Gosh. 

Already, having made only twenty of these, I feel like I'm going to have a LOT of these, but also, feel like I'm going to have gotten a lot better at abstract art by the end of it (which is the goal.)

And then I realized that leaves weren't abstract, so the whole thing was a wash. Oh well!

After the disaster the day before, I was very tentative with this one, and though I liked the colours I chose for both the background and the collaged papers (that bright blue behind the mottled greens and blacks is quite effective); the shapes were wrong. So this one was a failure too. 

But wait, there's more! 

I had had another piece of watercolour paper with a stamp of the leaves in yellow (from when I was practicing with the stamp on day 13); so I covered the whole paper with a number of deeper yellow shades to blend out the leaves. It didn't cover them completely; you could still see the ghost of the leaves, so I started collaging to cover the leaves. 

Because apparently, I didn't learn the lesson from day 14 - that the focus has to be the piece, not some random thing that has nothing to do with what you're making. 

Anyway - this didn't work either, and I was starting to feel a bit like a failure. 

BUTTTTTTTTT! Day 15! Eureka!  I just started painting the background with watercolour paint, and then added some marks with the watercolour pastels. 

I cut out some rings, stuck them down, and then outlined them with a white watercolour crayon. And I LOVED IT!!!

It's like when you're playing golf: every once in a while, the golf gods grant you a great shot, to encourage you to keep playing. Or maybe it's like dangling a carrot in front of a donkey. I'm not sure (lol); but I was encouraged, so it worked, whatever it was. 

On Day 16, I picked out some painted papers that I wanted to work with, and painted a background to go with them. It turned out quite monotone (which I'm starting to realize is kind of my vibe); but maybe a little darker than most people might like. 

At first I was quite pleased with it, then a few hours later, I didn't like it because it was too dark; the next morning when I photographing it, I liked it again, but as I look at it now, I realize that it's not well balanced - your eye kind of gets stuck on the top two thirds, and doesn't move, despite my lighter lines and bubbles - which were my attempt to get your eye moving around it. 

So I'm going to give this one a 6 out of 10. Nice try. Try again. ;)

Day 17, and we're back to that orangey-coppery-rusty palette. It's funny, I don't have a lot of those old book papers, but using even just a bit seems to pull everything orange for me. 

I don't like that the focal point is so centered in this piece, but it was just an accident of trimming - I start with papers that are 11 x 8, and trim them down - and in squaring the edges, the focal point got shifted to the left, which made it too centered. Otherwise, I like the movement in this piece, and the colours are well balanced. 

Day 18, and I thought I would try a couple of different things. Up until now, I had been painting the background and then adding collaged papers on top of an already prepared piece. This time, I decided to a: move away from spheres (I'm starting to feel like this is 100 days of roundish things!); and b: collage first, and then paint over the collaged bits. 

Remembering that I liked the blue from Day 13, I decided to make that colour the focal point, and collaged the blue squares and a rectangle down. As I started painting though, it was just calling out for red, and of course, anytime you put red (or yellow) in something, it automatically becomes the focal point. 

And a couple of spheres managed to get in there too. Naughty hoops! Overall though, I liked this one 

Day 19! 

I painted the peaching background, and then realized that I was trying to get away from those orangey colours - although I'm starting to realize that maybe it's just me. lol  (After all, I have had terra cotta something as a focal point in my house for nearly thirty years - whether it's painted walls, furniture, or currently, my living room carpet.)

So I decided to try and cover most of the background, use some of that blue, and try and really think about composition. 

In the end, I think this is the most successful piece of this group of ten. I'm quite pleased with it, and may even frame it for myself, though lord knows, I already have quite a lot of art on my walls!

Day 20. 

I wanted to try and get away from the orange, so I started with a painted green background, and this time, my whole focus was to try and get the focal point on an angle; and then build around it. The bottom part of that rectangle was not a rip in the whole, but two separate pieces. 

After laying those two pieces down, it seemed to call out for a red square on that bottom right. And then another one, and another one, and then, sure, one more. 

