Faces

Today, after the Fibervision business meeting, member Rene Jennings led a fantasy faces workshop. She wanted to make this last workshop of 2008 easy and fun and she certainly succeeded. Rene brought all the supplies and gave us basic instructions, encouraging us to relax and just play with the prepared fabrics. Thanks, Rene, we had a great time. I think mine is going to need a neck and some shoulders though, right now it kind of looks like a skeletal floating pirate head (perhaps I am still under the influence of my earlier Halloween post).

Mary Norton gave me permission to post a photo of her face, too. Love those eyelashes!

Promoting My Favorite Artists

The art quilt group I belong to, Fibervision, has a show coming up in October. I've got the top of one new piece finished, I'm certain I will have it done in time. Was hoping for more than one new piece, but time is getting short.

Back to the World

Last week I was fortunate enough to spend three days taking a workshop with artist Liz Berg at Sandy Turner's Out of Hands and Hearts retreat at Cambria Pines Lodge in Cambria, California. The workshop focused on principles of design in order to create successful abstract art. I didn't think to take photos during the workshop, nor are the small pieces I created in the class worth posting, but the class was a great opportunity to hear how the creative process works for one of my favorite artists and provided me with inspiration and plenty to think about as I go about creating my own work in the future.

Of course, I returned to the office today, landing with a solid thud in the midst of daily life. I know my life is pretty darned good, but I certainly miss days filled with art, having my meals provided on a regular schedule, a room straightened and vacuumed daily by someone else, and happy hour with Cadillac Margaritas at half price while chatting and laughing with like-minded women. Now that I've spent some time with Jim, slept in my own bed a few nights and done some laundry, I'm ready to go back. Sigh.

The two top photos above were taken on the grounds at Cambria Pines Lodge. I love the sense of humor that came up with the "flower bed." The crow was at this fountain almost every time I walked by and seemed very comfortable with having people around. The third photo is some flotsam washed up on Moonstone Beach that caught my attention as a very appealing natural composition.

Coming back to bite me ......

Ya know the old saying about your words coming back to bite you? Well, I think I'm bit! Here is a photo of the piece I am working on to enter in the Buddha Abides show. I am pleased with it so far...... but ......

Sometime back, fellow fiber artist Judy Rys and I were discussing the quilting aspect of our work and I told her I felt pretty lucky because the quilting pattern usually came to me along with the vision of the work content. So, dear reader, you can probably guess that I haven't a clue what to do with this. I stare at it for awhile, close my eyes and try to visualize it quilted, picked the threads in the hope that would kick start me, but nooooo, still no inspiration. I decided to just forget about it for about a day and see if anything wafted into my head, but again, no. I came in this afternoon after attending the Santa Barbara Symphony and, I swear, it smirked at me. I don't think it is appropriate for a Buddhism-themed piece to be so argumentative. There's probably a lesson here, I'll keep you posted.

Beading with Deana Hartman

Today I took a beading class taught by Deana Hartman and sponsored by Coastal Quilters Guild of Santa Barbara and Goleta. It was well attended and so much fun. I have a gazillion beads, picked up at various quilt shows and at bead shops I have visited under the influence of friends but, until now, I have scattered beads here and there on the occasional quilt, without understanding the true value of the little glass treasures. I'm a changed woman, now! Deana is a talented and organized teacher and taught many stitches, simple and advanced, but I was so fascinated with the effects of the bead collage that it was all I did. Here is a detail of the area I spend the majority of my time today:

Wolf Moon is a small quilt that I made several years ago when I was making a series of quilts based on names of the full moons from various folk or Native American traditions. I liked it before, but it is really turning into something special now.

A Completed Piece!

I finally finished this piece that has been featured in various stages in previous posts. It is called November 2007 and will, hopefully, be included in a Fibervision show at the Architectural Foundation here in Santa Barbara. It feels good to have completed a quilt after such a long dry spell and I am feeling inspired and ready to get to work on some other ideas that are floating around in my head. Jurying for the Buddha Abides show will be coming up pretty soon and I want to be ready for that.

Progress

I am making some headway on my latest project! Here is a photo and a detail of some fabric I printed using screens created with PhotoEZ. I love the PhotoEZ method of creating screens because I can go from an idea or drawing to a finished screen in about 15 minutes. I learned about the product when I took a workshop sponsored by Wearable Art Connection taught by Ginny Eckley at Quilter's Studio. Below is the screen I used for this project, made from an original drawing inspired by the photo of the liquid amber tree that I took and posted on Nov. 15, 2007. You can see what this fabric looked like before I printed on it on my post of Dec. 5, 2007, it is in the lower photo on the right.

Sharing the joy of fabric painting

Today, Judy Rys and I painted some fabric. She wanted to see the technique I use in some of my fabric painting. This is my piece of fabric in the beginning. Paint, salt, and water is down, now it is just a matter of waiting to see the end result. Check out Judy's blog for more photos and her fabrics.