Embroidered Collage

I had an armful of new issues at Barnes and Noble yesterday!  While always fun, it was also oddly disappointing.

Piecework - Even though I'm not doing much traditional needlework, I still enjoy reading about it. Yet after five years, a lot of the information seems to run together, even though the articles are still well written and enjoyable.  This issue focused on various quilts and the one that grabbed me was a couple pages on Libbie Gottschalk who slowly covered one of her grandfather's quilts in clothing labels as it wore out and split.  At this point the original fabric is completely covered, but the memory remains.

Somerset Studio - I've heard people comment before about how all the art in this magazine tends to look the same, but it really hit me between the eyes this time.  At first I thought it was because I'd changed, although the art had not.  On closer reflection, I think part of it is also the layout and lighting in the magazine articles.  It kind of blends the careful pencil drawings together with the altered fashion ads and so forth.    In any case, I look at it and think that maybe work that can be made to fit in this magazine isn't really what I'm aiming for.  On the plus side, I loved the artist's paper designed by Lisa Kaus this issue.  I'd very much like to use it in something.  Anne Bagley's notes on how to paint unique paisley patterns was intriguing, as it's a subject matter I would have been afraid to tackle. 

Juxtapoz - I discovered this crazy magazine a few issues ago and it showcases really strange art, often highly detailed and surrealistic, on the border of pop culture.  It's interesting, and I'm looking forward to reading the issue more closely.  But once again, my thought as I flipped through was that, no, I don't fit here.  This isn't it either.  It's just going to be fun to be influenced by it for a couple more months.

Fiber Arts - I love and adore this magazine.  The varied work featured has resonated since the first issue that I saw and it still does, even though it's pretty much all a step removed from the mixed media I want to develop.    Seeing in fabric and thread and stitched creations just matters more to me.  The variations the medium puts on traditional and modern subject matter interest me.  Someday, if my work keeps the stitch as I intend it to, I would like to have to be mentioned here.  That's such a very very long term goal that it doesn't really deserve the name of "goal", more like wish.

I did NOT buy the brand new issue of Quilting Arts on the newstand because I have a subscription.  Even though my issue is NOT HERE yet.  AAAargh.  And this after someone on the Quilt Art mailing list gave the issue a detailed and glowing recommendation.  I am being patient.  Really.  Honest.  Sigh. 

Raven Hanna designs jewelry featuring molecular patterns.  It's a really nifty idea and I found out about it from reading the July 17 issue of Chemical and Engineering News.  Raven's official page is at www.madewithmolecules.com .  She has a PhD in Biophysics and Biochemistry and currently creates works in all sorts of areas connecting art to science, not just jewelry, including film-making and writing articles.  The whole concept appeals to me and tempts me to take up science related themes in my future visual explorations.   I'd already played with the idea off and on in the past, though I don't think it ever made the blog.

Oooo, pretties.  I hadn't gotten new cards since I purchased my domain name.  It was time.  I reordered from www.overnightprints.com, since I'd been happy with them last time.  They've got a great new design engine which made the process much flexible and still fun.  I incorporated some of my art into the front side, emphasizing the web page name.  I put the contact info on the back.  It looks nifty, but next time I think I'll figure out a way to make it simpler.  Next time will happen either when I run out or I have a stunning piece of art to put on the new version.

Snap! into focus comes the portion of my goals I need to concentrate on for a time.  I've signed up for an intriguing sounding class in the fall - six Tuesday evenings of Rediscovering Color: Part 1 with Jim Himsworth.  Three weeks of simple still-life studies followed by three on taking a more complex set-up to completion.  The kicker is that the focus is on using color and value without much technique instruction.  I understand the fundamentals of color mixing and the color wheel, as required, but I think that I need to take my actual painting skills up a level in order to get as much as possible from this class.  The teacher is very popular and well regarded in the area so I've put half my money down even though it doesn't start until October 10.

After I complete Snowfall I will be spending as much of my art time as possible on painting and drawing realistically.  I will be continuing the needlelace sampler, but some other intentions will be set aside for later.  Once class starts, though, I am interested in going home and developing mixed-media pieces based on the same set-ups that we just painted in class.  We'll see if that really happens.  I'm tempted to spring for the artist quality acrylics once the materials list comes out.  The teacher strongly recommends oils, but I just don't see the point when I have no intention of ever working with them and he does allow other mediums.

I'll be looking forward to this and will, of course, share what I learn along the way.

  We were away visiting friends this weekend - saw a baseball game at Camden Yards - but I also did art in yesterday morning.  There were some gorgeous asiatic lilies on the table and I sketched them and played with the shapes.  I did a couple warm-ups, then moved onto trying a colored-pencil drawing.

  As I looked at the flower I could see the different shades of orange and yellow depending on where the light fell.  I wanted to capture the drama of the darker areas against the well-lit areas, but even the photo didn't quite pick that up.

For the amount of practice I've had, I'm pleased, but I couldn't capture the dark and light, or model the curving depths.  Being bolder with the shadows might have helped, but I couldn't figure out how to get the darker oranges with the pencils that I had available.  I tried using browns and greys, with some success.  I did get a nice bit of a punch when I put in some dark purples into the mix, not just on the center bits, as I expected from the complementary color combination.

Burnishing with the colorless blender made a huge difference in how pleased I was.  The flower popped out nicely.  Adding the background wasn't my best idea, but that's okay.  It was great practice.

Next I did something that was more along my lines of interest.  I tried abstraction.  I went for the petal shapes in one quick sketch, not shown here.  I was happier with my second try and began elaborating upon it, trying out some variations.

The light shading at center top didn't please me and the extra lines at bottom left just confused the issue.  I liked the neutral solid coloring on the upper right in some ways and also the solid coloring of the highlight/shadow areas in the upper left.  It was interesting to realize that I would have drawn this differently if I'd had a different shape of paper.  I'm seriously interested in taking these shapes further in practice, but we'll see if I get distracted by something else first.

This time I ran through a bunch of the needleweaving stitches in Jill Nordfors' book.

The weaving stitches are not horribly entertaining in and of themselves, but they would be fun to play with in layering with various weights of threads and such.  The woven band variations were supposed to form patterns, but I think they needed to be much closer together together and I'm not that patient nowadays unless I use really thick thread.  The way they were done was interesting, though.

The honeycomb filling is supposed to be more regular than that.  I like the idea of crossing from multiple directions, but I won't be following a regular pattern like this was supposed to be.  There are interesting little swirls at the intersections of the double bar filling and it was fun to work, but the twisted lattice was my definitely my favorite.  I wonder how I can vary it.  I don't see myself using the laced lattice filling, but it does look kind of neat. 

Cretan filling will be another fun way to play with a weave.  I've used it before in traditional settings.  All three of these fillings were fun.  The movement of the ghost stitch was very soothing and watching the pattern develop was nifty.  The overcast fillings on the grids tantalize me with thoughts of different weights of thread, just like the weaving.