Thursday post on Saturday?

Ok, so I missed posting on my target date again this week but I have a good excuse; sort of. I had to take day to the eye surgeon to have his second eye fixed for cataracts. And by the time we got home I was not in the mood to sit anymore. I wanted to paint. I am kind of obsessed with painting right now. It has really been a good thing to have in my life right now. A few weeks ago my eldest sister was diagnosed with primary peritoneal cancer. It was such a shock, one that I still feel, though it is sinking in. I am still having terrible anxiety; heart pounding and feeling out of breath whenever I think about Fran. Painting has been a way for me to escape from that awful reality. The fact that they are selling on Ebay gives me a boost too, knowing that they will be enjoyed by others and not just sit around collecting dust here. We don't need more dust collectors here that is for sure.

Here are this week's paintings. I started a series on water.

I also did two more paintings for my Abandoned series.

I also had a nice distraction from my worry over Fran by going to the opening for the Monson Arts Council art show "Deep". I had submitted three pieces to this show and was pleased that two of the pieces were accepted, especially since I learned that they accepted only about a third of the number submitted. It is a popular show with good prizes. The piece that did not get in was one that I knew was a long shot but that I felt compelled to make. When pondering the theme of "Deep" and what it meant to me I thought about how the deepest thing I know is depression and what that would look like as an image. This is what I came up with; Deep Depression: Beyond Blue.

Here are the pieces that were accepted; first a pencil drawing....

Deeply Content

And a felt wall hanging.

What Lies Beneath.

I was pleasantly surprised at the opening of the show to find that my felt piece had won second place for fiber arts! It was such a good day spending time with a friend, looking at art and a receiving a nice check and accolades. I wish my sister could find a way to get a break as easily. I have to remind myself that this is part of self care and that my being miserable over what she is going through benefits no one. So while I do need to grieve and feel the worry it does not help to wallow in it. And when my heart starts to pound and panic is nearing I will do my deep breathing, or go for a walk or draw or paint, and pray.

Thursday post on Friday.

Last week when I finally got myself to start blogging again I decided that if I set a day to blog I would be more likely to follow through. I thought that Thursday would be a good day for it since Dad usually goes to Habitat for Humanity on Thursdays so the house is extra quiet. However, this week I was busy on Thursday, so I am writing on Friday instead. Yesterday I was helping out at the judging for the Academic Artist's Association's yearly show. It was so educational for me to see how the jurors go about choosing which pieces of art will be included in the show and/or receive prizes. The jurors this year were Doug Gillette and Dan Riccio. They made a great team and were really great at sharing their thoughts with those of us who were there as worker bees. And what a hard job they had since there was so much wonderful art there but only so much room for hanging the show so about 30 pieces had to be rejected. I am very happy to say my colored pencil piece of the marbles; "No Longer Lost" was accepted into the show. This is a national show and it is such an honor to be included.

 

 I have been doing a lot of painting but not much felting lately. I got discouraged with felt this past summer for various reasons and at the same time I was drawn back to more traditional art forms. I had such a strong craving to push paint around that I decided sign up for an oil painting class at the West Hartford Art League with Bill Simpson. I wanted to learn how to a. use oil paint properly since I had never had a class in that subject and b. learn how to do loose, less exact work. I love Bill's aerial paintings and the way that what looks like so much detail of the landscape is really just a glob of paint. I wanted to learn how to put that glob down and leave it there because my tendency was to blend the crap out of it. I found the key for me was to use the palette knife and I am really enjoying it. The class was such a struggle to get through because I was going through a really hard time with my bipolar issues and meds.
Here are the paintings I did in that class in the order that I did them.

Reflections on an icy river.

A corner of the school house studio.

The south end bridge.

Parker River Wildlife Refuge.

I also did a few oil paintings on my own outside of class.

Another one from the Parker River Wildlife Refuge.

Gloria

Since class ended I have been working on a large canvas; 30x40" I think. 

I realized that I was not painting my big canvas the way I had intended. I was painting it the same way I did a small canvas, there was just more area to cover. I had intended to use big marks. I was advised by Bill to use big brushes and squeeze out a LOT of paint. So I should have used big palette knives if I was going to do another knife painting. One problem I had was the idea of using so much paint all at once. It is so expensive! Trying to get myself to squeeze out a big old blob of paint and make big marks on this big canvas was not happening. At about this time I found The Savvy Painter. Listening to the podcast by Karen Jurick gave me the idea that I could make some money to buy more paint by doing small acrylic painting studies and offering them for sale on Ebay. So last monday I listed my first painting. Here are the paintings I have listed so far.

Abandoned 1 

Abandoned 2

Two Cats

Abandoned 3

One Cat

Water 1

Waterlily




And here is a photo of what I bought with some of my new earnings....more paint! I have another large canvas ready and waiting....

