Had to share..

I came across this on one of the blogs I read and I just had to share it...

The National Highway Safety Council has done EXTENSIVE testing on a newly designed seatbelt. Results show that accidents can be reduced by as much as 45% when the belt is properly installed!!

Sketchbooks

After seeing Jan and Jean's sketchbooks, I thought they were so inspirational. And, it's funny, I was looking through amazon and came across this book. But, I must say a Sketch In Time is better. I really do want to shift my focus now and try to make samples and organize some assemblance of a sketchbook. Also, QA is looking for sketchbook submissions if any of you have any out there you should submit. I finished my door for th QA challenge, so now I can focus on some experimenting for a bit. It's amazing how artistic some of these sketchbooks are. You wonder if they ever make mistakes in them haha. I think I need to take some courses in drawing after looking at some of these sketches in Creating Sketchbooks. Jan and Jean would take guesso and apply it to pages in hard covered books...kind of recycling them. I think this is an interesting concept.

Eye of the Beholder

I've got two cards "discovered" for eye of the beholder trade in Surface Design. When you get the inspiration, it's really cool to see what appears. In the first card is a little girl reading a book and in the second card is a lady emerging from the mist or clouds. I kind of left them a little blended in the fabric. I like this idea then it has a Rodin like feature to it.
































Also, I received three cards from eye of the beholder. The first one is from Mags..a cute little bird. The second is from Jean who saw a forest in her batiks and the third is from Phyllis which brought memories of childhood and putting pennies on train tracks.

Text on Fabric

I've been really interested lately about text on fabric. We were discussing this in SurfaceDesign and I would love at some point to learn how to screenprint. But, I don't want to buy a thermofax and invest in new equipment right now. I think when the opportunity presents itself, I may take a silk screening class. In the meantime,Karen mentioned about these great little syringes with a small tip. Here is where I bought my syringes. So, here is my experiment with these. Pretty nifty! And, last week Rayna came to our guild to lecture, so I bought one of her great postcards. It now hangs near my sewing machine. I have been working on this QA door challenge. It's been an uphill battle. I think I am almost there though. I'll post pictures in a few weeks. I think it will take me a couple more weeks to finish it up.

And the Winner is...

Katie Greenwood...please email me with your home address. You are the winner!
Congrats!

Update

Okay..now this is too cool....I think this has to be Don Quixote. I also saw a horse and rider as well...but this is much better.








































I also saw a baby with a heart in this one..




























Also, I like the mike and singer idea. I see this too! Looks like American Idol.

Such a great response!

I've had such a great response from these dyed fabric interpretations. Thank you to everyone! I will announce a winner on Monday...so there is still time to play. Mags was kind enough to draw out her interpretations. Thanks Mags! Here is one that both Mags and I saw the same thing...so I'm thinking this one really has to be an umbrella. I also saw two hearts in there. I have to really check out Don Quixote since two of you saw this...really interesting!



Here is one that made me laugh..


From Meliss R..number 6. A vulture waiting for a chicken to get hit crossing the road

You guys are really imaginative!

I'm really going to have to look at all of these in more details. Thanks everyone for playing along!

Eye of the beholder

Below are some possible choices for eye of the beholder, I need to come up with a couple more ideas. I have some already. So, I figured photographing some pieces may spark some ideas. What do you see? If you leave a comment, I'll enter you to win this blog candy...of a stamp and glow in the dark thread (and another really great prize that will be left a surprise).


























Photo ONE






























Photo Two























Photo Three

















Photo Four

















Photo Five




















Photo Six

I received these very cool tassels from Linda and Samantha for our tassel trade. Also, Alis and I did a side trade and I got this lovely angel. And, I received an unexpected RAA (random art attack..someone in SurfaceDesign said this name and I like it.) from Carol Straus. Thank you Carol!











































I've been working on some work in process items. One thing is this darn eye of the beholder trade. Tomorrow I am going to post some pictures of fabric and I invite all of you to help me out and join in and see what you see! I've got a couple of ideas but I need some more. And, for your reward you will be entered in to receive some yummy blog candy. More details tomorrow!



Also, curious, anyone out there in blogland also going to enter the QA door challenge?

Sketching

I would highly recommend the following book by Jan and Jean. After taking a class with them, I really understand the need to keep a sketchbook. This book is one of my favorites by them and if you don't have it and are looking for ideas...it's perfect. I took a walk yesterday with my children and took these pictures. One of these I will use in a future composition. I wanted to play with angles and looking at things from different perspectives. The last picture is of my little daughter Laura.

