Still Life Completed

My watercolor still life is completed. Looking at it smaller on the computer is a bit like stepping back to view the painting as a whole. I immediately saw a couple things that I would change if I were in love with the painting. Not being totally in love with this one, I am calling it done.

Classroom Still Life

We are all painting from this still life in my watercolor class. I didn’t like how the candlestick was dividing the composition in half, and hiding most of the grapes, so I scooted it over in my drawing. I need to darken the shadows, and add some detail to the large pot and the bottle. I’ve printed a greyscale copy of my painting, so I decide what to do with the background.

Figs for a Crow

I composed my latest quilt on watercolor paper, and then enlarged it onto fabric to make a quilted version. The quilted version is finished. I have started painting the watercolor version. I plan to build up the darks, and add some purple to some of the figs. Here is a detail shot of the in progress painting.

Hayward Quilt Art Exhibit

The online Synchronized Chaos Magazine has a well written writeup and some nice photos of the art quilt exhibit "The Quiltessential Event" currently at the Cinema Place Gallery. The show will be up until November 12th.

Sunday, Nov 6, 2011:

The Synchronized Chaos site seems to work fine from my Firefox browser, but seems to have trouble displaying content with Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

If anyone has a better answer than blaming Microsoft, let me know.

Tis the Season for Costumes & Carnivals

I made Camilla a crow costume for a party. It was also the perfect costume for our booth at the church harvest carnival.

Our booth was based on the Parable of the Sower. I had originally done this booth with whiffle balls thrown into flowerpots. Since the carnival was moved to outside, I decided I didn’t want to chase balls all over the parking lot.

I decided to make seed packets out of fabric, fusible scraps, and fabric pens. I did some free-motion stitching just to make sure the fusible didn’t come loose, and added some batting and interfacing for stiffness.

A pathway, thorns, and rocky soil were added with sidewalk chalk. The kids were instructed to get the seeds in the Good Soil (the flowerpots) or the crow would eat them.

A few of us did demos at the Cinema Place Gallery last Friday.

Here is Denise Oyama Miller working on collages. The piece in the foreground is a background for an underwater scene which she created by fusing strips onto a background fabric. She is planning to add fish to it. The sunflower is made with fabric and colored paper held together with acrylic medium.

Franki Kohler is showing how she creates fabric postcards. That’s Franki’s book she has on display.

I created a very simple landscape before I went, so I could demonstrate free-motion quilting.

Here I am painting the fig quilt. I made the fig color up, and then realized later that figs aren’t really as purple as I was imagining. I think I will go back and dull the purple down some, and add some green highlights.

I also have a larger fig quilt in progress.

The show will continue until November 12th.

New Quilts for Demo

I've been asked to do a demo at the Cinema Place Gallery in Hayward tomorrow. I’ve been scrambling to get some work in progress, so I have something to demo on. This fig quilt has been painted, cut out and stitched to a background fabric. It is half quilted. I will be doing some more quilting and painting on top of it at the gallery tomorrow evening.