CAT PAGE FOR STITCH BOOK

 I made a cat page for my 100 day project Stitch Book with Ann Wood.

And this is our cat Coco, (she likes to sleep amongst the flowers).

SWATCHING PAINT

 I set about swatching all of my Acrylic paints.  I wanted to know what I have and what I don't have for some upcoming projects.  I've always swatched my watercolors, but not the acrylics until now.

In the process I saw these chips setting out waiting to dry and thought they would make a great palette - for a quilt maybe?  Yes.

I don't know why it's sideways, I've changed it but it likes to be this way.

I've been joining Watch.Learn.Play and painting with them lately.  Today I painted some flowers. I had gathered some ferns on the morning walk and used them to transfer paint to the background to make the fern image.

We are using a palette of Cobalt Blue, Naples Yellow and Burnt Sienna.  That's what I used for this painting. It's a bit on the dark, muted side.  Which I like, but, I wanted a bit more of a brighter green and added a touch of Lemon Yellow to get it.

Oh, if you noticed the bottom of the painting didn't conform to that palette - I started with a canvas that had been primed with a light blue.  Then I over painted it with some Quinacridone Gold (my fav).  For some reason it decided to separate and not cover completely.  Which turned out pretty cool - so I left it.

NASTURTIUMS TAKE OVER

 The Nasturtiums I planted last summer grew and flowered and made seeds, then died back a bit, as they usually do.  But when summer was over and the rains started they came back to life - with a vengence. 

They flowered again and when those fell off the plant decided to just take over the world.

It's beautiful.

BIRTHDAY FLOWERS

 I eco-dyed onto paper some of the flowers I received for my birthday.

VALENTINE'S DAY FLOWERS

 Here's my portrait of the flowers my sweetie gave me for Valentine's Day this year.

It's been a while since I've painted.  I need more practice.  

GARDEN REMODEL

 I've been working on remodeling our front flower garden.  I've had these leftover stepping stones since we re-did the sidewalks in the backyard that I wanted to place as a path to the birdbath.  I had to remove a lot of groundcover from this area.  Then Darrell moved them into place for me.

I planted new flowering plants around them.  It will be an on-going project.  I want to remove (and re-home) the rest of the groundcover and replace with flowers someday.

BIRTHDAY FLOWERS

 Darrell got me a nice bouquet of flowers for my birthday yesterday.  I found a canvas, dusted it off and rounded up my acrylics and brushes.  And painted.

VALENTINE'S DAY FLOWERS

Flowers from my sweetie for Valentine's Day.

 

FLOWERS II QUILTED

 Finally, I've got the quilting done on Flowers II and it's off the machine.

PHOTO DAY

 Darrell had his studio set up to take the pictues of his Fremont Chest of Drawers.  When he was done he took pictures of some of my quilts.

'Flowers' by Barbara Brackman from 1998

FOLLOW THE SUN TOP

 I sewed all of the blocks and rows together.  The top for 'Follow the Sun' is ready to be quilted.

I then made a backing with a label and loaded it up on Erik the Bold (I finally named the new Q24) and looked for an appropriate quilting pattern.  

I want to try my first edge-to-edge on this one.

WORKED ON COMPUTER

 I worked on the Q-Matic computer, trying to quilt this little quilt.  It was frustrating to say the least.  I got a few rows done before I quit to attend the Joe Talk.  This is my first time with him because he used to do it later in the day, making it difficult for me to attend.  Today's meeting started at 2pm PST.

During the time with Joe I was working on the 1-2-3 Blocks.  I cut out some plain flower blocks to mix in.  It's definitely better now, and I started sewing them together.

VALENTINE FLOWERS

 Here's this year's painting, in oils,  of my Valentine's Day flowers from my sweetie.

ROSES FOR SUE

 I painted the rose bouquet I received from Nicole and Victoria so I'll have it forever.

I did it in oils - I still don't know much about using oils.  I need a class and more practice.

SATURDAY WALK

 Jelly and I walked around the neighborhood this morning, with a short stop at the Barton Pea Patch.  Things are winding down there, but there were still some beautiful flowers and things to see.

CONE FLOWERS

 Saw these on my short walk around the block this morning.  (I'm only up to a half mile so far).

FLOWERS II - MINE!

 I've coveted David Weidman's print Flowers II for years now.  I finally broke down and bought one.  It arrived a few days ago.  Today we took it to be framed.  We spent some time deciding on mat color and frame style, and even the type of glass.  

It won't be done until the middle of September - and they kept my print.  I felt like I left a child in their care.  And, I can hardly wait!

CORAL ROSES

 I think this is the final version of my Coral Roses oil painting.

OIL PAINTED FLOWERS

 I had left my painting on the easel outside on the picnic table last night.  The wind blew it off onto the cement and it was now covered in little bits of sand and dirt.

So, the first thing I did this morning was to scrap those bits off.  I then tried to repair the damage.

So here it is after another few hours of painting on it.  It still needs work.  The roses are coming along, but the background needs a lot of help.

FLOWERS IN OIL

 This is the first time I've painted in oils since last summer when I painted the Alphabet series.

I think I forgot a lot of how-to.  But I had fun.

This is where I stopped for the first day.