Studio Kit

Yken Teruya - McDonald's Bag

There’s been a funny thing happening in the blogosphere in the last six weeks or so. It is a phenomenon I’ve seen discussed briefly from time to time, but around August, I noticed more and more people were talking about it; and now it seems to have steamrolled.

“It” being “honesty” in blogging.

The bloggers talking about it seem to feel an odd kind of peer pressure as a result of *other* bloggers, whom they feel:

1. Produce more work and/or completed projects than they ever could;

2. Produce better work than they ever could;

3. Have more professional looking photographs than they do;

4. Have prettier homes/neater and/or nicer homes;

5. Have an aspirational lifestyle that they can’t match;

6. Insert your particular “envy” here. (I'll add as they come in)

a) Have a book coming out/are going on a book tour;
b) Have been /are going to the BIG quilt shows, or Quilt Market or the like;
c) Seem to have an inexhaustible source of income for purchasing the "in" fabrics, going to workshops and retreats, etc.

So, what does all that have to do with me? Well, let me start by saying that I'm not feeling some weird kind of pressure to be more accessible as a result of (entirely fictitious) “life envy”; but those ongoing discussions about blog lifestyle / blogging styles *have* got me thinking about this whole blogging thing – what its purpose is, for both you and I.

The fact is, I’m a bit bored by myself, and I’ve been wondering how I could change my blog in a way that would make it more interesting for me as well as you. (ETA) This doesn't mean I'm going to blog to please my readers; and I know this blog is mine and rest assured, will reflect my point of view - but I'm curious about what kinds of things people like to read about on blogs.

So I have the following questions:

1. Do you like to read about the life stuff?

2. Do you like to see/hear about other non art or quilt related sewing?

3. Do you want to see the things that inspire the work? (Which run the gamut from other artists, news articles, clothing, rugs, or ??????)

4. Do you want to hear more about the thinking process and/or inspiration that drives the work? (Be warned, I start thinking about the finished pieces months before I ever start sketching, let alone pick up a piece of fabric!)

5. Do you want to see those sketches?

6. Do you want to see the notes?

7. Is there something else you want to read about? (but not gardening or learning Spanish as was jokingly suggested below!)

I may not take all of your suggestion(s), but things aren't going to stay the same and I do want to hear from you –your opinion does matter! So, given your druthers, what would YOU like to see here?

P.S. Although I feel like I have always “kept it real” on my blog, perhaps it needs to be said:

My life is that of a middle class, middle-aged wife and mother. I have a full-time day job, a Beloved Spouse who ought to be regularly assured of that title, young adult children, fur babies and a home to jointly take care of. I have real life stuff that takes up space in my heart, mind and body, finances always need to be kept in mind when purchasing things for my artwork, my house is never as clean as it should be, and at least half the time, I subsist on cheese and crackers and BSP has to forage for meals because I am too immersed in my work to cook.

Oh sure, it *sounds* all romantic on Facebook when I say we had a cheese flight and a glass of wine for dinner, but it’s only because I want to race back to the studio! (Really, it's BSP who suffers most because of my 30-40 hour work weeks in the studio!)

and I'm feeling good!

When I left you on Friday, I had experienced a minor disaster. Having painted my initial background in way that looked good to me in terms of proportions, when done, I realized that those particular proportions wouldn't work for my intended piece.

You left some really great comments with suggestions about what to do to alleviate the mess (thank you!!!), and I'll likely put one or two in place when I go re-visit that piece. But...

unfortunately, a very specific something has to be done to fit within the parameters of the call, and though I initially thought that I would fill up that street with carriages and horses and side walks and people and perhaps some Tyler-sized dogs; I realized that the street isn't the focal point of this piece, but the subject of the secret focal point ("SFP") IS. So I need to focus on it already! :)

So I took my "take two" as a way to experiment again, this time using two disparate pieces of fabric that I've had sitting unused in my stash for several years.

They're strongly patterned and not likely to be used as I'm moving away from patterns in commercial fabrics for the most part - and these were never to my taste to begin with as they were both gifts from friends. So they seemed like excellent candidates for being painted over! ;)

Here, you can see they're still wet with gesso - but this is where the experimentation part comes in - I decided to NOT put a coating of white acrylic over it before I began painting. I know the pattern underneath is very strong, but I'm hoping *fingers crossed* that that strong pattern will provide a neat effect under the paint.

I also realized that as much as I loved the colour of the sky and the painted clouds in the original background - the colour wasn't right for the night sky I was seeking to portray - and after some thought, I realized that clouds are really only going to distract from the SFP. (Here it is still wet.)

The background needs to carry some interest, but not be soooo interesting that the viewer is distracted. Anyway - I'm hoping that the SFP will be arresting enough to keep your eye on it, but we'll just have to see!

So. I forgot to take a pic of the cobble stone background in progress, but I used the same method as I did last week (except in darker colours), and once it was all dry, I cut my batting (Warm and White) and prepared for another experiment - one that's probably old hat to some of you - fusing the batting to the top.

I laid out the batting with some old Stitch Witchery I had around, and then unrolled the painted top over it bit by bit, ironing as I went, and in this way fused them together.