My upcoming workshops

Just a quick post to announce my workshops for this spring. I will be teaching at Luckystone Studio in Glens Falls, NY in February. I will be teaching my one day Scapescarf class....

 on Feb. 6th. Go to the Luckystone Studio page to register. 

Then on February 7th and 8th I will be teaching my Landscape class

Here is my latest landscape using the technique that I will be teaching then.

Then in March I fly to Colorado to teach at the Felter's Rendezvous at Estes Park.  I will be teaching a new class there on how to create imagery with nuno collage. I have been preparing for that class and was inspired to create this piece with many layers of fabrics and embellishments. It still needs a few finishing touches...

Unframed pastel painting Give-Away

I am doing a give-away of this pastel painting on my Facebook page. Go to https://www.facebook.com/FeltInspiration and leave a comment on today's post to have your name put in the hat. (Postage from outside the U.S. must be paid by the winner.)

But what about your blog? Part One

    I have really been neglecting my blog this year, and that is not good for two reasons. One reason is that this is the closest thing I have to a website for showing my work to the public. It is an important part of my business. The other reason is the essential reason that I started blogging in the first place...so that I can remember what I have been doing. I did not realize how helpful it was until I went to do my taxes and could look and see where I had gone to teach in the year, or pieces that I have sold. I try to keep records, and notes but the thing about memory aids is that you have to remember to use them...and how to use them. One of the medications that I am on for my Bipolar disorder causes problems with cognitive functioning. This side effect is now the thing that troubles me the most in my life. It is not just memory that is affected, but also things like sequential thinking. I often feel like the stereotypical dumb blonde but with the worst case of ADD ever. It has made trying to run a business so much harder. I think part of the reason I find writing my blog so hard is that writing in general is much harder than it was. I have trouble with word retrieval and mixing up words in a way that I never have before. Now, maybe this is all just age related, but on the chance that it is all due to the medicine I have decided I want to stop taking that one. I see my Dr. soon and hope that he will go along with that decision. If it does not help, it will at least be easier to accept that this is just how my mind works ;or rather does not work, now. In that case maybe I will just change the color of my hair to match the character Loretta Tortelli from Cheers.
    So for this post I will try once again to catch things up and hopefully not let so much time lapse before the next post. Luckily I have photos and my calendar (that I have been remembering to use most of the time) to help me remember most of what I have done with my artwork and related activities. Many of these things really deserved a full post of their own but oh well...ce la vie...for now anyway.
    After the Midwest Symposium I went to my favorite felting event ever...the Felt In Nature invitational gathering organized by Sharon Costello. I always feel so honored to be a part of the talented group of felters who are lucky enough to be part of this event. It has had a profound affect on me and my artwork. This year was no different. The group this year consisted of Sharon, Linda Van Alstyne, Carol Ingram, Kristi Sandoy, Lynn Ocone, Robin Blakney-Carlson, Beth Harwood, Joei Bassett, and Renata Maile-Moskowitz. Being with this group of women, sharing a week living together, sharing ideas, food and drink, thoughts and feelings, all while in a beautiful natural surrounding is unlike anything I have ever had in my life and is impossible to fully express in words. So here are just a few of the photos I took that week.

On arrival Joei and I took a short walk through the town of Rensselaerville NY where the Huyck Preserve is located. We enjoyed looking at the old gravestones at the Trinity Episcopal Church.

Here are some of the photos I took of the preserve.

One of the things we did again this year was to make prefelts and then cut them to share. Each of us then used the prefelts to create a new piece. The one I did was inspired by this view.

 

 

 Here are the pieces I recieved.

These shots show how I puzzled out how to put them together....

 

To create this scene.

Sharon had brought some wool yarns to share. I wanted to try to see if I could layout little bits of the different shades to create the illusion of shading. This image was inspired by this Purple Flowering Raspberry.

I was so intent on my placement of the wool yarns that I did not pay any attention to composition of the image. I think I improved it with some painting and stitching on the felt. Here is is as finished.

Sharon had also brought some fabric samples that were from an interior decorator. There was some really funky stuff. I love using odd fabrics to see what kind of textures I can get. I can't help but chuckle when I hear people say you can not felt with anything but silk, or really light weight fabrics. Here is part of my collection of samples of how my fabrics will look felted with short fiber merino. Of course different wools would give different results.

Sometimes I sample several different fabrics in one felt. 

Of course I can't help trying to make it look like a scene. This is part of what I will be teaching at the Felter's Rendezvous. Though we will be exploring more about how to render landscapes or other pictures with nunofelted fabric collage, much like these:

Here are the samples I made of Sharon's decorator fabrics. One was inspired by the pattern in the lake water.

 

There are the other pieces I made during my time at the Huyck.

This next one I worked more when I got home adding stitching and painting.

Here it is as finished.

I also did a couple of three dimensional experiments that you can see in the far left of this photo.

Time to move on to part two...