painted faces

here are a couple of self-portraits i have been working on. i have decided to practice painting by doing self-portraits for a year. at least i will always have a subject available - day or night, rain or shine! it has been fun trying different styles and seeing the way i see myself at various times.

when i look at the purses i just had on the blog and the embroidered faces i did last year, i must have a thing for faces...gotta think about that one.

found objects art

more purses made from found objects and recycled materials. both purses have straps made of old neckties - very soft and comfortable to wear across your shoulder. the green purse is made from an old pair of corduroy jeans and the orange purse is made from old couch fabric. embellishments are broken pieces of jewelry and things i found on the street.

sandra dee dreams of the gee's bend quilts

a few years ago, our fiber group had an exchange challenge. we traded bags of unknown stuff from our studio floors and had to make a textile image out of what we had. the person who i traded with had alot of materials with a 1950's kind of feel. we did the challenge at the time the Gee's Bend quilts were starting to come into public view and there was an exhibit of the quilts in Washingon DC at the Corcoran. with all of that in mind, here is what i came up with.

file your taxes early

not only have i been rummaging through old boxes of stuff i haven't seen in years, but i just started going thru an old hard drive of photos. this is a fuzzy photo of a quilt, in progress, on my design wall. i was working on it five or six years ago, when my husband and i got too busy and didn't file our taxes on time. i was mad! i don't know what ever happened to that piece. i'll have to look around...

sowebo arts festival

sowebo arts festival is a local bohemian gig in a somewhat sketchy part of town that attracts lots of good art and music. this year i decided to enter their poster-making fun and submitted these two pieces. the top pix is made of cut up magazine pages i put together one day at work when the power had gone out and we had no phone, electricity or computer access. luckily i work in an art center with with alot of large windows and good natural light. the second set of photos are drawings made with oil pastels. i see faces in everything: water spots on the floor, shapes of leaves, clouds... these are some of the faces i see in my imagination!

embroidered diary

back to working on my diary...life story in embroidery. i love to get good sleep!

this is stitched on raw silk or sometimes called silk suiting or silk noile - hard to find, but great to stitch on! the thread is cotton dmc floss...what else is there?

hand-pieced quilt top

still spending my time rummaging through boxes of things i haven't looked at in ages. it is nice to put things aside and get a new perspective down the road. here is quilt top i hand-pieced about 10 years ago. oh how i loved my #10 needles that made such tiny stitches. and oh how i loved matching my corners so precisely. guess it is time to revive this top and finish it. i wonder how i will do it...

self-portrait obsession

yes...another self-portrait. it has become an obsession and catharsis for me. it's all i want to do and i am enjoying it alot. my opus work has temporarily gone by the wayside. i am discovering the value of people in my life, including the camaraderie of classmates, which i miss terribly as a distance learner in opus. not exactly sure how to resolve that at the moment. so i will paint and see what happens.

found objects art

one of my favorite pastimes used to be collecting broken pieces of costume jewelry and interesting pieces of junk from the street. i fashioned many of these items into beautiful faces on the front of purses. here are two of them.

relief print mask

maggie has been taking a rest from most things crafty and creative, so all i have to show is work that has been sitting around for a few years. this is a hand burnished print on rice paper. would make an interesting piece in fabric, too. how about some hand-stitching on it, too?

by the way HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to my blog...one year old.

orange painting

maggie is having a little down time these days. she will be back very soon!

love to all.

texture painting

i am trying to learn how to put texture into paintings. this one has torn strips of newspaper under the oil paint. there are so many fun things to play with in my studio...maybe i should stay in there all day!

more zen stitching

this is a piece of white cotton that i kind of tie-dyed with fabric paint. then i used a tiny #9 needle and quilting thread to follow the patterns of the paint. very soothing work. so while i was feeling so zen, i decided to stitch a tao saying backwards. geez!

i love hand stitching

LOVE to all today!

embroidered kitty cat

just playing with a linen zipper bag - had to add a little stitched embellishment.

a work-in-progress quilt

here is a project i started five years ago - a quilt of my mom, my daughter and me, with my mom being in the middle. i couldn't quite figure what is what that wasn't working in this quilt, so i put it away. then, we moved and it was in storage, and now it is out and ready to be worked on. i think the circle needs to be more expansive - it is too small for the quilt size. any other ideas or suggestions or critiques?

embroidery shading, movement and color

i have been working on getting thread to work like paint - showing movement and shadows. i took a charcoal drawing that i had made and translated it into stitch. mostly i like the apple made of french knots, even tho it looks like a pomegranate. can you tell those are bananas on the lower right hand side? hmmm...not too sure about them.

what to do with an old sweater

i have so many nice wool sweaters that are out of date or need some oomph. my solution is to embellish them and give them a new life.

THANKS

Thanks to zoe

'you make my day' award

i have been nominated by zoe for a 'you make my day' award. wow - THANKS. zoe is one of many fun bloggers who i visit online regularly. your inspiration is great!

no, this isn't a self portrait...just playing with needle and thread.

http://www.lissinstitches.blogspot.com/
oops...here is a link to zoe.

monchomatic painting...of me

well, for some reason i can't help myself. i have been painting everyday. this is a new thing for me. i read that danny gregory's dad painted a self-portrait everyday. so, why not? i am learning alot.

havin' fun...stitching

enjoying going through things i made a few years back, that have been packed away. i think this was going to be a messenger bag, or something... i went through a phase of making bags only from scraps and things that were on the floor of my sewing room - a fun way to clean up!

beautiful slop sink

not sure what i loved about doing this painting, except that i do love slop sinks in painting studios. it looks to me like each artist left behind a little bit to tell some story.

i have been painting every morning. since my sewing machine is still living in maine and much of my fabric is in storage, i have been opened to something new... wonder where this will take me?

nothingness...

sometimes it is nice just to play with a running stitch on felt for no reason at all. here is a tracing of my hand in stitch.

love to all!

yikes! not another self portrait...

ok, so i promised no more self portraits, but that was 2007. this is a new year:) i surely don't consider myself a painter, but i do love what painting is teaching me about color and texture and light and shape. some of my favorite textile artists, started as painters and so, perhaps i can learn something from the process. i like to imagine this painting done in cloth and stitch...