So last week, I thought I'd drag it out and finish it.
Showing posts with label in progress. Show all posts
Showing posts with label in progress. Show all posts
When I left you last, we had a little paper skull pattern, but it was blank. Now, I've drawn a more detailed pattern on it.
And these are the candidates for my stitching. Machine or hand? Time will tell!
Meanwhile, the background has had some paper flowers added to it (all petals made up of individually cut little pits of paper)...
See you on Wednesday with more!
Kit
... there was paper.
I decided that one of the small projects I'd like to make this year is something in the 6 x 6 size. And I thought I'd show it to you from beginning to end.
You guessed it!
So, here are my tree trunks laid in around the cottage. Obviously, they're going to need some fullness, so...
WIP Wednesday and I'm continuing along with the Ephemera project, first up Week 14 - which says "With brave wings she flies". And then...
Today's WIP is the wippiest of wips that ever wipped. :)
But first, here's "Erosion" all framed up. (I'm hoping that bottom right edge will "fall" otherwise, I'll have to take it back to the framer!)
Along the same lines, I am considering:
But first, here's "Erosion" all framed up. (I'm hoping that bottom right edge will "fall" otherwise, I'll have to take it back to the framer!)
Along the same lines, I am considering:
You may remember that back in November, I decided to begin a year-long stitching project, called "Ephemera", that would do nothing more than hold whatever stitches I felt like making that week, along with a sentence or phrase overheard in that week.
I can`t believe that it's already been a full quarter, but so it has!
I can`t believe that it's already been a full quarter, but so it has!
I was a lazy girl the past couple of days and did absolutely nothing! lol
So I thought I'd catch you up on the lunchtime projects - above is the week before last's offering (Week 8) which has a spelling mistake so I'll either have to take out the stitching, or leave it as is - it's supposed to ephemera after all, and exhibit the flotsam and jetsam of life, so I'm kind of leaning towards leaving the spelling mistake.
And here is Week 9 - unfinished, which is good for a WIP Wednesday, except *ahem*, I'm meant to be working on Week 10 this week. So I guess I'd better hop to it! (That, among other things, lol, because I've been chatting and having fun with my work chum instead of working too!)
I'll see on Friday with the links - I'm really looking forward to sharing them with you this week - some really interesting stuff! Are you enjoying my Friday links posts?
See you then!
My plan for today was to reveal the finished product of "Birches in Spring" and get a lot of work done on "Briar Rose". But, best laid plans and all that - because most of my weekend was spent in bed with a migraine. Augh. So this weekend was not as interesting as I had hoped.
Nevertheless, in those hours when I was upright for awhile, I managed to make some roses. In fact, ...
I'm starting with this even though it's kind of the middle thing I did, just 'cuz it's so pretty.
So let's go through it.
1. Top left hand corner, I was painting some clouds. They dried very quickly, so I moved on to the next thing -
2. quilting some background branches and trunks,
3. there they are on the background (which also had some abstract ground work done)
4. (bottom left hand corner) Then, because I'm still in a birches kind of mood, I laid some down. You can see I had started the hand-stitching part;
5. I added some gray paint to the plain white one on the right, so you can see how I did it; and
6. The birch trees are done (you'll see I knocked back the background leaves a bit with some cream paint) and I also stuck in a fence. More to come on this piece, later this week.
1. Top left hand corner, I was painting some clouds. They dried very quickly, so I moved on to the next thing -
2. quilting some background branches and trunks,
3. there they are on the background (which also had some abstract ground work done)
4. (bottom left hand corner) Then, because I'm still in a birches kind of mood, I laid some down. You can see I had started the hand-stitching part;
5. I added some gray paint to the plain white one on the right, so you can see how I did it; and
6. The birch trees are done (you'll see I knocked back the background leaves a bit with some cream paint) and I also stuck in a fence. More to come on this piece, later this week.
And the REASON I was doing that, was because...
So, when I left you last, my evergreen tree was in the hoop, I was stitching merrily along, I was pleased with how it was developing - everything was going gangbusters.
When I was done, I had a look at it, and began to doubt myself...
When I left you last, I gave you good reason to believe I would be working on my large piece, working title "ethereal".
However, I suddenly remembered on Saturday, that I'm meant to have made a piece for SAQA's upcoming trunk show. Being unprepared for such a thing, I decided that my old stand-by of trees and/or birds would be the best thing to make on short notice, and given it's a small size (10 x 7 inches); I got to work.
However, I suddenly remembered on Saturday, that I'm meant to have made a piece for SAQA's upcoming trunk show. Being unprepared for such a thing, I decided that my old stand-by of trees and/or birds would be the best thing to make on short notice, and given it's a small size (10 x 7 inches); I got to work.
I'm of course, still working on this large-ish piece - currently 70 x 55 inches (190 x 139 cm - finished size will likely be a bit smaller).
So I took some of my purpose painted fabrics, cut them out and laid them where I wanted them.
I didn't get much farther than this because....
In the past when I have painted my fabric backgrounds, I've used whatever fabric I had around that I didn't particularly like, or thought I would probably never use.
But in this case, I used cotton muslin, which I "primed" by using gesso as a base coat, and then I used acrylic paints on top. Here, you can see I have a mottled gray background; and then...
I haven't been around for awhile - and this was one of the reasons. I gave myself a nasty steam burn, when the lid fell off of the tea kettle when I was making a pot of tea. Ouchie!
And then I had some really busy days (going in early and staying late) at my day job; and with my new limitations, I can't spend long days in the office and then also spend time in the studio - so the studio has had to wait.
And this calendar is already radically behind, as that first one "someone" which was supposed to be finished the first weekend is November, is still not finished now -pushing back everything else. *ahem*
However...
I actually haven't forgotten about the lunch time project - but it's taking a lot longer than the last one did!
The repetitiveness of these particular stitches is hard to be motivated by, and I have to put it aside for long stretches of time and work on something else.
But I'm in the home-stretch now. This hooped portion is nearly all I have left to do.
Well, that's what we'll start with, anyway.
I was in a park near work collecting leaves for a project, when I came upon this man feeding peanuts to the squirrels. I must have taken 20 or 30 pictures of this scene. I mean check out the squirrels! Those black blurs are squirrels coming and going - in the few minutes I stood there, snapping away, he must have individually fed 20 or 30 squirrels!
I was really just trying to get a good picture of the squirrels, but when I got home, after looking at two or three of these pictures, I completely forgot about the squirrels. I kind of fell in love with this man as a subject.
I mean, wow.
There's a species of resignation in his face that reads as a quiet kind of sadness despite the fact that the squirrels were coming and taking the peanuts directly from his hands and the fact that he must find pleasure in this activity. Seeing the lush foliage around him that is nevertheless in an early stage of decay... as I looked at the photos, a story about him fell into place.
I was quite taken with the aptness of it's being fall in this little scene - and suddenly, I realized, I'd captured something much more than I had intended.
I think this will be one of the pieces I work on over the winter.
But back to what I'm working on right now...