... my beloved Bernina 1630 sewing machine began failing just as this was ready to go. I have replaced the motherboard in it, twice,  at Hinkletown Sewing in PA. They charge a couple hundred, the other stores charge thousands. I am no longer near Hinkletown... WAH!!! 

so... no quilting for me for now. Do you quilters love your domestic machine? what is it??? help! I'm not paying 22,000 for the new Bernina y'all, but I need to be able to quilt my own quilts!

Oh and my personal color of the month for RSC is gray, so I started the EPP circle this week by hand, 

I didn't have a gray dotted fabric for the hexies so I'm shopping from my small stash of gray scraps! I like the different values and patterns here though! 

I'll share some of my paintings instead...

I love how this came out... a close up

I like the moody nature of it, the way paint blended when wet, the idea of little birds

and the moon! clap clap clap! whee!

The next technique was taught in Sketchbook Revival by Linda Germain... take a magazine... cut out a 3" square from the bottom of a kleenex box to use as a crop to view the magazine pages...

I feel I learned so much from just going over the pictures this way. Finding angles, composing the photo differently, noting the parts I like the best. 

Oooo the curvy lines, the colors turquoise with coral, with gold

until you find 6-8 images. Trace and cut out the cropped part of the image

you'll be drawing then painting just this image in your sketchbook. 

the teacher said to leave room for your drawing. Then turn the image to the side or upside down and just draw the lines you see inside the square. Turning it changes it from, say, a vase to just lines. Fill in any details you like, then paint. 

AMAZING! and fun! 

Have I mentioned Sketchbook Revival is free online, Karen Abend brings together about 30 artists to teach us each  year. A close up...

magazine on top, my interpretation under that

I'm doing it again since it's so fun! 

This workshop got me to use supplies I had but haven't tried yet, like gouache. I am a watercolorist and gouache is a water based paint that is opaque. Like acrylics without the plastic binder to give me migraines, and flat not shiny. 

I was afraid to try them! wha??? 

Are you ever nervous to try a new tool like a specialty ruler, a different kind of paint, a technique? 

The teacher squeezed a large amount into cups to mix into new colors. I don't have that many plastic cups, so I just used a few yogurt lids as a mixing palette...

worked like a charm. I've used the same lids all week on many other lessons, because that pink morphed into coral, and orange, the greens and purples and yellow morphed into that mossy color. Just a drop of water from my brush, and they are ready to use again! I LOVE the effect they give. 

Oh I have just watched the lesson video so far... afraid to go whole hog into them but I will before the time is up... 

I draw and or paint a thumbnail of each teacher on my page too. This was a lesson to make bold random abstract marks first, then add blobs of paint, then collage on top, then paint, write or whatever you think of....

looks like a hot mess from here but in person you see the tree, the vignettes of flowers and sun etc. Yep, that pink/coral flower was from the leftover gouache on the lid, along with the purple. I cut words into a flower shape, glued it down and daubed gouache over it. 

Not fine art but lots of fun, and it was very different from the teacher's work. 

Michaelangelo said, "I'm always learning" 

I did more lessons to share, that I'll save for another post later, some will go on Thursday's "I like" post