Looked at it for awhile... solid red squares! Threw a few of those on, and then some random mark making with the paintbrush to add some interest, and Day 20 was done. 

It feels like some kind of accomplishment to get here, I have to say, although there's a long way ahead (another 80! best not to think about it!)

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I know last time I posted, I was going to also share with you my progress on the 52 week stitch challenge. The woman who was hosting it likes to stitch on paper, so there was quite a bit of stitching on paper. 

I got to week 9 (remember, I was trying to catch up on that one too); and my hands went into a huge arthritic flare, and I couldn't stitch anymore. My hands were even more swollen than usual, extremely stiff and painful. It's been about a week since I stopped, and the right side of my right hand is *still* throbby and my pinky is very willing to send sharp bolts of pain up my arm when I wash my hands and such. (Boo! Hiss!)

So, I wrote to the host and asked if I could stitch on cloth instead of paper, and she said that there are some things she has planned that just won't work on cloth. She suggested that I use an awl to punch holes in the paper first, and then stitch, (:/) but I decided that I'd rather work on my own embroidery projects than hers. lol 

So I expect that once I can comfortably stitch again, I'll be showing progress on my woodpecker series. 

Hope you're all as well as you can be. Be kind to one another and yourself - this is a very challenging, very sad, and frankly, a very frightening time, if you live in North America. 

Dang. I teared up as I wrote that!

Phew. Sorry about ending on a downer. Sending you comforting vibes. (Thoughts and prayers! lol) 

Talk in another 10 days - or possibly sooner with some stitching on a bird. 

xo

Kit

 

Hello again, and happy March!

The days are flying by really quickly aren't they? 

I've got a lot to share with you today, so let's just jump right in shall we?

Day 7/100

I've been following a woman called Lisbeth Degn on YouTube. I quite like her, but a: her videos are the type that you actually have to watch - you can't just have her cheerfully nattering away in the background; and b: her videos are quite long.

Consequently, I have to have quite a bit of undivided time set aside to spend with her, and as a result of that, I tend to watch her videos once per month, or even once every couple of months.

Day 5/100

This time, I had an MRI scheduled for 4:00 a.m. on Thursday, so I booked a personal day off work, and when I got home around 7, I just got back in bed and decided to watch her until I fell asleep. 

I ended up watching about 6 hours of her videos, in which she talked about two challenges. One, she has joined, and the other, she is hosting herself.

Day 6/100

I decided to join both, but since her challenge started in January, and the other one started last week, I have/had a lot of catching up to do. This post is about #the100dayproject. 

As you can probably put together, the 100 day project is one in which you make a piece of art every day for 100 days.

Day 10/100

I have a TON of painted papers - long time readers may remember that I wipe up/use up my paint waste with good quality paper towels, which I then dry, iron (make sure to iron in a well ventilated room - I'm pretty sure the fumes that off gas in that process aren't good for you), and then put to use in my art.

However, I've been doing this for 20 years now, and I have more of this painted paper than I can conceivably use.

I decided that this project would be an excellent way to use up some of this paper, so decided my broad area of applied art would be "collage", and since I've been wanting to improve my watercolour skills, I decided to make my media watercolour paints, watercolour crayons, and watercolour pastels.

The first one I was just trying to get my hand in, mucking about - throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks, as they say.

Day 1/100

This one is about half the size of the others (which are 8x10 300 gsm watercolour paper), and the first thing I realized; was that I didn't like the size. Although making small pieces means it takes less time, 4x8 just felt too piddly. 

And I also realized that trying to do a figurative water colour every day (which I did years ago and was my introduction to watercolour); PLUS add a collage element, was going to take WAY too much time. 

So, I immediately switched to a larger size, and to abstract. That seemed to suit me better, although (possibly) it wasn't much of a time saver, as each piece takes me at least 2 hours - some of them 3!

That said, once I switched to abstract, I immediately started having a lot more fun. 

I am enjoying the freedom of abstract art, although for me anyway, it's even more difficult than figurative work.

