Wild and Crazy

These are my paintings from the end of week 2 of Flora Bowley's online class. It's been lots of fun doing layers and layers of paint, but I'm feeling the urge to tame them now. We will be working on these same canvases for 3 more weeks, so they should look radically different by the time I'm done.

Flora's class is so beautifully designed, a lovely cross between painting and The Artist's Way sort of thoughts and exercises, with a little yoga thrown in. Flora has such a lovely presence with a calm, centered quality--it comes through even online.

I have no problem throwing paint on canvas and letting go. It's the next stage--the turning all the joy and wildness into a well-composed painting that doesn't lose its energy--that is challenging for me. So my fingers are crossed that I can continue to stay focused on the process and not worry too much about the results.

Tag Tuesday--Happy Valentines!

I'm kind of killing many birds with one stone this week. Tag Tuesdays' last two themes were hearts, then Valentines. I made this Valentine for my art group Valentine swap, so I'll just check off my whole list.

This was inspired by Jude's cloth weavings, using some of my hand-painted fabrics for a bit of a graphic touch and both machine and hand stitching. I copied some of my painted fabrics on paper and used it for the background.

Happy Valentines Day!

Tag Tuesday--Lace

The challenge for Tag Tuesday this week is lace. I've never been a lacy kind of girl, so wanted to see what else I could do with it. I decided to follow the lace pattern and do some chunky embroidery on top of it.

That might have more potential for playing with smaller lace patterns.

I was looking over my list for my personal "Just 30" challenge, which I wrote about here and found that I worked on, if not completed, everything I had on the list for the month. 30 days is so much more manageable than a year! So I'm going to jot down a few more things I'd like to do in the next 30 days.

Carve more stamps for printing on fabric

Make more fiber components, both hand and machine

Try deconstructed screen printing

Do some layering of printing on fabric, with dyes or discharge

Paint

It's a shorter list because I'm starting Flora Bowley's online painting class, so I want to stay open to however much time that requires or inspires.

Pilot Parallel Pens

I really like the line variety that dip pens give, but they are a little scary to take out sketching in public. I've been experimenting with a bunch of different pens trying to find something that gives nice line variety but can be thrown in a purse.

I'm really excited about the Pilot Parallel Pens. They come in different nib sizes and have replaceable ink cartridges that come in different colors.

This nib is the 3.8mm, about 1/4" wide:

I think it's my favorite--I used it on this bouquet and like the irregular line.

They don't have waterproof ink though, at least I haven't been able to find any. This was black ink, but when I put watercolors on top it bled a beautiful purple color. I love the effect.

This sketch was done with a smaller Parallel pen, 1.5mm, and the black ink bled gray on this one. Not sure why they differ.

I'm always trying for a looser, sketchier look in sketching, and these pens help me give up some control.