Be Delighted

"Oh my my my my, what an eager little mind!"

Auntie Mame

Friday, April 12, 2013

Aviary

I've been enjoying my feathered friends at our pond lately (apart from the mess they make on my patio furniture!). We have a large flowering Bradford pear tree, that snuggles up to a Cedar tree just the other side of the fence, so both are havens for all sorts of birds, including Grackles, Cardinals, Finches, Doves, Blue Jays, Mockingbirds, and Sparrows. Occasionally a Cooper's Hawk will pass through but they prefer to sit high atop the elm tree and look for prey.

 I've been enjoying doing some loose, spontaneous illustrations using watered down acrylic paint, rich acrylic inks, and then using drawing pens as accents.

I sold my first Grackle on Etsy, so I did another, slightly different one, and then a couple of Sparrows. I look forward to doing more. Especially with that Noodler's Eel Blue Ink as seen in the first painting and a little in the second. That stuff is dazzling!


Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Five by Five (by Five by Five)

Start small. Repeat until it multiplies like Tribbles. That's my motto. I challenged myself to make some mini 5"x5" art quilts. I feel happy with that size. It finishes quickly and forces me to keep it simple.

And then my brain gets grandiose. I start thinking: what if I make 25 of these and mount them on little 5"x5" canvases, then hang them on the wall in a 5x5 grid? In fact hang them so they can be shuffled every day in a different order and each canvas rotated in a different direction so the overall design is always changing.
So I've started:

I'll have to stitch these down onto the canvases and paint each canvas to match its little quilt. This won't be viewed until my show in August at the Buddy Holly Center (shameless plug) but here are some more of the little five by fives. All of the embroidery work and embellishing is my own,even that butterfly, which I did about 25 years ago.








I have about seven more to make before the grid is complete. Can't wait to play with the layout.