and a child shall lead them

I was watching a watercolour tutorial and my grandson asked if that was art!  I said yes and he said, "Let's do it!".

I did the part where liquid was used and I really liked it.  It drys permanent and it sprays wonderfully.  We tried several things and sometimes he was more successful than I!

He sprayed on a stencil on some scrap paper and I captured the stencil print on extra watercolour paper.

I found the colours to be very vibrant even when diluted. We used the same stencil but moved it over a wee bit for the second colour and that was enlightening. ;)

While everything was drying we turned to making stamps and using acrylics.  He made a LOT of confetti with my cutter but we did get a house built into the existing landscape.

A left handed boy and zig zag scissors was a challenge so we switched to regular scissors. The little bits of leftover zigs and zags turned out to be fantastic for adding leaves to the main canopy!

Yes, Josh.  It is ART!

Looking for trees

My Tuesday gal and I took a day trip through the country looking for good photo opportunities.  I tend to be a quick lets do it and get going kind of gal.  But as I was waiting I actually SAW the trees I'd been focusing on reflected in the water.  I really do need to slow down and LOOK!

I flipped the settings to black and white and braked at interesting trees.  :)

Now I'm thinking I should also be studying the limb structure so kinda bald trees were photo worthy.  lol

This poor old house needs a tree or two.  I so wanted my Rooster to see it and say, "Lets buy it and fix it up!".  He wouldn't.  His 'let's tackle it' gene is getting kind of arthritic and this photo does not show the serious deterioration on the far side. vbsigh

I think our trees have been under some stress these past few years.  But again, I need to see the structure.

 We have a very windy river that meanders through the countryside and we kept crossing it.

There was a huge old cottonwood all by itself along a lonely road.  I couldn't hardly get a shot of the top from close up.

And then there are the little guys who bravely cling despite adverse conditions.

What fun!  We finished up with some ice cream under some old but shady trees.  It is amazing what one can see when one starts looking!  ;) ;)

KISS

I thought I was kissing!  lol

But once again I was trying to do way too much and way too fast!

So divide and conquer!

Should I do trees? 

Closed trees?

Open trees?

What colours?

Trees will take some time to get to full leaf!  ;)  I must do more drawing and experimenting.

Should I do houses?

I am not sure I want cute.  So again I need to do some thinking about houses.

Or should I do some sorta quick improvisational blocks with this 'had to have' fabric that fell into my hand as I was searching through the stash and get them up while I decide which series to work in?

Conclusion:

It is okay to do laundry on 3Mt days as it gives small breaks to think away from all the options.  lol

The quick fix, the instant gratification will be to cut and sew improvisational blocks for a wall hanging for my naked front room wall.  Small size, big reward.

While I sew I will think about bright and bold and wonky.  It may need a place in another 'soon to be decorated' spot in the house.  Kitchen?  :O 

Trees have always been a big draw. My round robin quilt began with a tree of life block.  I think I will start sketching, photographing, playing with trees. This will not really feel like something I want to smack my lips about and savour the sweetness but it is a good and simple start to something I am going to be happy to blow kisses at when I finally get it up on my wall. 

There are sweet, soft, wet kisses from my wee grand kiddies.  Then there are the firm, 'so glad to see ya' from my Rooster!  Each have there place and I hope to blow a few from my own fingertips as I  do some "whoa, Nellie!" and settle down to smell the trees!  ???   mmmwaaa!

I see says the blind man!

I am reading slowly, "Photography, the art of seeing", by Freeman Patterson who originates from The Maritimes.

He starts off by saying there are barriers to seeing.

1) Let go of self and that includes all our preconceived concepts, concerns, and expectations.  Have fun looking and let the mental winds relax!  :)  Try capturing something from bending down and shooting between ones legs!  I really did this upside down! lol

Here is another.  While I fool around, the Rooster is hard at work! oops!  Coming, dearie!!!

2) To handle all the stimuli around us we select and organize.  While this is probably a good thing it can lead to tunnel vision.  It is just a tree!  But in isolating a part of that tree...

3) In our need to identify objects we develop labels.   But this stops us from seeing.  Roads are either paved or gravel!   But are they?   Darn dog now has two roads thru the yard! And the tulips under the first tree are where that large dog chose to lay! :)

The key to seeing is involvement!

So...

                                      Consider the ordinary as a complete composition it itself.

Get up close and personal!

 Tell a story with your picture. We all have stories to share about how we look at things.  I'll continue to stay involved with my seeing.  I must say that I am enjoying it!

Wow Fabric in an Altered Book

Lesson 16 from Elizabeth's Altered Book tutorial is due.  It is all about adding fabric to the books and includes fabric dyeing, resists, cloth beads and other embellishments. This series has been way more work than I ever thought but I am happy I have done as much as I have and I'm even happier that I like this book. I think we are nearing the end and I'm looking forward to going through each page, adding the necessary continuity to the various pages and putting it all in place and fixing a nice cover for it.  A finished project!  shh, I mustn't jinx that motivation!

