Weekly Report 2014 - 10/02

There are many wonderful sites on line for how
to draw a face. I turned to one of them for the
first step in this week's LifeBook 2014 lesson
by Kate Thompson. 

Tips, Thoughts and Techniques:

One of the comments that I receive almost weekly on my blog is that the person posting wishes she could be as organized as me. Yes, I do see  myself as organized, but certainly not as the paragon of organization. Truth be told I don't have much of a choice. I am innately organized. I have learned to accept this and go with it. I do have a few tips:

1. Take advantage of your computer's calendar system. I use iCal because I have a MAC, but really any calendar system will do. I schedule my art days as a recurring event. Every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday are blocked out from 7:30 - 4:30 for doing art. I do the business of art on Wednesday and handle personal finance and domestic duties on Friday. I rarely, rarely, really rarely vary from this schedule. I also create an entry nearly everything I do and intend to do on the reminders list. This includes a note for everyone's birthdays and anniversaries so that I can get cards and messages sent. I also make a note of when I must send out a quilt to a venue or pay my quarterly taxes. I have over 150 items on my reminders list. It could be daunting. However, knowing that I will be reminded I don't think about most of them until they land in "today's" list. Even then I only focus on doing them in priority order. Guess what today's #1 item is? That's correct, writing my blog.

Night Vision as of October 3, 2014

2. Be flexible, but don't go for easy, quick gratification. If you aren't familiar with the Marshmallow Experiment, do check out the six minute TED talk about it. The gist is that whether a four year old child gives in and eats a marshmallow now versus waiting 15 minutes to get two marshmallows is a great predictor for that child's future success. I use delayed gratification frequently for accomplishing what I want to accomplish versus just doing what I feel like doing at the moment. I will be rewarding myself after I post the blog. :)

Last week I anticipated that this week time would be limited. Instead I was delightfully surprised to have almost no emergency interruptions during my scheduled art time. It felt wonderful to wallow in art. Here is what my wallowing accomplished:

Abstracted Leaf with echoes.

1) Night Vision - (Due January 1, 2015)

a) Continue the piecing - Done! 

I always think I can do more than I can.  Nevertheless, I am pleased to have gotten as far as I have. I still need to add the veins for the final leaf. After that comes creating the poison dart frog. If anyone has tips for sewing with vinyl, especially sewing vinyl to lesser weight fabrics I could use them.

2) Free motion quilting practice.  - Done!

No surprise with the leaves turning color in the midwest and other areas of the US, I just couldn't resist playing with a leaf design. 

3) LifeBook 2014 - Do the assignments. - Done!

My take on LifeBook lesson #40 by
Kate Thompson.

This week's LifeBook lesson by Kate Thompson was a killer assignment. There is no way I could have done it as my first assignment of the year. It really helped to have worked with all the materials before. Kate did a fabulous job of demonstrating how to layer paints and inks to achieve skin tone, highlights and shadows. As a result my lady actually looks like a painterly portrait. 


Night Vision is at that point when if I could I would be working on it 24/7. I just can't wait to see whether I can pull off the poison dart frog and if so, how it will look against all those lush tropical leaves. However, I know that to be truly successful, like one third of the children in the marshmallow experiment, I must be patient. I do my best work when I pace myself, including taking time for reflection, experimentation and other diversions. Here are the plans for next week:

1) Night Vision - (Due January 1, 2015)

a) Continue the piecing

2) Free motion quilting practice.

3) LifeBook 2014 - Do the assignments.


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.