Reductive Drawing and Pig

First the Pig

Creative effort today was getting a Large chunk of pig into smaller chunks and into an already-stuffed little freezer. God does everyday miracles and special miracles. This was the latter. Then the fat needs to be rendered into lard. Pies, anyone? And the bones cooked for broth. And places found for everything. Nobody can say homemaking doesn't require creative energy and ingenuity.

Drawing Lesson

This was learning to work the opposite from normal: after collecting still life objects, we darkened the page and used our erasers as rendering implements to bring light to the page and reveal the objects. This is a good exercise to help one focus on tone and value instead of lines.

Charcoal is easier (and messier), but we used pencil.

Erasers bring out some shapes.

Some of the background was lightened, too, to show shapes of shadows.

To finish, additional additive lines darkened or adjusted some areas. This was just a quick demonstration sketch, but if you look up "reductive drawing" you can find some gorgeous works with strong tones.

Blessings on your weekend and Transfiguration Sunday.

Thank you, Sarah Y., for all your comments. Looking forward to seeing your works again on Tuesdays.

Tea Party Wall Quilts

I completed two quilted wall hangings as birthday gifts for my daughters while I was restricted by a back injury this winter. My girls grew up having tea parties with their friends for special occasions like birthdays. As adults we have continued to have tea parties for occasions like bridal showers and church fellowship ladies meetings. One of my daughters collects teacup and saucer sets and I knew she would appreciate a wall hanging with this theme.

 I started out with hand appliqued teapot and teacup blocks that I pieced with a strip piecing method using fabrics I had in my stash.

 I then practiced some machine quilting techniques I learned in a workshop at my quilt guild last fall.

To make these small wall quilts into "art" pieces, I decided to embellish with tea party type additions-- a pretty napkin with a blue embroidered border, tiny teacups (souvenier finds from second hand stores) and a pair of lace gloves.

This little teapot with lady bugs was found by a friend (who knew about my special project) at a second hand store. Both wall hangings for my two daughters included a tiny teapot, a lace glove, tiny teacups, napkins, a lace tablecloth ruffle and a silver teaspoon. Silk flower embellishments were reminders of the fancy hats ladies would often wear for tea parties.

I even added some silk fabric tea bags that had contained Chinese tea leaves. I removed the dried tea leaves and replaced them with bits of fabric and hand sewed them onto the wall hangings.

Each wall hanging had one little cup from a tea set that I had as a small child. How fun for each art piece to have a fifty year old tea cup!

 Alyssa recently moved into a new house with her husband and baby. She is excited to hang this above her sideboard "tea station" in the dining room.

Katie's wall hanging will take up less room but should go well in her newly painted kitchen.

Watercolor 102

Still Life

Dutch Museum Paintings

With Details

Wouldn't it be inspiring for your children to grow up with this in your house?

A large painting, with a lot of content, but very unified.

A detail of the above work

Another detail

A detail of the painting below

–

– here is a clock for your cabinet –

A porcelain painting, if I remember correctly

If you read the notes below, for this painting and the next, you get some of the drama going on in that time, too.

Poor Papa...

Valentines Contest

Starting Now

I missed some time here, so just now saw responses to the inquiry about whether anyone wanted a Valentines Contest. We have a few affirmatives.

So, The Rules!

Let's keep it simple.

1. Make a Valentine specifically for someone. In other words have it suited to a certain person.

2. The size, media, techniques are your choice.

3. You don't have to use red, or cupids, or roses, or lace, but your piece must include a heart shape (semi-prominately) so we get the theme.

4. You may enter as many pieces as you wish.

5. All pieces must be posted by the 14th or sent to me for posting by the 13th. The name of the creator and at least a first name or description ( e.g. - " my little brother, 42 years old") must accompany each entry. If the piece requires an explanation ( "I am sending my grandfather a card with a Teddy Bear because ..." etc.), then include it.

6. I will likely ask each of you to vote for a favourite.

7. I will pick another one either as a random drawing or most creative. It is very late here and I need to think about it. The prize(es) will be told later, after I sleep.

And Mine

So, you know when you have dozens of things you should be doing, but you get out the papers and scissors and glue and pens anyway? Well, I did. I will show some another time, but here is a glimpse.

For a sister

For a man and wife

February Flowers

I only want to do flowers.  No hearts, snow scenes, pine trees... just flowers.

I love drawing with pen (no pencil sketch first).  It makes me honest.  I recently found a good sale and splurged on a set of 5 Prismacolor fine-tip illustration pens.  I had been using fine Sharpies if I was going to paint on it, but those were not as reliable, and I like having tip choices.  I am really loving these pens!

I also love this old wildflower book I found at a yard sale.  In the absence of fresh flowers, it offers much lovely inspiration.

I have been enjoying some experimental stuff as well.  The above was playing with liquid watercolor, acrylic and paint pens, with some Gelli print cutouts.

This was an old pen drawing of a ruffly tulip that I grew and picked last spring.  These sedimentary watercolor pigments made an interesting effect around it... not sure I love it, but it's interesting.

More watercolor and paint pen...

And I'm not sure why I thought it would be a good idea to glue down some textured paper before a flower drawing, but I did and it's a little weird.

After doing that one, I came across some YouTube videos about paper piecing with Gelli prints.  So I used the above sketch to make a traced pattern and cut out the pieces from Gelli prints.  This was a surprisingly hard project... it is hard to get values right and it did not turn out like I had envisioned, but I sort of like the results.  It was fun to try.

In close-up you can see that I used some oil pastels for a few marks here and there.

For the rest of the month, I am going to try to keep up with some lettering/watercolor floral challenges on Instagram.  I have yet to actually start, now 5 days into the month.  But I'll attempt to do what I can.  I think this is the last "slow" month before things really get busy for the spring and summer.

This and That

A Bit of Sketching

Some Brockenhaus shopping for a few plates

At 13 pieces for the price of one. 

Thinking Ahead on a snowy day.

Sketchbook And...

A Page in Mine Today

Is anyone interested in a VALENTINES CONTEST?

In Progress

More Color

Scraps to make into pretty patterns.