I have dyed and painted on fabrics before.

So for this project I mostly wanted to use fabric that was already available for the book.  I just freehand cut or sliced cotton fabric, most of which I have dyed.  I had a momentary thought of making a leaf stamp for a background layer but I'm realizing I like simple.

I gessoed the page remembering to incorporate the page beside it.  I just used acrylic folk paint which I watered down and kinda blended to try to match the green on the left hand page.  I dabbed the brush in and around the green areas.  Snoopy hasn't figured too prominently in the book but I have saved bits of the gang here and there.  The ducky ribbon did not work on the preceding page so I peeled it off and used the gel medium to try to get it on the tornado page. lol  hmm, I might have trimmed it this second time. ?  Dare I rip again???

I need to work on my tree shape but the beauty of using fabric or even paper strips is you can play, position and remove more effectively than you can with brush strokes!

This trunk needed more height but I ran out of page and I need to loose the hour glass shape!  lol  It is all glued down with gel medium and this one is Golden Soft Gel (Semi Gloss).

The idea for this came from a colour wheel made from pencil crayon points I saw during this past week.  I also have somewhere an old kindergarten art page master that uses a basic tree shape and you added construction paper leaves.  If I find it I think I'll clone it as it could be a stencil, a mask, a ???.  And it is not hour glass shaped but more vase shaped.  Now what if...

I'm sure my fellow Needle and Thread workers have lots more good ideas.

Can't see the trees

That's because they are sideways. ;^(

I wanted to make a quilt that kinda looked like you were looking through a clump of trees. No sky or ground, just trunks. I had changed the colours in the veranda so that quilt wasn't needed so I made a runner to ' get it out of my system'.

I took my runner to sewing class and brought home a couple of giveaway fabrics. On checking them out when I got home I see that I wasn't even close to what I'd envisioned.

But in the interest of 'doing my own thing' I plugged away on my new colour palette for the veranda. A tree in each block.

The more 'trees', the more I felt like I needed an axe. LOL

Here is what I learned:

I needed many more prints. This was a stash quilt and I think the print fabrics were a give away to which I added mostly tone on tones or solids.

I think I need to work with either all solids and TOT's or all prints and 1 solid. I don't seem to appreciate the old rule of 1 large scale print, a couple of medium prints (geometric), a solid and an accent.

I also need to remember that the quilt shrinks, particularly up when I am sewing it all together. I wanted this quilt square or at least long looking. It is 5 feet by 5 feet 6 inches. awk!

It is good to push the colour palette, but not too far. I left the few trees in the light brown but quickly saw the backgrounds didn't work so I only had to rip out the first one I'd sewn into a row.

And I need to stay home but I have NOTHING for a backing. I persevered to stay on top of this project and not have another ufo but a whole cloth coordinating print is gonna be preferable to spending days on piecing some kind of backing and nothing is looking at all promising.

Now I need to add that bit on the bottom corner, square it up, find a backing and get it quilted. I'm leaning to straight lines, more trees. Not a real crowd pleaser but I learned a thing or three! AND- it is kind of an outdoors quilt, a lawn blanket!


But I think I like it best- SIDEWAYS!

Finding a FINE Finish for Friday

My little word theme for Fridays has been such a motivator. Who knew!

I learned some technique things but I think I've learned even more about myself. 8^)

I really don't need 52+ page sized little quiltlets. That doesn't include the ones from last year. sheesh. So I've just been trying to finish something to end the week with. I'm getting stuff done. I'm also "putting off short term pleasure, for long term gain" to quote my rooster's favorite 'you need to grow up' speech.

So today I said 'no' to what I wanted to do and did what I had said I wanted to do.


I made my small runner inspired by light barked trees against a sky.


Not quite what I envisioned but a great try; I learned a thing or three, and I really do like it. :)

That's why it isn't quite finished because I want to hand stitch the binding.

Perhaps I'll have a better picture when I sum up the week tomorrow.

And this is what I really wanted to work on:

Still Windy

This is a weeping willow. It has 2 main trunks. The larger trunk that is behind split and tore badly a couple of years ago. You can see the rod that was put to stabilize it while we decided what to do. We planted a young tree farther out and kept the original for some protection/shade. But the little guy is struggling. I was for maybe moving it and then taking out that bigger trunk and leaving this smaller trunk. But we have had some tremendous winds these last few days and the options are lessening. It is close to the house but these driving winds have always toppled things towards the lawn rather than the house. These willows are pretty tough and many of the non weeping are used in the farm shelter belts. They take a lot before they finally succumb and give up. But a focal tree should be attractive!

There is an ash tree closer to the house that thumps on the roof and it's replacement is doing nicely and it will definitely be going very soon.

We'll see what greets me when I return with my veranda supplies. Hopefully I won't get blown to the city and back! 8)