Costuming and inspiration

Well,  I am busy with getting my daughters Halloween Costume ready.   She of course expects Hollywood level special effects to turn her into Tim Burton's A Corpse Bride.    I need to keep reminding her that it is a claymation/animation, and some of the effects she wants are unrealistic or even inappropriate for a 12 year old to year to a dance in the middle school cafeteria.   Despite the annoyances of this project I do have other inspirations to keep me sane. 

The Art Challenge for guild has me itching to get to work.  It is to be an abstract composition in either warm or cool colors.   I have been working with repeats of a pointed oval shape,  fascinated by it all summer too,  and I think I will play with some mixed media surface design.  I have new texture plates,  some super stencils,  and  new threads I am going to incorporate.     The challenge with this shape is that it all too easily becomes something,  leaf, canoe, flower petals,  so keeping it abstract may become and issue.    I will post more about this as the piece develops,  it is not die till our January Meeting.  

Threadora is here

This lady is a sprite from the Thread Eaters clan.  You can see that she likes thread tangles.   I worked like crazy to finish her over the course of this week,  and I had to fight with her the whole time.   Yes,  she caused quite a few thread tangles and other issues during the creation process.    It has been a long time since I had to work with a deadline like this one and actually finished the piece in time.    It is a big personal achievement.   Come see her in person at the Wiltwyck Quilt Guild show,  Saturday and Sunday in Kingston.   When I have more time I will fill you in on all her details. 

Summer - where did you go?

I have been busy this summer with lots of things,  a trip to New Mexico with my hubby provided a break, and some inspiration,  but I have not yet gotten to work on any of the ideas that got into my sketchbook from that trip yet.   I do finally understand the "southwestern color palette" though.   Still not my fave,  but out there is really works.   I was happy to come home and see greenery,  my lawn - even full of crabgrass,  and large trees.   

I have also returned to playing classical guitar.   It has been a few weeks, and skills  are beginning to return.   It has taken a while to get my finger nimble again and there is still along road to simply return to the level I was once at,  but it feels good.     My return to playing is the subject of the mixed media challenge piece.   I sponsored the challenge based on summer and I had better have a piece done for it.    I was going to do something based on the New Mexico trip,  but all of a sudden the guitar idea popped into my head,  and I even have an old set of strings to use on it.    I'll keep you all posted.