7.30.2011

At Last... My Etsy has come along.

I've been swearing I'm about to post some things I've made on Etsy for, ummm...well, too long.

Well I finally did it. I have only posted a couple of things so far, but I hope to have at least 8-10 items posted by tomorrow night.

Here's some a couple pics as a teaser, but if you really want to see what I'm offering, you'll just have to follow this link.

Happy weekend!

7.28.2011

Orchids and Alphonse Mucha

Originally posted on July 21st, 2011

Today has been a sensory delight so far.

My top 10:

In no particular order:

the feel of spent eraser nubbins underneath my fingers

air conditioning, air conditioning, air conditioning.

the smell of warm tomato plants

rhythm and texture, as explored by floral arrangements

milk glass: soft lines, soft color

the weight of my camera in my hands

chicken noodle soup from a Thai lunch counter (with ground peanuts and cilantro in it!)

condensation on a glass combined with the translucency of ice behind it

the sound of watermelon being sliced (hate the taste, love the sound)

bee-yutiful new orchids

#1: Mucha illustrations.

I've been working on the illustrations for my sister's wedding invitation. I started yesterday afternoon, and the creative process has been easy, flowing like warm honey. (everything is warm today. The entire midwest is warm today. Butter melts if it's been out of the fridge for 2 minutes.)

It's been an interesting process working with my sister on what she invisions her wedding looking like, because her taste is a study in opposites. She loves cascading bouquets, but adores the clean, modern lines of calla lillies and phaleanopsis orchids, and the structure of ranunculus.

She hates the fussiness of lace, but adores indian paisley prints.

She loves drawings of bare branches, but also likes ornately scrolled frames.

There's only one place that I can think of that provides both such minimalism and such excess: the illustrations of Alphonse Mucha.

Have you ever analyzed a Mucha print? His linework is flawless. He uses thick and thin line qualities to effortlessly push one type of pattern to the foreground and pull another back. He will intermittently leave the expanse of a gown un-detailed, while spangling the background with a myriad of stars.

The most important thing about a Mucha illustration: no matter how ridiculously detailed and complicated, the thing always makes sense, and has no awkwardness or sense of clutter whatsoever. He can also make a graceful repeat of anything from a seed pod, to crows wings, to frolicking lambs.

So, I'll stop raving about Mucha, and post a couple pics so you can drool for yourself.

Also included are some orchids my mother bought for me because they were on a ridiculously good sale, and the drawings for the invite, as they stand now.

Enjoy.

PS. If you want to drool over some more Mucha illustrations, follow this link. Lovely, lovely, lovely.

http://goldenagecomicbookstories.blogspot.com/search/label/Mucha

You're never too old to Play

I was returning emails, when my best friend and sister started making the most unusual faces while messing with a shark, not too feet from me.

So we giggled, and I took pics.

Incidentally, it's her birthday. Happy Birthday Annie!

originally posted on July 14th, 2011

I'm in the process of helping my sister plan her wedding. In particular, we're hashing out the invitations I'm designing, and narrowing down what her flowers will look like.

Oddly enough, I'm designing the invitation suite and all other printed material, making the flower bouquets, honing her concept design for table decorations/shopping for them, and I'm the official photographer. Plus a few other odds and ends.

This makes me less involved in her wedding than I was in my other sister's wedding this May.

Ridiculous, isn't it.

So, instead of the post I was planning on Alexander Ross: Interesting Painter, I'm going to give you a small sampling of the various pictures I've downloaded as flower/invitation inspiration.

Also, here's a list of places I've found with awesome, frequently un-copyrighted downloadable art and design images.

Enjoy!

Amazing downloadable lables, printables, and more. Not for commercial use.

http://blog.worldlabel.com/category/downloads

My favorite art blog, which sometimes features old book illustrations, where the copyright has expired.

http://butdoesitfloat.com/

wonderful print downloads. I haven't done anything with 'em yet except use them for computer wallpaper. But oh, how stylin' my computer looks!

http://www.patternpeople.com/

It's yale's digital image library. go figure.

http://www.library.yale.edu/beinecke/

My noble pincushion: it's trials and travails

originally posted on July 12, 2011:

Have I ever told you that I simply adore my pincushion?

It's the perfect size, rather rugged, and marvelously cute and cheery, even when bristling with more sharp objects than a porcupine. As you may have guessed, I use it on almost a daily basis. It puts up with a lot from me, and seems as if it will put up with another 40 or so years of projects from me.

