Velvet and cheesecloth

Velvet and cheesecloth, originally uploaded by jckirner.

MMmmm, some lovely colors there!

A new quilt show came to town and I had a long and wonderful day browsing with 5 other friends a week or so ago. The World Quilt show http://www.quiltfest.com/ included 400 quilts and 80 vendors. We had tired feet and happy, yet numb, brains after 5 hours of viewing. Talk about overload. And yet, if that's 400 quilts, what does it feel like to view the multitudes at Houston's IQF?? A goal one day to find out, that's for sure!

My only purchase was the batch of hand-dyed fabrics above, some cheesecloth, some velvet and a square of organza from http://www.sunnybunnydesigns.com/ in Tampa, FL who had a booth in the show.

Mostly, I took inspiration away from the day. Amazement at the incredible technical skill of the exhibitors, and yet awareness that simplicity can be just as amazing. Gina at http://www.claynfiber.blogspot.com/ has started to share some images from that day. I'm still processing everything I saw!

Meanwhile, I have started my own dye experiments with the black walnuts generously sent to me by Suzan at http://www.suzanmorgan.com/. A little gecko was staring in at me as I setup the pot on the back patio...see him at top center of this picture?

Make up work

Make up work, originally uploaded by jckirner.

Been busy. Missed a night of drawing class with feeling under the weather.

Make up work was a self-portrait...

For all those drawing class folks out there, my friend Gina passed on this link - woman. Thanks, Gina!

From a Stitchers' Stash...

From a Stitchers' Stash, originally uploaded by jckirner.

...although I didn't know her.

My friend was sorting through the boxes of stash from the church quilters group. One of the older members had passed and after the big bits and more current fabrics of her stash had been squirreled away for charity quilts there was the disposition of the leftovers to do.

I was invited to peruse and identify some mystery bits in the sewing stash and then was to chose a few for my inventory. I just selected a shoebox worth - knowing how bits tend to stick around unused forever!!

But I got them home and started to play with color combinations and simple shapes. And pondered how often this happens - that stashes must be dispositioned. What once was the carefully sorted bits of fabric held onto by one - then are released and reused. (or not!!)

Thanks for letting me share the fabric, folks! Glad I could help identify some of the mystery bits.

And boy, there's a lot of beauty-challenged fabric out there!!!

Athena

Athena, originally uploaded by jckirner.

Back to drawing class last night. A last minute switch from portraits of each other when a model became available.

Again with the draw nude model, then repeat the pose clothed.

This time for a bit of fun the model had her Halloween costume along - Athena - Greek goddess of wisdom and warfare.

About an hour on this drawing - and I like it enough to put more effort into it at home!!

Not really over a week ago

Or was it? Seems just yesterday that I had blogged something or other.
Slip in some excuse for busyness for me, eh?

OH! A cool front came through. Record high temps to record low temps in one week.
It's fantastic to have the air conditioner off and a change of air blowing through the open windows.
House guests and a 3 day weekend jostled the routine too.

Other than my midterm exam and a drawing class I dinked around with the handy studio sign some more.

Or should it be Arlee's stooodio.

Or perhaps stewdio - that's probably the most apt for me. An art tutor/friend said I was 95% percent think/fret and 5% do!!! Heh heh.

Probably explains why I found it refreshing to do the gesture warmups in drawing class. Eliminates much of the fretting coz there's a deadline to the 'doing' so I have to get going!

A change of pace - bit of mixed media play

More layers, originally uploaded by jckirner.

Giving myself permission to muck about with mixed media this week. Dragged out the gessoed drawer from a jewelry box - thinking of making a sign for the studio/workroom/office.

added some color and a topper

then the color layers got a little too "80's"

And I tried a more dramatic topper before getting to the version at the top of this post.

Drawing class reiterated the "draw nude model then add clothes" lesson. This time using color.
> And my F-POW (Focus Project Of the Week!!) was appliqueing the ladies and backstitching around them on the scroll piece.

Ah!! a scroll

Ah!! a scroll, originally uploaded by jckirner.

All these big decisions to make - what shall I do with the 'Women of Art History 101' stitched bits I've created?

Go the mixed media route with paper?

Or perhaps they look better on black?

Hmmm - maybe book page backgrounds.

OOO I know, arranged in a semi-circle for a tea cosy.

Errr - maybe not.

I'll create a scene.

No, perhaps too ambitious compositionally.

Or a simple banner.

Nope - I think a scroll is best.

(Beautiful blues background fabric from Robin Ferrier of SimplyRobin.blogspot.com)