Just for fun

Recently I finished a commissioned portrait (photos coming soon) and I decided that I wanted to do a piece that was just for fun - no obligation, no expectations, no pressure. And if it didn't work out, oh well.

I went through my photos and found one from a few years ago when I was taking a photography class. The assignment was about light. So I had my daughter read a book with a flashlight in a dark room, and ended up with a few photos that I just think are fun. In drawing them though, I thought it would work best to draw white on black instead of the usual black on white. This is actually drawn on a dark grey paper, so the black is filled in to. The grey made it easier to sketch out the drawing with black or white lines, depending on what I needed. This was also a new method for me - I hadn't tried anything quite like this and didn't really know what to expect.
I do like it though, and I had fun doing it. I have another similar photo of her looking at the book, as if she was engrossed in the reading. I think I may try that one too. This was the "oops, Mom caught me reading past bedtime" photo.  :)

I am back

Yes, I know, I have kind of been absent from this blog, and I have actually been absent from art for awhile too. It has been a long and busy winter. But, I decided to try to get the creative juices flowing by doing a quilt. I have made Minky quilts for my whole family, as well as a handful of other people, and I decided it was time to make one for myself. In picking material, I decided to be totally girly. I think it is just my response to my anti-pink-or-girly daughters. I wanted pink, and I wanted flowers. So, I made time (finally) to hide out in my room and do a little sewing.

This was the result:

I don't know if I love the design, but I bought this material so long ago (and when I had no specific plan for it) and when I went to cut material and assemble it, the pattern didn't quite work out the way I wanted. I had to just use what I had, which limited my options.
But that is okay - it is pink, it is flowery, and it is soft and warm.

Now I am working on another southwestern style quilt that I saw quite awhile ago but only recently  got the material and pattern for. Maybe I will even be posting about it soon.

I also finished a portrait that was 95% done and just needed tweaking back in December. Then, I did nothing on it until yesterday, when I finally got around to finishing the last touches. I will be posting that one soon, I hope.  And, I have a new and slightly different piece I am working on that will give me a chance to stretch my abilities a little. We will see if it actually works.:)

A Christmas Gift

Awhile back, I made this drawing of Mesa Arch (in Canyonlands).

Jeff liked it and asked if he could put it in his office. It seemed kind of lonely on his wall in his office, so I told him I would do two more drawings - one for each side, or two to go underneath it. And then it didn't happen, and didn't happen. So finally, a few weeks ago, I had to go to his office when he wasn't there, so I snuck in and took some measurements and decided what would work best. Then, I came home and got to work.
I wanted to keep with the Southern Utah theme - the red rocks. So, I looked through my best photos, did some cropping, and picked two that would work the best. I started one, and then had to wait about a week before I got to it again. And suddenly it was getting very close to Christmas, so I begged the kids to let me work on it while they were home (this was after school was out for the break), and I also did some early morning and late night drawing, which was a little tricky if Jeff was around. But, miraculously, I was able to pull it together and finish them, and even get frames to fit them.

These are the two drawings:

 Faux Falls in Moab

Natural Bridge in Bryce Canyon

This is the idea of what they would look like together, but they will be in frames and won't be quite so close to each other.

I realize that in these photos the colors don't really match the Mesa Arch drawing. I hope it is just because of the lighting when I took the photos. I made the first drawing with a different pastel set than these other two, so the colors were different to start with.

I am happy with these two new drawings though. I love the colors of the red rock in Southern Utah, so it was fun to try to recreate that on paper.

A portrait from spring

One of the main reasons I decided to go into portraiture is that I love being able to give someone something meaningful. The thing that started this was a big desire to have portraits drawn of my children. I had wanted it for years and it didn't occur to me that I could draw it myself until a couple of years ago. And then, as I started making portraits for people and I saw how much they love having drawings of their loved ones, I realized that it felt great to give someone something that had such great meaning to them. 
This past March, one of my husband's partners from work passed away very suddenly and unexpectedly. He was our age, and it was quite a shock. He has a wife and four children who are almost the same exact ages as our four children. When he died, Jeff asked if I might want to draw a portrait of him, since I had done one of our friend who had passed away in November last year.  I debated, but didn't know if I would be able to do it, since I didn't know Greg (the partner) as well and wondered if I could pull it off effectively. Then, after a couple of months, I decided to give it a try. I figured that if it looked horrible, I just wouldn't give it to his wife, and nobody would even know I had tried. I went through some photos of him that we had gotten from his wife for a news report. I actually started with his professional work photo, but he normally wore glasses and this work photo had him without glasses. And, the drawing just really didn't look like him. So, I scrapped that, and tried again. I found a photo of him with his kids that I thought looked like the Greg I remembered. I enlarged it, but it had a fairly low resolution, which made it hard to see the details. But, I got started and it went pretty well. I went to my art teacher who helped me with some details and, by piecing other photos together, with the one I was using, I was able to get the drawing done to look like him. I even had Jeff take it to work and ask people if they thought it looked like him, because I wanted to be sure it really did before I gave it to his family.
I framed it and gave it to his family, and they like it, and they say it looks like him, so it worked out just fine. I was nervous, as I always am presenting a drawing to someone, but my  nerves were calmed by their positive reaction to it. I wanted to get his wife's approval before posting about it on the blog, and even after I did, I forgot to post this. I saw her again last night and figured I had better do it before I forgot again. The photograph is a little dark, but it is the best one I have, and you can still get the idea. I am glad I did the portrait though. I was nervous, but in the end, it was worth it.  :)

