A Round Up

I am having the great privilege of working in Vacation Bible School this week.  It has kept me from doing any art but the kids are producing some great pieces.  We have  a Western theme this year.  These horses were created by some very cute and talented 1st, 2nd and 3rd graders.  I found the idea from googling images (do you think google will eventually end up as a verb in the dictionary?)  for Western crafts for children.   The site is in a language I do not recognize or understand so I pray I didn’t break any copyrights (I think the writer of that blog got the image from a book).  Check it out here and translate for me, please.  The writer does some fabulous crafts with children.  Wish I could read it.

One of the girls told me hers was a zonkey, a cross between a zebra and a donkey.  Who knew.

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Family Pairs

I have been stitching.  This is my father, Don Evatt and Pop, his father, John Evatt.  Daddy joined the navy when he was right out of high school at the end of WWII.  He became a telegraph operator on a South Pacific air craft carrier.  He could do the Morse code like no other.  Not that I would know, but…   Luckily, it was at the end of the war and he came home fine.  He had two close-in-age brothers, Rob was in the air force,  Paul joined the army.  Can you even imagine what that was like for their parents?

We have several little photos of Daddy and his parents and siblings.  Apparently the camera’s viewfinder could only hold 2 at a time because there are only 2 people in any of the photos.  I love these old photos.  I try to read as much as possible about them at that time of their lives (since I wasn’t even yet a glimmer in Daddy’s eye yet).

This is done on my sewing machine  in cotton thread on tear away stabilizer.   I “drew” (with my needle)  the image in red thread to begin with and it peeks thru.   I am pleased with the fragment look of the piece.   And… these are the first people I have done that I am proud of.  Small images of faces in sunlight are difficult to deal with.  Any detail in them seems cartoonish.  I tried to remember how I would handle it if I were painting and did the same thing.  Basically, use warm colors and forget detail.

Thread painting is similar to pastels.  You’ve only a finite number of colors to choose from so you have to let your eye do the blending.   As I was using up spool after spool of thread, I wondered how expensive this technique is compared to the cost of painting or weaving or quilting.  I know I don’t have to replenish my paints or fabric stash as quickly as I do thread.

Midweek Drawing

Pen and ink tonight.  Here are three little birds…

a thrush,

a chickadee,

and a warbler.

Recess

Friday morning with no plans for the weekend.  How lovely does that sound.

I have been working on finishing up those quilts I long ago mentioned.  I hope to show you soon but for now they are a surprise.  Takes time to quilt you know.  But I have played a little also.  This is based on Katherine Allen’s technique I read about in FiberArts magazine.  Very loosely based on it, using the materials I had on hand.  The first picture is a portion of what was done by painting a piece of canvas  and then placing organic collectings from my back yard on it.  With a silk screen, I squeegeed (what would be the correct term?) thinned acrylic paint thru.  Then took it to the sewing machine.  Ms. Allen’s work is so engaging, I wish I could see it in person.  I cropped the best of my piece with a mat (amazing how things look better matted and framed).

This shows almost the entire back side.  See on the left where I cropped my portion.  I like this side.

Hope your weekend is filled with pleasantness.

Rosie

Last week is past and was filled.  Time begins again this week (isn’t it nice that we are able to start fresh each morning?).  My husband and I passed (I don’t say celebrate because there wasn’t much celebration done) our 26th anniversary last week, the day after the family beagle, Rosie, died.  We had 14 + years with her and although that felt more like 30 (I am not really a dog person), I miss her and still tear up when I realize I don’t have to be quiet so as not to awaken her up and have to take her out.  Told you I am not really a dog person and taking care of her had become a trial.  She had Cushings disease for the last couple of years.  She was really my son Taylor’s dog, a gift from the pound for his 7th birthday .   For the most part, Rosie was a great little dog.

After that sad interlude, we headed to the beach.  Took the watercolours but did absolutely nothing related to art other than observe (which is probably the most crucial part of art).   But we are back now, somewhat ready to start a new week.

Here is a watercoloured block print I did of Rosie a few years ago when she was  a chubby little thing!

I would like to say how grateful I am to Rosie’s  vet,  Dr. Richard Best, in Marietta, Ga.  He was recommended to us years ago by my dear friend Leisa Bailey.  He had been her neighbor way back when she and I were teens.  I doubt there is a more compassionate soul than Dr. Best, he went  thru the painful process of putting her to sleep, assuring us it was the right thing to do at the right time (she was vomiting blood with congestive heart failure and her kidneys were shutting down) and then he didn’t even charge us anything.  He was truly a blessing.