I spent most of today sewing on three or four different projects interchangeably. I am never able to work on one project at a time. I have at least 10-15 projects in various stages of production at any given time. It means that it's almost impossible for me to predict when I will finish any given project, but I am constantly making something.

There is nothing so satisfying as finishing up a project that I've been slowly chipping away at for a year or more. The first project I was working on is like that.

The first project is a baby blanket for a darling chubby cheeked baby girl. I started it months before she was born. I was sure I could finish it in time. Hah.

She's almost 1 now.

It was the first major quilt project I embarked upon, not to mention a totally new adventure into the wilds of hand applique.

Well, it was boot-camp for applique, but totally worth it. I love applique, but I don't like putting on intricately shaped objects with a bazillion little ins and outs. The leaves and stems were fun. Simple petals or abstract shapes would be quite fun too. The roses were a complete pain in the patootie.

My sister and I made "english pieced" squares for a border around the whole quilt. It finishes the edges somehow in a way that the quilt really needed.

Last night, I finally basted the "quilt sandwich" together, and am now stitching "in the ditch" around the roses. The negative spaces will be filled with floating quilted leaves and bees with their lazy flight patterns spiraling out behind them.

The next project is a pillow that's sort of a "quilt sampler." The front is all these ridiculous stuffed circular bumps appliqued on. It's rather like very colorful bubble wrap. The back is free-hand quilted images. It's wonderfully random.

I ran into issues figuring out how to make clean seams when dealing with the interior and exterior raw edges at the same time. Now, I think I know enough about sewing construction to move on, and finally finish the sucker. It's going to look so cheery on my bed.

The third project is burp cloths for one of my pregnant lady friends (this year is a positive bumper crop of pregnancies and marriages among my family and acquaintances.) Simple, fun, quirky, easy to wash. I'm making a set of 8.

The forth project is a revamping of a feather-weight cotton button down shirt that I've had for ages. I took off the typical shirt color, leaving it like a mandarin collar. Now I'm sewing some hand crocheted lace that my sister made me in between the two layers of the collar. So it will have a lovely small scalloped trim all around the neck. The next step will be white on white embroidery on the chest area of the front. I'm thinking abstract, crysanthemum based flowers and groupings of french knots. I'll post pics when I'm done.

Enough of the talking. Here's the pics of the projects, plus an embroidered hanky I hope to finish tonight.

Also encluded is some eye candy from the garden.

What I Really Wanted to Name This Blog: A manifesto of sorts

originally posted on July 11th, 2011

I almost named this site Art= Necessity or Art:Necessary, and then thought, "Wow, what a supercilious, heavy clunker of a name." I do believe that art is necessary to daily life, more necessary than most people realize, but why hit them over the head with it with a title like that?

I thought about "Senseless Acts of Beauty," and then rejected it as being A. too floofy, and B. not true. I think that every act of beauty makes perfect sense, though the sense of it is not always obvious, even to the maker.

Then, what I really wanted to name this blog was "Make my Day" both because I make something virtually every day, and because what I make, remakes me. I also love the extended version of the quote in my header:

"If I had words to make a day for you,

I'd sing you a morning, golden and true.

I'd make this day last for all time,

and spend the night deep in moon shine."

It's the song the farmer dances to in "Babe."

As a bonus, I loved the gangster-ish overtones of the name. I could've worn a fedora in my profile pic.

Alas, "Make my Day" was already taken, so I had to settle for "Making Days..." I do like the idea of each day needing to be created, and of documenting the creation.

I have about 30 bazillion ideas for what to do for this site. I have patterns to post, tutorials to document, and observations about life, and the beauty it holds. I also intend to do a post each friday about an artist who inspires me, from Rembrandt to my favorite miniature ceramicist. Lord willing, I will get to them all.

However, one can only pack so much into the first post, so I'll settle for showing you some beauty.

I've been seeing some beautiful things recently, and because I have a decent camera, I am able to let you look at them too.

7.27.2011

Seeing Red.

Sooo,
It's that time of the month, and I'm having one of those months. Not the easy kind, but the kind that's a lot like having a nasty, messy version of the flu.
However, I've been noticing some of the beauties of it, and, being an artist, I want to document it.

The problem is, no matter how much I highlight the um, "vivid" aesthetics in a pleasing manner, it will always end up looking like the nastier kind of 80s feminist art. You know which stuff I'm talking about. If you don't, don't look it up. You probably didn't want to know.

So, having no way to show you that, here are 12 pictures, highlighting the color red that actually are beautiful. One for every month of the year.

But first, a word from Ms. Dolly Parton:
PMS Blues