Week in Review 2016 - 09/09

Insight
35" x 34"
1995
My first art quilt

Tips, Thoughts and Techniques:

I am fortunate that my husband is the primary maker of meals and dish washer in our home. Cooking doesn't suit me. Too much multi-tasking, coordinating and mess for someone who thrives on order, clear surfaces and not touching anything wet or sticky. Ironically, I love to read about cooks and can't watch enough cooking shows. This week I discovered Chef's Table: France. Délicieux! There are four episodes, each focusing on a different french chef of a Michelin starred restaurant. What struck me was how every single chef had a cathartic moment when they let go of what was expected, trusted their instinct to do something that had never been done before and excelled because of this courageous leap.

EQ 7 piecing diagram for Siren's Song.
The the rectangle indicates the planned
location for the sunset image. The dashed
lines indicate the "allowance" to be sure
there will be no gaps between the image
and the background. The silver penned
squares are the blocks and/or partial
blocks I need to make.

Chefs are artists. I suspect it is the creativity, courage and focus chefs possess that captivates me. The parallel between how I work and how these chefs work became clear when I was drafting an artist statement about my first art quilt, made in 1995. The statement needed to include what I was doing while making the quilt and how I felt about it. I've made many quilts since 1995. I have become used to the rhythm of euphoria when the idea hits, followed by a "what was I thinking? This stinks!!" phase and ending with a neutral, "not bad." Yet writing about Insight, my first experience, the emotional rollercoaster of creativity felt fresh and tripled in magnitude.

My current work in progress, Siren's Song, took a few steps back or forward this week. The direction is a subjective one, as you will see.

I created this on EQ 7 to double check
the location and math.

1)  Siren's Song - piece the partial blocks that will be surrounding the sunset. - Some progress

I digressed a bit. I wanted to work out what would and would not need to be pieced to surround the sunset image but not piece much more. There is nothing worse than discovering you need just an inch or so more. This sent me back to EQ 7 to fine tune my drafting and math. 

2) Free motion quilting practice - Not this week

3) Do some surface design work - Not this week

4) Beware of when I find myself shutting down and find a way to stay open. - Done!

I am always setting goals for myself, often extending or pushing the goal before I even reach it. For example, I shared recently that I was going to try to hold my local ranking in the National Bike Challenge at under 100 for a week. I did that, not just for one week, but every day since. I am currently ranked 81st. My next thought was to see if I couldn't log 2,000 miles for the summer. This seemed a reasonable goal at the time. I only needed just shy of 300 miles before September 30th, the conclusion of the National Bike Challenge. At the beginning of last week I had chipped this down to 150 miles. Since I normally ride 125 miles a week, the goal still looked easily obtainable. Then the rain started and the temperature dipped to the point of extremely uncomfortable to ride. I have 75 or so miles to go. I am staying open to either outcome. I may or may not meet my arbitrary goal. Either way it was a successful National Bike Challenge year for me.

This is the original photo used
to abstract the background. Its
scale is the same as the piecing
diagram. I use this to select my
fabrics.

I heard from Spoonflower this morning. My fabric (backing and sunset image) has shipped. Looks like I need to buckle down and attend to the following next week:

1)  Siren's Song - finish piecing the partial blocks that will be surrounding the sunset.

2) Free motion quilting practice

3) Do some surface design work

4) Beware of when I find myself shutting down and find a way to stay open.


I am now linking up to two blogs on Fridays. The first is Nina Marie's Off the Wall Fridays and the second is Free Motion Mavericks.

Week in Review 2016 - 09/02

Siren's Song
72" H x 56" W
The sunset image in the photo is
printed on paper. I wanted to test
the scale and approximate color
before committing to have the image
printed on fabric. Although I could
print it myself, the size of the image
requires seams if printed at home.
I find seams detract when they
randomly bisect an image.

Tips, Thoughts and Techniques:

Finally! I am far from done with Siren's Song. However, the first major stretch of the journey is complete. As you can see from the full image of where I left off yesterday, there is a gap that needs filling in. The background is complete. It is time to savor the moment. 

The practice of yoga teaches one the importance of resting poses between the more taxing poses. At first I found resting the most difficult part of my classes. How could I improve my balance, strengthen muscles, gain more flexibility if all I did was stay still focusing on breathing in and out? Every muscle in my body was twitching, preparing for action, a full body toe tapping state of being during those early classes. No more. I have learned to embrace times of rest. 

Siren's Song will rest briefly. I need the time to strategize how to fill that gap. I do my best strategizing subconsciously as I go about my daily chores or write in my morning pages. I may do an experiment or two to test various theories. It is best not rush. It is best to ponder. It is time well spent, like resting between strenuous yoga poses. When I approach my work this way, although it can feel counter intuitive, ultimately it saves me time.

First Light
This is my first Spoonflower experiment.
I "painted" the sky on my iPad using the
app Sketchbook Pro. Then I manipulated the
color and added the tree silhouettes
in PicMonkey.

My work as Chair of SAQA's Exhibition Committee continued to provide me with a significant number of projects requiring my attention. This week, however I was able to get into the studio, and most importantly focus while I was there. The results are clear is you can see:

1)  Siren's Song:
a) Finish row 9 - Done!
b) Select image to be seen through the porthole. - Done!
c) Design backing fabric - Done!
d) Have fabric printed - Done!

