Monthly Archives: January 2023

Spring anyone?

Posted on by

It’s quite cold here for our usually temperate climate, but then it IS winter and so many folks across the country are really suffering from the effects of winter weather that I can’t really complain.  But I do know that spring comes early and I’ve been focused on making some things that have 3-season wearability.  Here’s a recent combo.  I believe I may have gotten both of these fabrics at JoAnn’s, proving once again that you can find decent fabrics there for garments if you really slow down and look.  The pants are linen and the top is a brushed poly or maybe poly/lycra knit that is butter-soft and quite stretchy.  Once I took the pictures, I switched to some deep dark olive wool pants and a red wool jacket because it’s it’s in the 30’s outside right now and not expected to get above 54 at the highest today.  I know that’s a balmy day in Minnesota but it sure feels chilly to this California Girl.  I do love the versatility of this top.  Because of the many colors in the print, it can go with all the red, navy and olive green solid coordinates in my closet.

I don’t generally pay much attention to where design motifs fall when I sew because I don’t care for the “fussy cut” look you get if you plan where everything lands and match motifs over seams and so forth, but maybe I should plan ahead a little more when a design has perfect circles in it like this one.  I just got lucky that the prominent blue circle medallion in the design fell in mostly inocuous places and the secondary circles in the design did the same.  Lucky is often better than good.  Here are side and back views of this outfit below.  Incidentally, I can see that I need better makeup and better lighting for these photos and a fresh shorter haircut for spring.  Warning, I might go REALLY short again with the hair.  Will my electronic devices still recognize me if I do?

 

Sketching Right Along

Posted on by

During the holidays it has been a challenge to keep moving on the sketchbook project, but deadlines are motivating.  Here are images from the December and January sketchbooks:

 

December in the garden doesn’t give much inspiration at first look, and Nandina is one of my least favorite shrubs, but it turned out to be exactly what I needed for this book.
And this shows how my image fits in with the ethos of this particular book. As the project has moved along, I’ve noticed that the books really develop personalities and each book needs something different to carry it forward. Often it’s NOT what I’ve planned to do for the month, but when the book speaks, the artist must listen.
Who knew that something labeled as “Christmas Cactus” at the nursery or big box store could really be “Thanksgiving” or “Easter” Cactus masquerading as Christmas Cactus? This one definitely has all the characteristics of truncata and not bridgesii, which is the traditional Christmas Cactus. This image is on cold press watercolor paper and it shows the difficulties encountered when using colored pencil on highly textured paper. You get paper texture showing through and it’s harder to make smooth transitions. Hot Press Watercolor paper is the current standard for colored pencil drawings, but I still like the Stonehenge in my homemade journals best of all for mixed media sketches like this.
And finally, this is the full book. We are officially half-way through the project. I’ve over-emphasized the fleshy raised area at the center of each leaf, well, because I can in this project and I think it’s one of the things that makes these leaves interesting. Also, I rather like the pointy projections from the leaf body.

So that brings us up to date with the Sketchbook Exchange Project. What will February bring? Ellen Blonder, who comes before me in these books, said it’s like Christmas when you get a new book every month and then it’s like finals week when you are approaching your mailing deadline and don’t have your sketch done. That describes the project very well.