every-single-day

Awakening.

A package came in the mail yesterday and when I saw it came from Jeannie and felt that it was soft, I had an inkling and knew it was an exciting package. So I didn't open it (somewhat counter intuitive, I know). Instead, I waited until it would have my full focus. When I went ahead and opened it, I was ready to enjoy. It brought tears. Of course.

Foam shapes to use as stamps. Lots of arrows, a favorite motif of mine, which I don't think I have shared, excepting of course that my cat's name is Arrow.

And kimono scrap. Amen. Can we all say, 'kid in a candy shop'? Thank you Jeannie. You will also be getting a private thanks, but the swag imagery was too good to keep to myself.

I recently wandered the web and by way of Jude Hill's site, found Danielle Barlow's blog, Notes from the Rookery. With a name like that, I had to go. Can you believe I won this print? She is newly jazzed by sewing and she loves to draw and paint. Please go say hello.

When I was at Notes from the Rookery, I stumbled on a link to Janet Bolton's book Patchwork Folk Art which I promptly purchased. I have fallen in love with this little book. And so I have put thread to the needle and am studying her approach.

This will be a self portrait.

Beside all this, my retreat was fantastic. I was able to shed light on a spot of depression and had a chance to cry. I danced, did yoga, ate well and went to the whirlpool. All this and I came home to new blogging software (expect some changes as I get to know how to use it!).

So, retreat, awesome mail, learning opportunities, what more can be better?

A hoot and a toot! toot! Toot!

I am doing some Top Secret art making for a proposed magazine article. And Top Sectret means...well? hm.

Instead I give you this:

Cuteness.

So this weekend I am going away for three nights and four days to a Yoga Retreat. A yoga dance retreat, no less. I will be without Internet connection, gasp! Hooray! This is the Hoot!

Now for the Toot(s):

So now, I have a facebook fan page set up and what to do with it? I am going to start talking snippets of inspiration and daily thoughts on art making. They will be quick, they will have lots of links and will encourage you to expand. I hope you will book mark it and follow me there too. When I get back from my...YOGA RETREAT!!! I am going to post a creative challenge over there. I am not going to talk up the fan page much here. Now and again but this will be the last of it for a while.

And I would like to let folks know of upcoming classes that I will be teaching. I would love to meet you and have the opportunity to work together creatively. I love to teach and am passionate about enabling you to learn.

International Quilt Festival Chicago
April 16-18, 2010
Lecture and Pretty Purses and Small Works, Big Impact

I cannot link directly to these classes (bummer) because you need to create an account and look at the catalog. But this event is fast approaching and I would love to FILL these classes.

Art and Soul
May 20-24, 2010
Soy Wax with Paint and Inspired Journaling, every-single-day!

I am excited about this event because I will be embracing the mixed media side of my creative approach and teaching a class on journaling and Soy Wax with paints! yum.

So, while I am away, know that I will miss you but that I will be having fun and hope you will too.

And, well, if I am going to toot my own horn perhaps I will also give a shout for Alma Stoller's Paynes Grey Portraits online workshop. I really like Alma and her style. Her use of layering is right up my alley.

Give away alerts?

Head over to Lyric Kinards blog and help her to name her newsletter. She will be giving away some notecards.

Jane LaFazio is giving away one of her DVD's! Check her out.

When you click over there, please say hello for me.

Down the rabbit hole.

It was a bumpy start, but a start none the less. I say this because I started reading about the birds on the list.

I opened two internet windows, one for Audubon Common Birds In Decline site and the other for the Cornell Ornithology Lab site. And the Cornell Ornithology Lab cites the Evening Grosbeak as a bird of Least Concern, backed by a site called the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.

Now, I am no researcher.

What I know so far is that Audubon has based it's research on many years of citizen science. They have tabulated numbers from 40 years of bird counts and those numbers show that these birds are in decline.

What I didn't understand is the difference between these two highly regarded sources. This is the first time I have come across the IUCN Red List and I will assume they are firmly grounded in the scientific community. But I would like to understand. I have written to the Audubon site. I have written to David Sibley and posted to the Birder's World web site.

And then I started anyway.

Yesterday I got the background of both the cotton and the organza layers finished. I stamped, monoprinted and layered the day away.

Here are the two layers loosely placed, one atop the other.

Now comes the hard part; how to depict the bird. So, true to form, I have set myself up to practice on scrap. The awesome thing about practicing on scrap is that as a result, I have all these random pieces of interesting cloth. Enter the word, Random...

And... I got a response from one of my birdie queries... It is good news (in a manner of speaking) but will have to wait! I am off to have a day.

Still wanting everyone to sign on to my fan page! You could win some of my cloth for doing so!

Scrap advocate

I really do think it is important to keep a scrap of fabric near by your work table. When you have scrap at the ready you can try things out without going straight to your 'good' work. You don't know how many times I just went right into my good piece, then had to compensate for my exuberance.
So this scrap was made as a result of wanting to check out my deconstructed screen print.

