A Bit of Grass Painting

Painting may not be crafting, but it’s pretty nice. I use acrylics most of the time on canvas paper and wood. I started painting through happening upon some cast-off acrylics a long time ago. I decided I quite liked acrylics painting and kept doing it. That was about a decade ago.

I tried watercolors too since I seemed to like painting, and really, that was just okay. I tried oils, since they’re supposed to be The Thing To Do, but although I liked the texture I decided that I make too much of a mess to use them. I am not a tidy person. Organized, yes. Neat, no. Plus - linseed oil? Paint thinner? No, please.

I have four paintings here to show you that I’ve done. I rarely show the things I paint because I’m quite sensitive about them for whatever reason. I’ve grown mostly desensitized to showing my crafts and writing, but not my painting. So if you hate it and think my technique is sadly lacking, kindly don’t tell me.

I like reeds and grassy plants and color, and so that’s what inspired these. Oh, and I was inspired by this picture I took years ago at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. As far as the grasses go, I’m fond of the long thin stems, stalk-like plants, grass swaying in the breezes, that sort of thing. So here we have (in order) … bamboo, lavendar (which turned out quite purple in the picture, it’s not as … bright as it seems here), grass and cattails. I like the last one most. The cattails made me happy. The bamboo is my second favorite.

[note: the graininess is my camera's fault. will have to fix. these aren't grainy.]

Finished! (2 of 5)

Hi again!  Still spotty on the appearances here, eh? Meh, that’s just how May goes.  Last year I took this week off entirely, and I now vividly recall the reasons for that decision. However, my next vacation is not  for some months yet, so I’m hoping for a few days of some exceptionally brainless work in the next month.

I mentioned I was working on some amigurumi for evening decompression, and I have 2 of those ready.  Actually, they were finished some days ago, but I had no face pieces to finish ‘em. I ordered a bunch of eyes and noses and now I can make any number of lovely animals. I need to go to the Container Store now and get something so I can separate them all out.  So far the “organization system” involves quantities of masking tape.

The elephant’s name is Herman and the dog’s name is Basil.  Aren’t they cute?

Heehee!  Here’s what they look like from the back. That seam on Basil’s jumper is kind of ick, but that’s kind of what happens when you crochet in a spiral instead of joining the ends and separating each row.  I put Basil in a considerably more elaborate sweater than was called for in the pattern (it was all blue with a bottom brown border).  Aren’t their tails cute? Aren’t the elephant ears wonderful?

Herman the Elephant was a lot easier and more fun to put together than Basil the Dog. I think that (a) these would’ve been a lot more easy if I’d been able to put the faces on before the heads were stuffed and the bodies were assembled.  Also (b) I would’ve put the dog together in a different way. I wasn’t really happy with the way the arms, body and head came together. It was not easy and it didn’t end up making me happy.

Next up are a panda and two cats.  I sent these two to work with Jeff (robin’s egg  blue and chocolate brown are his favorite color combination), and they now live with the cactus I made for him.

I <3 fabric

Good day for fabric! I’m generally excited about fabric and nothing is more interesting than new fabric techniques & types. I do love exploration of new stuff.

FIRST: in my wandering I discovered the wonder that is Ah! Kimono, which is a site that will sell you pieces of fabric from kimonos. I received my first package of fabrics (<– over there) with a lovely note this week. These are all green-hued, about 9″ x 9″ and I think (totally not sure!) they’re silk. Let me just tell you that my photo does not do these fragments justice. They’re beautiful, and have awesome texture and sheen. One is pebbly and rough and thin, another is thick and silky…

Having a weakness for fabric, I joined Ah! Kimono’s quarterly fabric club. I did that so that I wouldn’t be able to choose what colors or styles I get. I have a bad habit of picking the same things over and over, and I thought this would be a great chance to get something new and unexpected to play with. What will I do with it? I don’t know. I have an idea about a skirt, but that’s as far as I’ve gotten.

Also! SECOND. I got this book in: Fabric Art Workshop by Susan Stein. Very nice. I’ve looked through it about 5 times today since I got it. Fabric painting is something I’ve done a little, but technique and materials was sketchy for me. This clears some questions up, while giving me new ideas about things to try for decorating fabric. Like dyeing fabric with rust, that’s a new one. Got plenty of materials around here for that idea.

I ordered the book because I was curious about some techniques I saw reading a recent issue of Cloth P aper Scissors that I picked up (not the current one, the one with the yellow birdhouse on the front). If you haven’t seen it, it’s a lovely mixed-media magazine from Quilting Arts, seems like a nice bridge between sewing and painting.

So clearly I’m not doing well on the “fewer things to do” classification of life, but hey, I don’t actually have any fabric paint right now, so at least I can’t hare off to do it right now. The kimono fabric, on the other hand…