Doodling on my Husqvarna

Its Thursday and I rejoice 'cause I don't have to go in to my day job. I have the whole morning to myself and plan on spending it in my studio. I have several started projects that desperately need to be finished so I'll putter away at those. Most are at the quilting stage which is usually the least exciting for me. Of course, I gotta work on a fun new thing, too....

I'm getting together another entry to a local exhibit together. It will be my first art venue in Orlando. I look forward to it and hope that I have more than 1 of my 3 entries juried into the show. I hope it will herald my entry into the Orlando art scene.

On a related note, this week I committed to teaching a class on a "fabric still life" at the local quilt shop. Not sure how that will work but its a step in the direction of making my art self-supporting. Of course, I also committed to producing one or more samples for the class as my original "Dutch Master" still life is way overboard in what can be accomplished in a single day's class. I'll get a pic of that up soon--it turned out really well and truly looks like one of those paintings of the Dutch or Flemish masters with a dark background, big vase of flowers and then fruit, veggies and game on the table. I used a turkey for an american flavor and also included a little anachronistic item as a little twist. I won't mention it here--I'll let you look for it once I post it--Hah!

The Artist's Way

Found a group in my local area that is working on selections from The Artist's way by Julie Cameron. After just discovering this book in the first place; which is a 12 week course in recovering/discovering your creative processes. Complete with exercises, guided meditations, you name it. As I have been eager to dialog and learn more about my personal creativity in the past few months and havenot found an outlet, this book and group seem tailor-made for me. Very cool. I'm busily working on week one: morning pages and a few writing exercises designed at exposing the dreaded and powerful Inner Censor. I feel very upbeat about the whole thing.

Zooming along

Haven't posted in a while (frankly, I forgot all about this blog!!) Well, life goes on. Kids, work, husband, yada yada yada. Quilting? Exciting stuff happening just now. Finished a piece recently that was directly from a dream and pretty intense. Still working on a title for it; probably something like: "Confrontation in a Jungian landscape". After that I had to relax a little and have been working on a playful piece. Just finished the top for a modern-day Flemish still life complete with huge urn of flowers, fruit, vegetables and a floppy dead turkey. Nestled in with the fruit is cell phone. The cell phone image I dredged up from the internet and printed out onto treated fabric for the inkjet. Very cool! Since I used many different fabrics with different values and printing qualities I spent a lot of time altering the fabrics with pens and markers. Likewise, the backgraound fabric was not dark enough around the outer edges so I attacked it with spray paint (yup--rust-oleum!) and fabric paint. The whole thing is finished up with a Trompe l'oeil golden frame. Fabulous! Now I just have to quilt it....