Finding balance is always prominent in my mind as I'm working, but also assigning meaning to what I'm doing is difficult, too.

What I mean by that, is not that I'm trying to have the viewer find meaning in it, but that I don't want to just haphazardly slap stuff on it, and call it good. 

Day 4/100

I haven't studied abstract art, so I don't know what the rules are, but I assume there are some, and knowing what they are would be helpful. Lol

At its most basic, do we use the law of thirds? The golden ratio? I have a dim idea that abstract art is about knowing and being absolutely sure of all the rules in traditional art, so you can "throw them out" in order to make non representational work. Colour, line, texture, pattern and composition - as in all forms of applied art are important, I'm assuming. lol

Well, I certainly can't say I'm an expert at traditional work, so maybe I shouldn't be trying abstract work, but after pounding out 10 of these in 28 hours, over 4 days I can say the following:

1. I am exhausted. Lol
2. My right shoulder is extraordinarily sore
3. When I'm tired, my ideas are fairly mundane 
4. Some of these are more successful than others, regardless of whether I was tired or not
5. So far, days 3-8 feel like "Kit", (3 and 4 less so, but on their way); while 1 and 2 don't feel like me at all, and 9 feels  so little like "me", it may as well have been channeled through me by someone else. Which totally sucks, because I absolutely loved the paper that strip on the left was made from, and was saving it for years for "something special".

I have been busy beavering away at my newest bird in (what's apparently becoming) the woodpecker series; and have many times thought I should do a new blog showing my progress. For instance, (I'll check later); but I don't think I even showed you the final incarnation of the prior woodpecker. 

What's been holding me up, is that I haven't found anything I wanted to talk about in particular. I know that in years past when I was blogging about my work, I usually talked about the process, what I was doing, how I was doing it, sometimes even what inspired me to do it; but with these pieces I'm just embroidering, and not even doing any fancy stitches - I remain fascinated by the "limits" of what straight stitch can do. 

So anyway, doing that has meant that I have to trawl the interwebs looking for pictures of my work. My early  work in quilts and art, should be on this very blog, but two things have conspired against me. One, that I kept hopping from blog to  blog (anyone remember the now defunct "Diva Quilts"? I even had it as a website at one point.) There was also "Cornflowers in Leslieville", and two or three more. I don't know what I was on about, but as I deleted those blogs and sites before finally settling here; I also deleted all of that work. 

How many (many) times over the years, have I been scolded and told "art should be pretty!" 

Beautiful Monster (a piece about fast fashion) is not exactly political in nature, but does indeed make a statement, and perhaps not one that people are willing to hear, and so it gets a few vague "likes" and "loves", and two closed comments that do not invite further discussion. 

Currently, for instance, The American Quilter's Society has pulled two pieces it deems "controversial" from the exhibition Color in Context: Red. One of the censored pieces entitled "Origin" by Yvonne Iten-Scott could be said to depict a vagina and labia; while the other, an abstract depiction of the Red Cross, by Laura Shaw, entitled "Your Mother, Your Daughter. Your Sister. Your Grandmother. You", was also pulled. (Link to one of many articles, here.) The exhibition was one produced by SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Association - an organization I formerly belonged to, and may join again after this!); who pulled the entire exhibit in protest. 

Of course, as the article points out, this is not the first time that the AQS has pulled pieces - I remember specifically Kathy Nida's piece "I was not wearing a life jacket" being pulled in 2016 from an exhibit. She and I are professional friends, and this act was devastating and angering to her. 

So. 

I am proud to say that my piece, "Written on the Body" was hanging in the halls as part of an exhibition at the 2012 Republican Convention, in Tampa, Florida. 

The piece represented a commodified woman, crucified by legislation, political platforms and the words used to describe us, written on our bodies like tattoos. 

Since 2012, I have, unfortunately, had the distinct displeasure of continually adding more legislation around the cross; and I suspect, under the current administration, there will be much more to come. (More pictures likely forthcoming as I update.)