Another Southwest Quilt

I think this is one of my favorite quilts so far, for a number of reasons. It is a commission of sorts (no, I am not starting a quilting business), and I was asked to make a southwest style quilt. I was shown some coasters that the person had in their home and I tried to make a design that followed those patterns and designs. This is the design I made in photoshop:

I used pictures of the material I hoped to use and came up with a few tentative designs with various color patterns. This is the one we picked. (Blogger seems to want to put streaks across my photos lately, so sorry for the one across the bottom - it isn't in the original).

After making all of the measurements and calculations (I have to thank my sister-in-law, Christine, who helped me with the math on the triangles), I got the material and put it together. It went remarkably well - probably my best quilt with triangles to date. They actually lined up and I didn't sew the points off this time. :)
 But, I put it together, pinned the whole thing, started doing the machine quilting, and then (yes, it took this long) realized that I put it together wrong.  The part with the green triangles (just to the right and left of the center strip) had one of them going the wrong way so instead of an "X" like formation, it was more like stairs going all the same direction. Hard to explain, and my photo is on my ipad, not this computer, but basically I had to do a lot of redoing and the stitch remover became my friend. Remarkably, I was able to get it all fixed with minimal damage and I finished the quilt. I love this quilt. I was tempted to keep it for myself. I actually bought similar material and I am going to make a different quilt with that.

This is the final product:

up close on the middle (my favorite part, and probably the most complex part too)
And, no, there isn't pink on the bottom in real life, just what the computer wants to do

Upright - I actually uploaded this photo four times, and this is the best Blogger would do for me. UGH! But, you get the idea. Maybe some day I can replace it with the actual decent photo that was taken.

From above, sort of.

 I forgot to take a photo of the backing - but it is just dark brown (and super soft) minky.

Christmas Crafts

There are two things I have wanted to make for Christmas for a looooong time.  One is an advent calendar. I have looked at many, thought of buying different ones, but so many have teeny tiny drawers or they are the fabric kind which I didn't quite like, so after much searching, looking at reviews of some build it yourself kinds and finding out you have to sand down every drawer extensively, and other such annoyances, I ran into a handy little idea in the tool section of a store. I put it together, pulled out what little actual scrapbook paper I have left, and my acrylic stamps and old stickers and such, and put this together:

 It is made from one of those tool boxes that hold little screws and other small items. The drawers were the perfect size and I even have five extra to hide fun little goodies from time to time.  It isn't professional quality, but I don't care. I like it, and the kids have had fun with it so far (the two whole days we have done it).

The other project I have wanted to do for a while, and especially in the past few years was a tree skirt. I made one when Jeff and I were first married, but it seems kind of small and boring. So, last year I got around to finally buying material and I found a pattern, cut the pieces, and made the top. Then, as Christmas time usually goes, my life exploded into craziness and I never finished it. After staring at it for months I packed it away and almost forgot about it. Then, last week as we started getting our Christmas decorations out, I remembered the skirt. So, I pulled it out and over a couple of days I finished putting the bottom on, quilted it, and added a binding.

Sorry the photo is so dark - this kind of shows the view with the tree.

The binding from above

Up close on the binding - this is my favorite part - my machine can do these pretty stitches and I actually figured out how to do them (that is half the battle with me).

The view if you were laying down by the tree (you know, because we always do that, right? )

So, I am pretty happy that I have finally done these two projects. Now, if I can only finish the 20 other things I have on my list... :)

Wedding gift

This is a quilt that I promised my sister as a wedding gift. Her wedding was a year and a half ago.  Sigh... Sometimes I take forever to get things done. But, it is finally finished, and shipped to her. Yay!  This was the largest quilt I have done so far - a queen size. It was really fun though - very different from other quilts I have done.
I used the material that she used for tablecloth squares on her tables at her wedding, so they are her wedding colors. And then I found backing that coordinated perfectly, and it worked out great. I found it just in time too, because it was out of stock in most stores online.

This shows what the backing material looks like (not sure why there are streaks across the photo)

The design from above

This is the picture my sister took and posted on facebook - it looks great in their room - and is a much better photo than the ones I took :)

Two new portraits

I finished this first portrait a few weeks ago, but I wanted to show his parents the painting first. It was a fun one to do. I like his little toothless smile.  :)

Benjamin

This weekend I have had some time to do another portrait. This is my nephew. I did his brother back in May and kept thinking I would get around to doing him, and it kept getting put off. But, I am happy to say that I have finally done it.  It also went fairly well, which is always nice :)  I haven't seen him since Christmas, and he has changed a lot since then. I found some more recent photos and this one grabbed me the most. It is just a little harder doing a portrait of someone I haven't seen in awhile.  I will say that doing this portrait style was a lot easier the second time around. Maybe I am starting to get the hang of this :).

Theo