Tiger Quilt Reaches it's destination!

A few weeks back I posted a quilt that I had made for my favorite Tiger's fan. Alec received the quilt for Christmas! I love to see art in it's final resting place. I was so happy that I didn't make it too big and that he was able to enjoy it.

Tracy Files - Artist, Philanthropist and Great Friend

Tracy and I met at an art course taught by Alisa Burke. Tracy is a philanthropist and artist. She helps by providing art to young students who otherwise might not get the opportunity. She delivers her supplies and teaching through an art van. We have collaborated by sharing charities in need. She sent me this wonderful gift. I received after a particularly challenging few weeks and it was such a great surprise. She sent sachet's, a handmade card, a mermaid, sunshine, and Christmas ornament. You can visit Tracy and her adventures at

http://tracyelizabethfiles.blogspot.com

http://tapestry193.com

If you have art supplies to donate to Tracy you may contact me or Tracy via her blog. Thanks Tracy for turning my 2014 around in the right direction-full of happiness, whimsy, and art!

Painting II begins

So painting II has started. What a refreshing class. It is 6 hours long and it is perfect. You can actually make progress!

To the left is Chelsey who is working on a superman of her own!

 Diana is from Columbia. On top of being the most chic person I have met in a while, she also amazing with water colors. She is doing a portrait of her best friend.

 Mine is washed out in light, who knew the sun could shine in January in Michigan? It is a photograph that I took of a little girl admiring artwork on Mackinac Island.

 James is back doing large scale and full of imagination!

James and Tom hard at work. This class allows us to paint with any medium, in almost any format on any surface. It is too much fun and I can't wait to share our results.

3D Wrap up for 2013

So our last project for 3D design was an installation. We decided to make a giant hand hanging from the second floor reaching down towards students. Sylvia, Lexi, Mary and I decided to recycle. (Now you can see where I got my 2014 idea for the blog from!)  So we made a prototype......

There it is in all of it's glory. I just regret that we didn't count the number of bags that we used. It was 5 feet wide by 7 feet long.  I also regret that we didn't video hanging this. It was during finals week and every stressed out college student thought we were crazy.........not to mention facilities engineering as we left the school, smiles on our faces with it hanging there!

Lauren visited our class and liked the project done by shannon which was all origami! Nothing like a child to bring art to life..........complete with chocolate frosting on our lips....

This owl was actually our second of 5 projects. I just never got a great picture of it until the last day as Randy had it hidden in his office. This owl was made completely from wire with one large branch from mother nature.  It was a great class! 

Wrapping up Painting 1

Our final painting project at Delta College was to do a painting of anything of our chosing. This was tempered with "anything that won't get me fired" as stated by Andrew, my professor. I guess with mostly 20 year old's you gotta worry about this stuff. So here they are. Above the chihuahua was done by Kelsey and the beach scene by Little Big John. The turtle (which I didn't capture nearly well enough) was done by Big Tall John. He had a city on top of the turtle and it was just beyond cool. Yes we had two john's that were both over 6 feet tall.

(To the left) James did the painting that is on the right side, it half him, and half sheep. My favorite part is the green little guy with the great teeth, very original.

(Above) Kendra did the merry go round.  That was also from her imagination....... Super, super awesome.


(Below) Mine is on the far right. It has the suit case, sewing machine stethoscope, and model heart. I need to get close ups as the colors were dark and didn't show up well.

The "sister's" who we all swore were twins did these colorful treats to the left. They used acrylic paint and I love both of these.  If only I could be so bright and cheery.












Tom's is to the left and he did his from a picture from Thanksgiving. He went outside and took a picture on the street of Washington D.C. His perspective always amazes me and he has already developed his style.....



Painting II starts friday with some of the same cast of characters.....

Ringing in the New Year

I always love the new year. It is filled with so much promise. This is my fourth year for this blog. To me this is unbelievable as it started as a new year's resolution in 2011 and I have kept it this long. I am a promise keeper, so I guess I shouldn't be that surprised.

This year I was thinking of what my focus should be. 2011 was the year of a 10" X 10" quilt a week, 2012 the leaves for the paper tree, and 2013 the ATC cards. I loved every single year.  This year I think I am going to challenge myself to a "word".  This is all the rage with artists that I really admire and they all say it helps to get a fresh start, spark creativity and to pull them out of a rut. I am not really in a rut, just a bit of a time crunch with all of my commitments.

So looking at words (remember I am fascinated with old dictionaries) I liked "grow" and "hope" and "stretch" and "fear". The list goes on and on.  So I decided to be a little less "deep" and go with "relove"  I am not sure it is a word, I don't really care.  I like it because it is going to force me to recycle. I did a few projects with recycled materials, but this year, I am going to push it. By the time 2014 comes to a close I should have 52 projects that incorporate an item, that I am "reloving".  So off to reuse, repurpose, recycle, and RELOVE.

Quilt-UFO (Unfinished Object)

 As the year draws to a close I decided to try and finish some of those UFO's. I am famous for starting large projects and then getting stuck on a part of them that I don't like as much. Quilts are a classic example. I love piecing the top of the quilt, and am not as interested in the pinning to prepare for quilting. So I often have multiple quilt tops waiting to be quilted.  This is one that I started about a year ago. I finished it last week by using a quilting technique that I hadn't used before.  Using designs from my embroidery machine, I managed to finish the entire quilt.  I typically am not that colorful so this was a quilt that I used coordinating bright fabrics. This quilt definitely
adds a pop of color to my neutral decor.