Funny Photo

Here's Sylvester the cat (really) "Pasted" to the window. It looks like he's saying "HELP ME!!".

Flood Report

Its rained nearly 10 inches over the past 3 or 4 days here in KY. Of course, everything's flooded - not to the extent of Georgia last week, but its a mess none the less. Several roads are covered with water, even I-75, a major interstate highway is flooded between Richmond and London (KY) & I've never seen that before. I'm not sure how long the rain will last. Everyone hopes it ends soon. Believe me, a flood was not what I wanted for my birthday - Did I mention my birthday is today? One year, on my wedding anniversary I went through a tornado (I was in the building when it got hit) then another year there was a bomb threat at the same building as the tornado. Now I have floods on my birthday! There's just no end to the "excitement" I find on what should be happy celebrations. Oh well, this too will pass. I hope your day has gond better than mine.

Very NQR, Stress Filled Week

Dear reader, forgive me for venting here, but its very necessary to rid myself of the tremendous stress I've incurred this past week. I've endured my daughter-in-law's surgery, the hospital visit & its aftermath. There was the ongoing problem with my special needs grandchild getting her meals at school, that problem is still being attended to & investigated all the way up to the state level.I had to confront the cafeteria manager & school principal about this. All that added to the ongoing & constant stress I endure at home has consumed me this past week to the point of exhaustion & numerous headaches. I can only hope for a quick solution to these problems & quieter times ahead. I will attempt to return to quilting & art, one place where I can escape it all.

A new Camera

I jumped in & bought a Canon SLR camera & telephoto lens. I paid big bucks for the system, but I doubt I'll ever buy another, its a once in a lifetime purchase for me. I'm learning how to use it & I've decided that the only other lens I'd like to get is a macro lens. But, according to what I've read they cost big bucks too. Maybe for C
Christmas or my birthday coming up soon. The camera does take nice pictures & it can be fully automatic, for us beginners, then, as I learn to use it, it can go manual. I plan to use it in my art, taking photos of things to paint or paintings & quilts I've already done and so forth.

I made the jump into the world of professional art. I put up 2 pictures of paintings I'd recently completed on a site for art shows. We'll see how that goes. It took several tries before I got the photos set up correctly to go on the site (they're picky about format), but I did finally succeed. I have, however, gotten some of my art published in an online community called Elfwood. Its about sword, sorcery & magical beings, all in the name of fiction. Its in gallery #824 if you'd like to look.
Gotta go, the mail just came & I need to separate the bills from the junk. Stay tuned, more later. . .

Behind the Art

lately, I've posted more paintings than quilts. I thought I'd tell you how I got into painting, or how painting led me to quilting. Anyway, I've tried all kinds of media, short of print making, I don't have the set up for that. I've settled on 2 types of painting, watercolors & colored pencils. Both are relatively simple in procedure & supplies, and its non-toxic too. The techniques are similar too, both use build up colors through layering techniques. Colored pencils can be used dry or with a blending medium, depending on the type of pencil, water soluble or wax/oil based.
I've been using colored pencil since the late 1980s when an artist friend introduced me to real, artist quality colored pencils instead of the cheap ones used for school projects. I use a variety of both wax.oil based & water soluble pencils, usually one type per drawing. I even use colored pencils on quilts. I came across a technique whereby the design is first quilted, then colored with wax based colored pencils, then sealed with textile medium. Its pretty cool. I've done a couple of small quilts & hope to do some larger pieces soon. The thing I like about colored pencils over other art mediums is that they are clean to use, need a minimum of equipment, are portable and need not special surfaces to be applied on, just paper or cloth. I use a variety of brands, Swiss made, German made, British made, just whatever I can find that suits the purpose. And I get as many colors as possible, making sure they are available open stock to replace what I use.

I've painted & drawn since I was a kid, even learned to draw with a pencil held between my teeth while I was sick with a nerve disorder as a child. Anyway, art is something I've done all my life & probably will continue to produce for the rest of my life, baring any complications. So stay tuned to see what comes from my pencils or my brush & I hope you'll enjoy the art.

Look what I found . . .

I was going through some older drawings that I had stashed away & found these colored pencil paintings I'd forgotten about (the first 3), the angel is a new piece that is till in progress, I think. Its one of those things you have to look at a while to see if it is truly finished or not. At this writing, I'm at the "looking" stage.

Paper Piecing Class

Today was quilt guild meeting day & we had a class on paper piecing. The instructor, who's normally very good, cut the fabric pieces in the provided kit too small to finish the project. We spent 2 hours becoming frustrated with the whole thing. I've done paper piecing before & its tedious at best. I got part of one part of the project sew together, but left shortly after I finished it. We'd though about putting the finished blocks from this class together to make a raffle quilt for a fundraiser next spring. However, there weren't enough people taking the class to make enough blocks for a quilt, & those who took the class were completely confused & may not finish the block anyway. We'll look elsewhere for designs for a fundraiser raffle quilt. Perhaps a "house" block quilt, who knows. Otherwise, I'm working on a quilt for my son for Christmas, once I figured out that pattern, it hasn't taken long to put the blocks together. As it looks, I'll have it finished before Christmas.

More Later . . .