Saturday, April 29, 2017

Whatchagot Pillow Makeover

My internet is down, and before it went down it was so bad it was unusable. I haven't even been able to load this blog to read posts.  We were also without power for a day, but thankfully the power company is more diligent about repairs than the internet company seems to be.  Right now I am at a friend's house using her connection to catch up, so I thought I could do a quick post.

Last week I traveled to Cincinnati with my children and some friends for a ginormous homeschool convention.  It was a grueling three days of inspiring seminars and shopping the huge curriculum expo.  The convention was held at the Duke Energy Convention center in downtown Cincinnati.  It's a three-story building that takes up two city blocks... pretty amazing to our country-bumpkin selves.  One thing I loved was that there was art all over the building... murals and sculptures and mosaics... I really enjoyed looking at them as we hiked from one end of the building to the other repeatedly.  I am sorry to say, however, that I did not get photos of all the art, even though I kept intending to, because my hands were always full of children and stroller and bags and other necessaries.  So all I have to show you is the multicultural mosaic mural (ha, say that three times fast) that we walked by on the outside.





We are having a glorious spring, warm and lovely and everything blooming heavily.  It lasts for such a short time... I haven't actually taken many pictures of all that, either, I've just been outside enjoying it.  I found these gorgeous pink dogwoods at the zoo the other day.




When spring starts I always get an itch to refresh my surroundings.  I have been lazily reading and painting all winter, which seems a waste of time I could have been using to accomplish household things which trapped in the house, but I didn't have the drive.  Now I do, and reading and painting has fallen by the wayside while I work on household things.  I am hoping to get my kitchen repainted soon, but we'll see.  Yesterday it was chilly and rainy, so I made some new pillow covers for my couch.  I like to do this from time to time since it is an easy way to refresh the decor, but I haven't been able to get any fabric lately.  I went digging in my fabric stash and found things with which I could make-do.  A couple of these fabrics were remnants I got and have been saving because I knew they would get trashed as pillows.  But I haven't found any other use for those materials, and stashed in the closet is no way to enjoy them, so I decided to use them.  Let's try to keep them off the floors, shall we kids?

I also found some plain heavy material (probably came from a yard sale?) which I dressed up with a little stenciling.  I didn't have any fabric medium, so this is just acrylic paint.  It's a little stiff, but I'm sure it will be fine.



Here are the three pillows I finished:





These two are the two I had thought "too fine for work days."  I love the coarse weave of the solid one, and I hope it holds up well to daily use.




I love how the stenciled one turned out.





I still have one more pillow to cover.  I found some plain white fabric and tried printing on it with my Gelli plate.  I had fun figuring that out, and ended up with a pretty cool piece of material, but it is very stiff from that much paint and I think I would prefer to use fabric medium for this application.  Also, I got it done and realized that the color was not really what I was going for (it's brighter than you can see in the photo).  So, back to the drawing board, I'll figure out something else for that last pillow.



Friday, April 28, 2017

Watercolour 38

Winter's Return

This is what we woke up to this this morning.
 On my morning walk I saw many, many broken limbs from especially the birch trees. These were huge limbs, shattered on the ground. The trees have put out enough leaves that the very heavy wet snow stuck to all that surface and was too much for some. The Chestnut trees in the park, in full bloom now, with their large leaves and tall blossoms, suffered some breakage, too. I did not have a picture-taker with me, of course.


A few pots were left out... oops.

Watercolour

So it is a good day to focus on the flowers still bravely holding on.
And to paint a little....






...before going to a first aid course. I am getting eased into resuming driving, so I need to study and get this training. Here, Good Samaritan works are required by law; no may "look upon him and pass by on the other side."

Thursday, April 27, 2017

Watercolors 36 & 37

Landscape

Because it has been wintery here again, with snow and rain and fog, I made a cool toned scene.

First washes

not so good, but gets an effect


Birds

Because color is nice -

watery washes

And a few more touches - Voila!


Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Wall Walk

Circling the City


Outside the wall




For defence, a walkway runs along the walls


Looking in on the city from the wall







Along the wall, part of which had to be reconstructed after bombing in WWII, were plaques from a wide variety of donors from all over the world. Most paid for "one meter of wall" reconstruction.











This says that fines from naughty young people went to the reconstruction. Might be incentive to  minor hooliganism?







Where we were recently









It says, "Beware the woman of the house; the dog is harmless."


Marzipan





The green are bottles




A time-traveled fellow newly introduced to cell phones


The market square and people waiting for the clock to ring six



At which time windows open and the pantomime begins: an old story says that after an attack a deal was made that the mayor drink three laters of beer straight down to save the city.....

.... he did but it killed him. That's dedication.