If art cannot be used to engage one another about important issues, then what is it for? 

And if we women cannot open our minds to those who use the "gentle arts" to discuss important issues in the same way, then where are we? And who, exactly, will we be in one year, two years, three years, four years? 

No answers here, just speculation.

 So it seems I am in favour of feathers, after all. 😁

I was too lazy to dig fabrics out of my stash, so I grabbed some cotton and painted it with acrylic paints in the required colours. An hour of drying time, and I was ready to cut some feathers.

It was so quick and easy, it really made me wonder about the point of my stash in principle. 

All of we sewists, crafters, makers, take a certain amount of pride in our "stash"; the amount we have acquired admired by others (#goals), and then we hoard it away like so many dragons.

How many paintbrushes will bring me happiness? How many mop brushes, in all sizes, do I need, to win The Game of Life?  

I have just been buying to buy, happily, needlessly, mindlessly, consuming as every "good" Westerner should, right?

So all of this seemingly innocent "stash boosting"...is it really just a symptom of toxic capitalism? Are we encouraging each other to consume for the sake of consuming? Pushing each other to buy more and more, in a never-ending silent competition to be sitting on a pile of the most stuff? 

Yes, we need to have tools to hand and materials available for our use as we create our projects. 

But how much of our compulsive collecting is for this, and not for that? 

Why do I need to have an entire bin full of black fabric "for my art"; when I can put some black paint on single roll of white fabric, that I can also transform into any colour and pattern I want/need at a moment's notice?

...where wealth was mistaken for riches and the joy of possession for happiness...What he opposed in it, he must attack in himself.

Salman Rushdie - Fury

Just some things I'm pondering at the moment. 

Next up, I'll need to stitch those feathers down. 

Maybe I'll work on that tonight. We'll see!

'Til next time. 

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*I don't actually believe in heaven, but you get my point. 🙃

I spent all day yesterday studiously ignoring what was happening south of the border.

We are in a polar vortex currently, so it's too cold for my little presh. But I took Riley for a quick jaunt.

After I brought her home, I went skating. Dearest reader, I haven't skated in literally decades. I fell a couple of times, brushed myself off, and popped up like Gumby, (not wanting to attract unwanted sympathetic attention); and even at the time, my ankles were quite screamy, but my body hurrrrrrrts today. 

A re-introduction to skating at 60 when I wasn't good at it when I was young, was certainly distracting.

And listening to the hockey players on the rink trash talking each other was quite amusing as I went round and round.

Then I went home and made my lunch - comfort food - tomato soup, grilled cheeze, and pickles. While drinking a big pot of tea, I scrolled my socials. Everybody else had their heads in the sand, too, which was comforting.

Then I had a long nap (3.5 hours!)

Then I made dinner - seasoned tofu steaks, rice, sauteed mushrooms and onions with a little onion gravy over.

Then I stitched a bit on this new bird, which is apparently going to be a series.

It seemed like a normal day.

But it didn't feel like one. 

Underneath it all, I was, I guess praying? I don't know to whom, I'm a pagan, and I mostly pray to trees, the sun, grass... Perhaps I prayed to Gitche Manitou, an internal whispering.

Asking that despite what our governments try to enact upon us, that humans turn to one another, and find in one another kindness, safety, help, strength, amity. A renewed belief in a social contract that encompasses all people in all their forms; that we quietly decide for ourselves that we will not only stand up, help, be a voice and a hand when the opportunity presents itself, but that we seek out those opportunities.

A whispered prayer that we decide to care about each other.

It's the only way through. 

Last night I sat down in front of the TV, teed up The Moonflower Murders (not as good as The Magpie Murders but still enjoyable); made myself a thermos of tea, and set up a little TV tray with my sewing machine on it, and another with my iron and a towel as an ironing pad on that one.

Rather oddly, I find myself making a quilt. 

I was beavering away, sewing tiny pieces of wool together, listening to the TV and occasionally looking at it. At one point I looked up, and discovered I had an audience. 

She is SO. CUTE! ❤️