Thursday, January 27, 2011

Getting Little done

While I was away for a week, I came down with a horrific head cold and had a very sore throat and lots of coughing. For the first time in many years, I simply gave in to the cold, for about the full 10 days that it takes, slept, napped, drugged myself up with decongestants, and played games on the computer since I wasn't able to do much else.

But now I am feeling much better and am ready to tackle the art world. What has happened though, which happens to me any time I am away from the studio for any length of time, is that I become overwhelmed with ideas.

Of course, when I go back to the studio, there are always things in progress to some point or other. But then, while I have been away, I start getting new ideas, which I wake up with in the morning, or fall asleep with at night or just dream up during the day. Sometimes I wish I could shut my brain off.

I did the 5 collages for ONE and have started doing some along the same vein but larger for myself. These are done on upholstery fabric, have various items in them, including circles cut out of other fabrics, vintage linens and silk screening. They have a minimal amount of stitching in them.

So on my mind has been the question of how to display them...I thought about matting them, ready for framing and then thought about mounting them on rigid board, and then decided that they would really look best sewn to a piece of fabric that is then stretched onto stretcher bars....I will tell you, storing these babies is not as easy as storing regular quilts! I can't pile them up on the bed and they are not beginning to take up lots of room on my new storage shelving....oh well, I guess that is what the shelving is for.

But, to backtrack some, on the 15th I had to get my Sketchbook Project sketchbook mailed out which I had finally finished the night before. The entire project moves along and you can see a progression in my work as I did the book over 6 months' time.

So, here are a few pages from my sketchbook project....this page has lines on the left made with graphite and the lines on the right are stamped using cardboard.

On these pages I started making a grid with an ink pen and then began coloring it it with multiple glazes.

On two pages that I painted and over painted, I just made lines with my ink pen....very similar to a lot of stuff I have been doing in my fiber work lately.

And more lines, similar again to the fiber work machine stitching I have been doing a lot of....

So, today is Thursday and tomorrow I am back in the studio, having spent a day this week doing clean up and organizing. I purchased a new electric stapler so I can more easily staple fabric to stretcher bars, so that is one thing to do, I need to trim up a couple of quilts and get facing on them, mount the new collages of the new stretched fabric. and then I am ready to figure out how to displace my felt pieces...those may also go onto stretched canvas...and then, I can open the sketchbooks and really look at all the ideas I have been jotting down....

2 comments:

Gerrie said...

I love, love your sketch book pages!!

spirit2sew said...

Thank you for sharing. I'm just starting to appreciate how to use a sketchbook. I've not been fortunate enough to take an art class, but took a 2-day workshop this weekend called "Sketching in Color". I started a series of sketches with an oil lamp as the theme and am trying various backgrounds. Very fun. And, I think, very useful for a series of art quilts.