Painting Homework

For those of you who hadn't noticed, I tend to work in batches and bursts, working, playing and learning in other media, which help me to re-fuel and also find their way back into my work (sometimes).  In the background of everything else I have had going on recently, I've been working on some watercolor paintings for the online class, Sketchbook and Watercolor: Journal Style class with Jane LaFazio, and thought you might like to see my newest paintings.

First the apple.  Simple fruit shapes are usually what artists are assigned to paint first.  I think it is because many have an overall simple shape that is easier to get started with, but then you need to find a way to make it interesting, by looking for details in the fruit.

Hopefully, I've managed to make it appear real in my painting:

While I'm not a fan of figs (too sweet), my husband is, and I wouldn't let him eat all of them before I had a chance to paint them too:

And then when he was out mowing the grass, he came across some beautiful mushrooms, and was nice enough to bring one inside for me to paint (I only kept it in as long as I had to, and we used gloves to move it, because we thought it might be the poisonous variety he looked up on the internet).

Crazy Log Cabin Puzzle

Right before I left for Houston, I finished my "Oasis" quilt, but of course, I hardly had time to finish it, let alone photograph it, so pictures will be coming...

The other night, I stayed up and finished Madrona!!!!  The only things left to do are sign, pres again, and you guessed it - take pictures, so those are coming soon, as well.

Since those were done, I was able to get back to my crazy log cabins, and I decided to listen to one of my readers, and fit the wonky blocks together.  Here they are in progress (sorry I didn't think to take more):

The secret word here is "partial seams", as that was how I was able to get them to fit.  Start with two that fit together and go from there.  Some areas were built, then seamed together, leaving the ends unstitched, so that I would be able to continue the seam later.  To fit the last areas together, I marked where one edge overlapped the other, and then cut, adding a 1/2" overlap. 

Here's a close-up:

Painting With Jane LaFazio - continued

I'm way behind on my homework in Jane's class (Sketchbook & Watercolor:  Journal Style, at Joggles), but making progress (yea, I still have quite a bit of a mess to clean up after bringing all the vendor booth stuff home, but I'm temporarily ignoring it, in order to get things done that need to get done right now).  Last night, I drew and painted a Sweet dumpling squash, beginning with a pencil drawing, ink, and then painting.  I wish my pictures were better, but at least I'm showing my "model" and the painting:-)

This morning, in between, bouts on the computer, I've been painting again, this time a dark green winter squash that didn't have a label.  I'm thinking it might be a Kabocha squash, but don't know for sure.  This one was "straight to pen", drawing with my pen without a pencil sketch to start with:

BPQ Vendor Booth

For those of you who weren't able to make it to the Block Party Quilt Show, I thought you might like to see some pictures from my booth.  My friend, Ellen helped me with the entire show, from set-up through take-down, as well as helping me sell books at my lecture at the Stray Threads Quilt Guild meeting on Thursday night (yep, it was on the same day as set-up, so I needed all the help I could get), and I have to say, I wouldn't have been able to do it without her.  THANK YOU ELLEN!!!

Setting up the booth was a bit tricky, as we had to leave space to add my book quilts in the hour before the show opened, because I needed them for my lecture on the night before.  Here's how the booth looked on the first couple of days:

I realized that I should have hung the poppies at the top of the booth, so it would be at eye-level, but when you've got less than an hour to decide and hang 11 quilts, you just want to get them up.  At the end of the day, we rearranged a couple to make the booth look better:

Inside the booth, there was even more to see:

Lecture / BPQ show / Raffle Quilt / Vendor Booth

This is such a busy time for me, but all fun stuff!  This coming weekend is the Block Party Quilt Show is Issaquah, WA, and I have a vendor booth!  With the book release, and just returning from Quilt Market,  it's busy around here!  Tomorrow I'll be setting up my vendor booth at the Block Party Quilters Show, as well as lecturing at Stray Threads Quilt Guild, tomorrow evening, and Friday, through Sunday I will be found at the show, tending my booth.  Luckily, my friend Ellen came to my rescue, working on things that needed to be done while I was gone, and also helping me at my lecture and also in the booth through this weekend.  

The Block Party raffle quilt was designed by me, but made by the quilt guild (I did participate in the sew-in for the blocks) and tickets can be purchased for a chance to win it.  For more details, you can visit the guild website here.  So far, I hadn't been able to get an unobstructed picture of the quilt, but today this one came in my email:

If you get to the show, please stop by and say hi at my booth.  I'd love to meet you!

Quilt Market - Day 3

Monday was another fantastic day at Quilt Market for me.  When I arrived at the Martingale booth for my book signing, there was already a line!  Many of the shop owners purchased more than one book for me to sign, and some told me they sold out quickly and had to re-order.  One lady told me that the books came in and never made it out of the back room!

Have you seen the Slice fabric cutter?  It's an amazing little cutter that can cut fabric with fusible web attached - what an accurate way to cut appliqués!  On Sunday and Monday I watched as they gave several away, and it's possible that they had given some away on Saturday, but I missed it.  Just being there for the giveaways was a lot of fun, even if I didn't win one, although I guess it could go on my Christmas wish list.....

Of course, I did do some shopping while I was there, first at sample spree, and then more from the show floor.  Part of my purchases are destined for my one of a kind art quilts, while I plan to use others for new designs in the future.  I'd show you a picture, but they won't arrive for about a week, since I had to ship them home, and one won't arrive until mid to late December, because it isn't scheduled to start shipping until then.

I've been looking for arches to photograph, and was surprised to find some just across the street from the hotel I was staying in: