A quick redo

I put the month and year next to the 'love aunt beth' part and am ashamed that I misspelled August and then had to redo it multiple times. Also I mixed the case - capital A lowercase g.... crap cover it up... august. Why was that so difficult? Yeah... why do things the easy way. I am mailing it Monday I hope and once they get it I will post all the pictures.

I had to redo these guys. They just weren't scary enough. I tried to make them all look angry but their fur is black and I have to fake it with some highlights.

Finally!

I am so excited to send this to my niece! The hard part is over now and I move onto the sewing. If they don't like this I won't overreact or anything but sepiku is always on the table.

Sneak preview...

I love this little pig! Tonight I worked with a size 0 and 00 paintbrush to get some teeny details. I swear it's half an eyelash or less bristle.

Horses

I think I'm happy with them. I actually had to do a search because my brain was unable to access my long term memory of that animal that I see any time the freeway exit doesn't have a stoplight. Geez!

Weekend Project

I was sick and not only didn't go hiking but I didn't really work on anything except the afghan. It was a nice rhythm, knit a row, drink some juice and take a nap. It needs to be done by early next year and in my delirium I started to panic that I wouldn't finish in time.

This was a good theme for grad school. Having an insurmountable project not due for a long time I start to panic out of nowhere and need some progress to happen. I kind of feel like the people in my group were like that with the overachieving.

Weekend Work

I spend weekends working on projects, well weekends, week nights and everything in between and I've been having trouble with the latest baby quilt. The painting part of it is giving me problems though the source image research I've been doing is awesome.

"I don't think they exist."

When drawing or painting something you want to have depth and perspective you start off with the basic shapes and then by adding shading and highlights it kinda pops out at you. I redid the creatures seen in this picture but it's a secret on the highly improbably chance that the niece's parents read this blog.

Baby Shower

We all got to decorate some baby clothes and this is what I did. Also a kid asked who I was so I told him I was his new mom.

Emilia

Man waiting for the gift to be opened is the worst part about making stuff for people. The day of the shower I get to sit and either am excited or freaked out. Ah! It's all in my head... but I will say that watching her open a baby quilt her mother sewed made me want to take mine back and start over from the beginning.



I took a lot of in process pictures so that I can remember how I did it for the next time. It's always the next time though. I started with a drawing in my sketchbook and a piece of unbleached cotton muslin. The size is constrained by the size of the mdf I taped it to. I need to get a bigger piece...




No masking at all, I'm trying to improve my painting in the lines or whatever the technical term is.




I love watercolors but am not so good painting with them. So I use watery acrylics and a spray bottle and salt. I let the background dry about 80% and then colored in the peacock letting parts bleed a little bit.

 





 After it's dry I remove the masking tape and let it dry completely. I then used a yellow colored pencil to redraw the details and sandwiched it with some batting. Many hours on my sewing machine and the center is finished.

 

I'm also working on my free motion quilting so I'm very happy with the back of the peacock.



Next up, the feathers. I had this awesome idea of what I wanted but after a pass with variegated thread it wasn't quite what I planned. I emailed this to my sister in law who quilts trying to see if it looked like enough feather. It took an hour to do one pass on all 4 pieces. The next morning I was motivated to do one more. Now to combine the pieces. I didn't leave a seam allowance because in the end I really have no idea of what I'm doing. Also, one feather is a bit too long. The whole 'just kinda eyeballing it' isn't quite as precise as it could be.

 

 I painted some fabric blue and purple and then salted it a bit. After it was dry I used spray acrylic and a stencil in maroon. Then waiting for it to dry and iron and pin. Sew, cut loose thread over and over and I'm done. I was picking off thread for days.




 
 



 



 At the time I was working on this I kept thinking it was the hardest painting/sewing I've ever done. Looking back though, yes it was but the one I'm working on now... is the hardest painting/sewing I've ever done. Seriously, this one is killing me. Yeah... my neurosis has a neurosis.

Fun with Fireworks

I remember a time not too long ago when working on my website layout was agonizing if it took more than a few hours. Fun/ny times. The problem with learning more about Adobe CS (6, hell yeah!) is that you now have more tools to use. Kind of like painting once you figure out mixing colors and one day you don't really think about it, ever again.

Oh and I'm putting together a portfolio to join the adjunct instructor pool in Computer Science at a nearby community college. I'll have to remember how I learned all of this but geocities isn't around anymore. I would be screwed if that page was still up (I'm so sorry...).