Spring Musings

 

It's finally Spring, some days.  Still not shorts weather. 

Since the A to Z Challenge ended my posts have dropped off. 

The trip to Denver, work, and general activity have taken precedent.  

My plan going forward is to post 2 times per week with shorter ideas from the studio,

nature, as well as general artistic tid bits that cross my path.

 I have three pieces that will be in a 15 day long event in 

Elk Rapids June 10-25. Stay tuned for more on that.

While driving on the express way a couple weeks ago I noticed the perspective of the clouds.

Decided to do a quick sketch later to catch what I saw in my travel journal.

These are my May offerings for our ATC group in progress. 

 The finished product that just went out in the mail.

Scraps of hand painted fabric stitched, then a bit of stencil with acrylic paint added.

I've done several more embossed cards recently. More on that next up.

Reflections on the April A to Z Challenge

Time for me to share my "Reflections" on the A to Z Challenge from 2017. 

It came at a very busy time for me, but when I set a goal for myself I seem to make it happen. 

The  Alphabet  is a great starting point. I always keep an ongoing list of thoughts & topics, 

even when there is no challenge to push me. I'm set for the next several years of the challenge. Made it through with no missed posts,enjoying it the entire month. 

Some folks didn't like the fact there was no list of participants this year. I was fine with the new arrangement.  I created a copy of the link we needed to share our posts on the Blogging from A to Z site in a word document. It was easy to share my post each day by copying & pasting while I had my post up in another window.  I received many more comments this year as opposed to last. I also worked at commenting on more blogs myself. It was fairly easy to find other participants at the A to Z site linked above. Posting to Facebook is a great way to generate more viewers in my experience.

Some of my favorites from this year:

Mail Adventures    Lots of fun artsy envelopes.

Envelope 100   Another snail mail inspired blog. 

My Virtual Vineyard   One woman's daily musings. 

Black and White  Great images of print makers work.

Reel Focus  The theme was food in film. Fun posts!

My Life in Retirement   As I retired during April I had to see what this gal had to say. Theme: travel.

Sara C. Snider   Magical & Medicinal Herbs, her theme, so interesting & well done.

 There were many more.  My hat is off to all of you who took this on & made it all the way through.

During the challenge the most popular 3 posts of mine were:

Oblique Strategies

Lettering Arts

Graphite  

My most popular post of all time is Gorgeous Pacific North West.

I arrived back home a few days ago from a trip to Denver with college room mates.
 The Denver Botanical Gardens were wonderful. They have several Alexander Calder works on loan from the Smithsonian. The 2 images above are different views of the same piece.
Cause for "reflection".

Inspiration Everywhere

I cut up a couple catalogs for color, sketching, & shape inspiration. 

They are going in my journal.

May is an Artist Trading card month.  Pulled out some ideas & started to ply with shapes

The thought is to do mini fabric collages. Good way to use the scrap box. 

I find these mini pieces of art can generate lots of ideas to be used in other larger projects.

 

At a friends for an art play date I looked again at a sweet

 little mobile she has hanging in her kitchen.  

Inspiration everywhere indeed.

What place or activity generates the most inspiration for you?

 

Spring In & Out of the Studio

My husband has made a big improvement to our deck. It's been expanded and a new railing almost done that opens it up to the swath of woods out back. Sigh. Love it!

 

All that's left is to mount the wood top rail & run horizontal wires through the posts. 

We wait so long for Spring in Northern Michigan. You want to soak up every ray of sun you can when the weather warms. 

On to the studio. More fabric painting & boxes. 

First step getting layers of color & design on the canvas. 

Cutting the painted fabric for sewing.

 

This is my approach now with these boxes.

 Sew  a contrasting fabric around the stiff Pelon so the edges are fully covered.

Then sew the cover fabric to the covered Pelon.

I'm off on a short trip with girlfriends to Denver. 

Hoping to post inspiration I find in my travels.