But once I had that scrap hanging around my work space, I had to keep working it. I call these my rags. Pretty rags indeed.

I am giving away my own hand printed cloth if you become a facebook fan of Inspired to Quilt, please do! I am going to be hosting a challenge through the site soon.

Facebook Fan Page

I now have an Inspired to Quilt Fan Page on facebook. If you become a fan, you may win one of 5 scrap bags of my own hand dyed and printed cloth. Each bag contains about a fat quarter of printed, color coordinated scraps!

Become a fan and win!

I am going to be hosting some challenges from there and would love to see you there.

Because I would like you to join over there, commenting on this will be closed here.

The 20: a start

It is a snow day! My man is home, we are supposed to get 12 to 16". The subways are sluggish, the streets are quiet. This is the view out my kitchen window. I tried to get a photo of my beggar squirrel, but he took the peanut butter on rice cracker and ran! Doing my duty to keep the little guy warm.

Thank you for all of the encouragement. There are some commenters to the last post that I have not heard from before, and I love comments, don't we all? I was hesitant to post my hopes and dreams of making 20 pieces of art, for a cause I believe in, can I do it? If I post and fail, what of it?

So today I started The 20, for lack of a better name. And I started in spite of my fears and self doubt.

I don't want to start with the Northern Bobwhite, because I have never seen this bird before and it is a land based bird. Do I get all photo realistic with grass or go for my own interpretation. So, I move forward and will approach that little guy when I am further into the project.

I went to the next bird, the Evening Grosbeak.

This is a photo of the map. My general outline for the piece.

I love to understand my subject matter and get an idea for the lay of the artistic land. I want to know what the bird eats, why it's habitat in threatened, what can be done to help preserve what is left of it. I think it would be best to collect as much positive information as I possibly can so that when I am done with the project, my viewer will be able to say, I love Evening Grosbeak and I would like to pick up the fight! I have a Box Elder in my yard and I vow to keep it healthy so the Evening Grosbeak can feed here, if it chooses to. I want to provide answers, not just display a problem.

So I prepare my resists, in this case outlines of Boxelder Maple leaves.

With some resists in place I begin to print the cotton layer.

I don't yet know how I will print the organza layer, maybe plants that attract evening Grosbeak, the outline of the Boxelder Maple? Its a free for all as far as that is concerned.

Off topic, I bought a copy of Janet Bolton's Patchwork Folk Art: Using Appliqu� and Quilting Techniques, and LOVE it. It isn't really a technique book, although it is. It is a verbal journey, a flowing bunch of ideas. I like it a lot.

And thank you! Thank you for commenting and encouraging me to follow my heart. I have taken a first step.

For the birds.

I have this idea.

I know I said that I was looking for an idea. I am ready to make new artwork. I am not convinced of the last posts idea in the least. In fact that idea diminishes by the nanosecond compared with this idea.

You see. I love birds. Everyone who has read this blog, even for the shortest amount of time, should know this. I have wanted to be a bird since I was nine years old and even wrote an essay to the effect. (My best friend wrote that she wanted to be a watermelon seed going through the intestinal tract and got in trouble for it. But that is a whole different story.)

So getting back to it, I have this idea.

There is a list of birds in decline. Just writing those words gives me shivers and makes me want to cry. There are tears in my eyes while I type. See? There is just that much love between me and the birds.

So this is my idea:

I would like to make a piece of art for each bird on the top 20 list.

In a cohesive and uniform size.

With the intention of creating a traveling show to raise awareness of my heart's topic. For the birds.

It frightens me to verbalize this idea. But we only live once and we all live on this planet, weather our wings are are made of dreams or feathers.

Thinking it through.

I am searching for a new piece, a new idea. I am ready to start. Something.

So I opened up journals past and began looking through each page. The above image is a drawing I did just recently. I may have posted it, not sure. But because I now live in a city, I figure it is a good idea to draw using perspective, which is not a strong point of mine. I have never taken a class and don't know the principles of the endeavor. But I try.

This drawing I did a few yeas back and I have to say, I love the ground I used. When I was a poster restoration artist, I would sometimes come across aged papers and oddities. I would save them as I was able and this was one of those. I glued it into this Moleskine and drew this building on top. I love the acid brown, the odd angles, the hidden words on the paper.

So yesterday I combine these two images using photoshop and experimented some with cloth. I didn't like anything that I came up with but I do like this image and would like to work it through some more.

Not lost!

I have been working up a storm. Working so hard, in fact, that a fun deficit occurred. I am now in the process of fixing this deficit! In fact, I have been playing for the last two days and plan to play today! A friend is coming into town and we are going to HANG OUT!

I have been teaching two online classes through Joggles, and creating the content was an intense experience for me. But I created some neat samples which spurred some personal creative growth as well. So, it is like a win, win...win, situation.

Take this bird, which is a page in the mark making book. I created it three different times and each time came up with a totally different image.

I love working with the same image repetitively. It teaches me how to divorce from previous technique and color choice while allowing me time to explore without reinventing the wheel.