Reformation Day Blessings

Let us give Thanks

For the blessings of the Word in our own language

For general education for all

For freedom of opinion and religion 

For BOOKS! And - 

For Salvation by Grace alone, Faith alone, and Scripture alone.

Garden gleanings 

Nearly November

Rainy

No art time this week, but the flower make some pretties in the rain. It’s time to get things in for winter. 

Student Practice

In Colorado I helped Maya practice some watercolor techniques and a little drawing and painting of faces. 

This is my standard starter piece. It is fun and easy, and look at the lovely effects you can get in washes.



For this one we used resist on the birch trees to allow free-flowing background washes.

An elfin creature and color fun.

Comments

An Alternative

Because I still cannot post a comment in the comment section, I will use this route.
I am home now from travels, and would like to thank all who posted beautiful things, made comments, and looked.

Pam, those quilts are gorgeous! And those gelli prints look fun. I am still wondering how they are made. I am very glad you can post again.

Sarah Y., you most definitely should not stop posting. We love to see what you are working on, and struggles or dry spells occasionally don't call for quitting. I have to tell myself that ALL the time.
It would be absolutely wonderful if you would do the November novel writing. Even if you didn't chose to do the 50K word count, just setting a goal and giving it your best to achieve it is a great challenge worth doing. You could do an illustrated short story, or novella, or the first five chapters of your bigger novel. JUST START is the big thing. You can do this!

Quilt Art Inspiration

 On my birthday last weekend I volunteered to help at the annual Harvest Festival quilt show and as always I was stunned by the creativity and skills of the local quilt artists. I always leave the show so inspired and nursing a strong desire to find some kind of time to do some sewing.

 This pattern is called Attic Windows and there are many ways to use it but I love when it is taken literally like this with great fabrics.

I know a few Bibliophiles who would love having one of these.

I left the show with a large bag of fabric remnants I bought at the discount market. 

Last winter, in the middle of a big, long snowy storm, I was trying to finish a special quilt top but ran out of fabric. This nice lady from the guild invited me over to pick some fabric from her stash. I enjoyed seeing some of her lovely creations.

Sally loaned me the pattern for this wall hanging and I've decided it's something I can manage right now though so much busy-ness is looming as well as holidays.

These are the fabrics I'll use--

Then, the other day driving home from a visit to grandchildren I made a stop at a quilt shop and could not resist these gorgeous fabric---

This is a panel and I just loved it's painterly style! I intend to just sandwich it with some batting and that floral fabric as backing and start handquilting around the flowers. Its great to just have something to jump into handsewing (my favorite stress reducing, meditative activity) without a lot of prep work.

Bring on the bad weather! I think I'm ready now.

Gelli Print Note Cards

 Sarah received a note card I made from some gelli printed paper and wanted to see more. These photos were taken last winter when daughter Katie demonstrated gelli printing for me at her home. We had a fun session of experimentation that resulted in a few sheets worth keeping. Katie will have to do a post on the actual process as I don't have photos of that part.

When I was looking fruitlessly for a note card to send I decided to make one and came across the prints I had made. I cut out sections of the gelli prints and attached them to note cards  and embellished with washi tape (I'm getting quite a collection of tapes!) The flowers are washi tape stickers I found at Wally recently. I had so much enjoyment from making one card that I made several more. It's been so long since I've done a craft project outside the kitchen! I haven't put away my supplies in hope that I will get a few more minutes to make more cards.

They aren't great but they are something which is more than nothing which is what I have accomplished in the craft department all summer.

I recently had to drop a wad of cash on a new laptop for my business. This will enable me to also get back to doing occasional blog posts as it solves the photo and editing issues I had been having. Woohoo!

Watercolor 329

A Lesson Demonstration

Watercolor 328

More Minnesota 

Mississippi River 

Watercolor 327

Minnesota 

Crossing the Mississippi River

Random Update

Some random updates for you:

Inktober has been going okay; I am losing a bit of steam, but I don't feel panicked about falling VERY far behind, or about not finishing, so I guess that's good?

This picture doesn't really have anything to do with this post; I just needed a picture here haha. (It is a random sketch from when I was playing around with some comic style story stuff.)

I got my first inquiry about a commissions piece on Instagram. (They didn't want to pay, at least not at the moment, so it dropped, but it still makes me think, Is my art getting somewhere now?)

I've been considering doing NaNoWriMo this November (If you don't remember, National Novel Writing Month is a writing event thing with its own website and stuff, where writers try to write a whole novel, or at least 50,000 words, during the month of November.). I've done the online "camps" before (April and July, I think they're in?) at 25,000 word goals, but I've never been able to join the bigger challenge in November.

But I also haven't written anything in a long time, so I am guaranteed to be quite rusty. Not that my writing has ever been anything other than problematic and clunky. Also, this is a crazy idea. Will that completely prevent me from considering it any further? Nope. What is my problem, haha.

I don't know. I've just been kind of on a role with challenges this year (pretty much the only thing that's been working for me of the things I've tried to accomplish in 2019, ugh), with my Mermay in June thing, and now Inktober -- I've never totally finished these things before, so it almost makes me want to actually take a whack at the writing challenge, you know?

Although, writing is different from creating artwork.

And I can't decide which story idea to go with if I DID try the writing thing...

Hm, yeah. I don't know.

Also, I was wondering if I should stop posting to this blog, mostly because it feels like these days I always have nothing even remotely important to say or show, and I'm not going to art school this semester, so...?

That's it for my random update rambling. :)

Colorado Mountains and Card

Mountains

Today we drove into the Rocky Mountains. It was snowing. 

Up in the midst of the winding roads and rocky rocks is a town squashed between two rocky slopes. It is called Black Hawk. A very expensive town has grown up there, solely for gambling. A mountain side is being scraped away to make room for more growing. 

The original inhabitants, if there are any left, probably wonder what hit them. 

Some houses fit their setting. 



Some trucks do too. 

The long road back down.

And in the mail today, I got this card. Thank you, Pam. 

What is the cover paper? Lovely layers.

Retrospective

Art Show

My first art teacher, in college, is retiring and had his 40 year retrospective show. I was in his first class of students. (That tells you something.) I went to see the show while I was in Minnesota. 

Here are a few of his works.

Detail of above

Detail of above

Nebraska

In All Its Glory

This is the state with maybe two roads, the highway and the not-highway. They are straight for hundreds of miles, it seems. Bugs splatter the windshield at a phenomenal rate. After we drove through, there are probably no bugs in Nebraska. 

If you see a tree, it is probably dead - died of loneliness. 

No  internet signal while one is trying to help one’s girl on the other side of the world to find some papers.

No towns with gas stations, until there is one, but it is under construction. 

No traffic, until a farmer pulls out ahead of you with his combine, and his field is waaaaaaay over there.

Pastures are measured in hundreds of acres. Corn fields stretch forever. A few cattle, and fewer horses occasionally dot the landscape.

Then we saw segments of the old original road, probably built on the wagon trails.

And we see some land that is not flat. In fact it is quite rugged, and Nebraska is redeemed: The road actually has to curve to get around the rough lands. 

Watercolor

Not a Real Place

Very tiny sketch 

Watercolor

For a Little Princess

Coloring Pages

For Little Ones

Just before leaving Minnesota, I drew a picture of favorite subjects for the two small children of of my nephew. They got right to work with colors: red fire, green wings, and plenty of pink.