Both the sunset image and the backing fabric have been ordered from Spoonflower. The picture was taken by my husband and then I manipulated through PicMonkey. This is a free software application that is available as part of the design process on Spoonflower. It allows me to adjust color, and in this case I used a radial filter. I designed the backing fabric, too. It is based on another photo taken from my husband, the one I abstracted for the background on the front side of Siren's Song. 
2) Free motion quilting practice - Done!

It felt good to get back to free motion quilting.
This is a detail of the quilting in First Light.

I was concerned that going for a full month without any time spent on free motion quilting I would feel rusty. This was not the case. It felt natural to spend a few hours on filling in more of the sky in First Light. 
3) Do some surface design work - Not done.

4) Beware of when I find myself shutting down and find a way to stay open.

The gym I belong to has break weeks between sessions. Some classes are held, many more are canceled. This week is also when many of the rooms are refurbished. Fortunately, yoga was not canceled. However, some people looking for something to do decided to give yoga a try. The dynamics of the class changes dramatically when so many people are new, naturally uncertain and frankly distracting. It is easy for me to feel resentful and wanting things not to change. I chose to welcome the new students and appreciate their presence. Change may bring momentary discomfiture; it also brings progress.
What progress will I make next week? No idea. However, I do have a plan as follows:

1)  Siren's Song - piece the partial blocks that will be surrounding the sunset.

2) Free motion quilting practice

3) Do some surface design work

4) Beware of when I find myself shutting down and find a way to stay open.

I am now linking up to two blogs on Fridays. The first is Nina Marie's Off the Wall Fridays and the second is Free Motion Mavericks.

Week in Review 2016 - 05/20

Tips, Thoughts and Techniques:

The quilting on Sunrise Abstraction
is done. If you click on the image
it should enlarge to a point where the
quilting is more obvious.

Technically there is one more lesson to go in the online course I'm taking called Art on the iPad, taught by Susie Monday. However, the experiment, play and assignment type classes are done. Several people have asked about the apps I have been using in class. This seems like a good time to share the ones that I return to and/or enjoy the most.

Sketches II Pro is the one I like to use for drawing, especially since it allows for layers. This means I can start with my own photograph on one layer, and draw an outline on another layer, and perhaps create a watercolor wash on a still another. It also has quite a few different adjustable drawing tools from calligraphy pens to paintbrushes. The colors are limitless, although you start with a basic palette of approximately 20 colors. The one downside, is that it is less intuitive simply because there are so many options AND some of the key adjustment/navigation tools are hidden.

Pixlr is one of those apps where you can run an image through a series of algorithms that change the image, perhaps giving it a totally new palette, reducing the image to pixels or abstracting it. There are two different ways to create collages. Pixlr allows the image to be saved as .png (versus .jpg). Why is this important? It is important because .pngs save images in a vector format and that way when an image is enlarged or reduced it doesn't get distorted. It also requires more .ppi (pixels per inch on a screen) which is similar to .dpi (dots per inch when printed).

This is Pansy Abstraction with the quilting done
and the facing turned to back in preparation for
hand stitching. 

This week the lesson turned to printing what we created. In the US, Spoonflower is the service that comes up with the most frequency as where to go to have your design printed on fabric. You can also sell your fabrics to others through Spoonflower. Since I had already purchased some of Leah Day's fabric through Spoonflower with success, I felt comfortable using them to print my fabric. Even better they are connected with PicMonkey, yet another software program to run my image through. Which is precisely what I did this week.

If you follow my posts you know I did more than my iPad lesson. Here is how the week went:

1) Work on Sunrise Abstraction - Done!

The free motion quilting is done! Next up will be the finish work.

2) Free motion quilting practice - Done!

This sky was painted using Sketches Pro 2 with
just my finger on the iPad.

Between finishing Sunrise Abstraction and Pansy Abstraction (detecting a theme?) I got plenty of free motion quilting practice in.

3) Do some surface design work - Done!


I used Sketches II Pro to create a watercolor sunrise sky wash. I enlarged the .dpi through Photoshop Elements so that it would be large enough for printing. Then I used PicMonkey to modify the color and add the trees and branches. Now I just have to be patient while Spoonflower prints the results. The plan is to create a whole cloth quilt and perhaps embellish it with some thread painting or hand embroidery.

4) Beware of when I find myself shutting down and find a way to stay open.

It is easy for me to shut down when faced with mechanical repairs, even simple ones. So, when I was biking solo and the chain popped off while I was downshifting, my first thought was, "looks like I am walking home". I was 4 miles from our home. It would be so, so much easier to bike than walk the distance. I took a few deep calming breathes, examining the gears and other related parts and getting over just how disgustingly greasy and dirty the chain was, but I did it. Took only a few minutes and I was back biking!

This is the same sky after I used PicMonkey
to alter the palette and added some trees
and cherry blossom boughs. I have ordered this
printed on cotton from Spoonflower.

It will be a few weeks before I will post again. When I return the plan is to continue as I have been by doing the following:

1) Work on Sunrise Abstraction

2) Free motion quilting practice

3) Do some surface design work


4) Beware of when I find myself shutting down and find a way to stay open


I am now linking up to two blogs on Fridays. The first is Nina Marie's Off the Wall Fridays and the second is Free Motion Mavericks.