Wet-onto-wet

In our artist muse group, we are exploring chapter two. They had a couple of concepts I really dug! One was wet-onto-wet, I took watercolor paper and wetted it first and then added the paint. I really like the idea of "out of order". Also, in chapter two, we discuss flowers and how to choose different focal points. Instead of placing a flower dead center...you off center it. I also wanted to play around with cards. So, here is my piece. It is a mixture of paper and fabric (Now, you can't expect me to give up my fabric fetish.) I also liked the idea of stitching into the card.

Also, I did wet-onto wet for this field picture, I will also turn this into cards as well. I also decided to add a little acrylic to the mix.

Part II

For our second day, we had a class with Jan and Jean. And, Jan focused on the grid technique from their latest book and Jean focused on the Embellisher. Although I had the book, it is so much better when it is taught to you. Both Sue and I learned alot and had a great time in the class. Here are Sue and I (I'm the one in orange) working dilgently....






































Here are my results...I'm quite pleased with them...

The First Day

I'll share our first day and tomorrow the second day. The first day was the quilt show with two lectures by Jan and Jean (The J's as Sue refers to them) followed by dinner with the J's. Can I first say how exciting and overhelming the experience was! It was so nice to meet Sue in person and we just had the best experience together. I couldn't have thought of anyone better to do this with. The J's are so interesting to meet in person. They have this rich view of life and are really inspiring. I know feel like I can go back to these books and really understand some of the points they are trying to get across. I learned a couple of important things from them...they are so detailed in the way they look at the world around them. They take the world around them and put it into the most beautiful cloth work. They are true artists in every sense of the word. I saw some of the most beautiful cloth work made as inspiration from trees, rocks, shells, details in sidewalks etc. It truely was amazing.The have the most unbelivable sketch books. It was really interesting to see photographs and sketches turned into these amazing compositions. They are so at the cutting edge in design. I must say that seeing these works in person was a great experience. To see the works from their books in person...what more can I say. There were a couple of pieces I was really enamored by. One was the way that Jan had done this rock formation and it really glistened and had the texture of one. It was amazing.

We went to two lectures one was Double Vision and the other Seductive Surfaces. Both, were eye opening. And, since I had arranged for them to come Sue and I had the pleasure of having dinner with them. They are such fun. It was really interesting to see how they just complement each other. It's funny how some things in life are just meant to be and you can see that these two were really meant to be friends and involved in each others lives.
























Also, here is the picture of the quilt that won a couple of big ribbons at the show. Can you believe this is made of one inch squares all sewn together? This thing was really HUGH too. It was by Diana Sharkey from Mt.Kisko. The second is by Karen Ekmeier. Love this with all the twists and turns.

I couldn't help myself..

I took a quick trip to the quilt show today since it is only up the road from me. I couldn't stay long so I didn't have enough time to really take in everything. I plan on being there most of the day tomorrow, so I can really look at things.

I went to Mickey Lawler's booth. I bought my fabrics from her because she won't be bringing more and they are just to oogle over! She has this great shimmer on her fabrics and she was selling the shimmer she uses...so this was a must have. I bought quite a few of her different fabrics. I'm thinking tomorrow I'll buy her book. These pictures do not even do the fabric justice. It is so much more beautiful in person.

Also, the quilts were really impressive this year. I'll take pictures and show them.

Stamped Images

Fred is done and hopefully will find a new home. The owner must remember to feed him...he's quite an exotic fish. Also, I am not sure which swap this will be for...either stamped images or art deco. It's giving me a great opportunity to practice with my Bernina in free motion stitching. It takes a little getting used to with the BSR foot.
I really want to try some embossing on fabric before I move on from stamped images. I think I've gotten a little greedy with swaps lately and need to move back. I have to do some more art deco, color composition, and a journal swap by the end of June...then I'm going to take a breather.

On a side note, I've also been preparing for my class on Monday with Jan Beaney and Jean Littlejohn. It has been a long process getting everything organized and the event is finally here! I'm really excited because my cyber buddy SueB. She is also going to meet up with me to take this class. We both figure that by the end of Monday we will be on their Christmas card list and will know the names of their cats and dogs. We are both just so excited because you all know how fantastic these ladies are.

I just went to Sue's website and there I am in her altered book. How cool is that! Thanks Sue!