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.)

Back to Fiber Art....after a few more Pastels.

I was reminded today about needing to write a blog post. It has been in the back of my mind but there were a lot of things that seemed more important. I have done a lot of different things since I last wrote.
First I did finish the landscape/sky scape that I showed the beginning of in my last post. Here is the finished piece, titled "Time to Head Home". It really went through some big changes from the last photo posted.

Here it is framed.

I submitted that piece and my morning glory drawing, and my pastel of the wave to a juried show in Vernon and all three pieces were accepted. 

Here I am looking tired and talking with the incredibly talented, and really nice, Jane Penfield. If you go to her web page and look at her work you will see what a novice I am with the pastels.

And her is a photo of two women looking at my painting. I wish I knew what they were saying. Though it is nice just to see someone linger when they get to my work.

I did several more pastels after that.

Myrtle Beach Sunset

Bluebells in the Woods

Field at Sunset

On Cape Cod

I also finished this piece that I started a while ago.

I also did a little quick painting to try to loosen up my strokes and not muddy my colors. I used it as a 'give away' on my Facebook page.

And this painting I did as a timed painting to try to not get too stuck on the details.

In May I put aside the pastels and got back to felting when I took a workshop with Leiko Uchiyama. We learned how to do here Pine Needle technique of felt making. She is a very good teacher who has an aura of peace about her. 

The whole process was very Zen-like, and needs to be done in a kind of quiet meditative state. I find it hard to get to that place in a workshop, especially when there are time limits. I discovered that I am not good with tools. I did not like needing to hold the scissors in my hand. Leiko has so much practice it was just like an extension of her fingers....Leiko Scissorhands. 

After we learned the basic Pine Needle technique with just wool we learned how to incorporate it with silk fabric. Here is my little sample.

We then learned how to make a mosaic scarf. Here is one of the other student's layout. I of course loved her colors.

I chose to work with naturally dyed wool and silk. I used some silk chiffon that I had eco-printed and some wool that I dyed with Jewel weed. Here is it with my sample of just the Pine Needle technique in wool. That was my favorite and the wool I used was 15.5 micron and so soft and light. I want to do more of that for a garment....when I feel patient enough.

I also got together with a couple of friends, Joei and Cheryl, for a weekend of dyeing. They came here and I set up the tent so we could be outside enjoying the sun....when it did shine.

Not content to do just one type of dyeing we did several. After all if you are going to get set up and all messy you might as well go all the way. Speaking of messy, one of us, and I am not naming names, did not remember to wear her gloves. 

We did some resist and over dyeing as taught to us by Chad Alice Hagen...well at least the parts we could remember from the workshop.

Some discharge dyeing.

I love the back of the blue velvet silk.

We even did a bit of natural dyeing...madder in my iron caldron.

I loved the look of the dyed things hanging on the line. Joei did a bunch of ribbon and threads for her embroidery work.

And I dyed yards and yards of a really inyourface bright blue silk chiffon that I have had for a long time. I split it into three pieces and treated each differently.

This piece came out the best and the pattern is evenly uneven through the whole piece. Winner!

And that catches me up only to the end of May...and it is June 11th! I will try hard not to wait so long to do June.

More pastel paintings and an exhibit.

I seem to still be in winter, not a winter of discontent, it is more like apathy. The weather is right there with me even though it is April. I am still expecting that spring will make things better, that I will find some energy to care enough to do more than just hide away in my art. I am doing things but just still feel like I am slogging through mud. So blogging is still in the category of 'who cares, what does it matter anyway'. Today I read a blog post by someone else and that made me remember my own blog, and I really don't want to abandon it just because I feel like it is pointless and too much work. I know that this feeling will pass....eventually.
I have not been felting. I have been doing a lot with pastels. It has been very therapeutic, I lose myself in them because it is so new to me. There is so much to learn. I am determined to try to paint everyday....and have managed to do some most days but it is easy because it is so new. Here is what I have done since the last post.

These pieces I am done with; AKA, some I am happy with, some I am just not interested in putting anymore time into.

This painting was working on some cold press watercolor paper that I applied an acrylic pastel ground to. I did not like the texture.

This cat was done for a challenge on WetCanvas about using color to depict a black object. Here are the colors I used.

 This little painting I did to play with some of the new colors I bought on a shopping trip with my sister who I got addicted to pastels.

This painting I even framed. It is an image that I did in felt years ago. Here is that felt.

It is one that I did not do any needle felting on, leaving the lines very squiggly.

This painting I really liked but I knew something was really off about the composition. I asked for comments about cropping it on WetCanvas. One idea was to make it square.

 One suggestion was that I really have two paintings, a skyscape....

 And a seascape.

I would like to frame it but that involves a decision.
This is another piece that just does not work because of the composition. I never felt that composition was hard for me. In fact in school teachers would point out how I added this or that to make a good composition when I had no idea that that was what I was doing. The advice I get is to figure out what my painting is about. I guess it has to be more than just making a pretty picture.

Here is the piece I am working on now. I plan on finishing it today.

I also made a start on a color pencil drawing, but it has been sitting for quite a while.

I do think I will get back to it since I actually finished that Sunlit Grapes piece after it sat for years. I am very pleased to say that it got into the Academic Artists Association 64th Annual National Exhibition of Contemporary Realism. I probably would not have entered it if I knew it was a national exhibit...I am honored. I went to the opening and could not believe the works there, or that mine was hanging with them! My photos do not do them justice.

BTW, I post things on my Felt Inspiration page on Facebook much more regularly.