PORTRAIT OF CHLOE

A friend at work asked if I would paint a portrait of his Great Dane, Chloe, who had just recently passed.  I don't do much of dogs (I find it very difficult for some reason) so I was hesitant, but he kept asking, so I relented.

I've been fiddling with it off and on for over a month now.  I really didn't like it at first, so that makes it difficult for me to work on it.  But the guilt outweighed the dislike, so I persevered. I'm not hating it.

Here it is, acrylic on canvas 9" x 12".

Chloe, Good Dog.

LOWMAN BEACH VIEW

I spent the morning painting my office room walls.  My neck hurts and I'm tired.  I just wanted to go somewhere and relax.  So, Lucy and I headed to Lowman Beach.  I took a blanket, the newspaper and my sketching stuff of course.  We found a nice log to lean up against and sat down to rest.  Eventually the view intrigued me and I couldn't resist.

It was lovely and the sun was shining when we arrived.  We weren't there very long when it started to rain about the time I was finishing up the watercolor.

I love Seattle's weather.

A TRUCK ON THE TIPPER

Not a very good rendering of a truck on the tipper at work (Cedar Hills Landfill) while it's trailer gets emptied.  I sat through three different trucks getting tipped out, but I still couldn't capture it at the moment it was at the top of its cycle.  So this was my best guess, and it's bad.  I'll try again someday.

GANG UNIT

Had lunch at Toshi's Teriyaki in Westwood Mall with my husband Darrell and these fine officers of the law, Seattle's Gang Unit.  They looked so young.  I'm feeling old.

This is a very quick pen and ink sketch with a little black watercolor.

LEVI JACKET

I thought his Levi jacket looked particularly interesting this morning while we waited for our breakfast at Luna Park Cafe in West Seattle.

MOVING DAY

After we got all of Mom's stuff up into her penthouse apartment in the sky, Josh and Billy went about setting up the cable and TV while the rest of us watched.

I kinda had some goobers with the watercolor.  Let's blame it on Mom's dog (puppy) Reba.

LUNCH WITH MY MOM

I helped my Mom take some boxes to her new apartment.  [We're getting more help this Saturday with the big stuff.]  Once we got the boxes upstairs to her fourth floor apartment and stacked out of the way, she took me out to lunch.  We went to the nearby mall, Kent Landing, where we had lunch at Ram.  They have tables outside, which we took advantage of, since we had Mom's little dog, Reba, who we couldn't leave in the car on such a warm day.  We put her in her crate, and she was nice and quiet under the table.

I did a quick sketch of the folks enjoying their lunch outside on such a gorgeous day at the tables next to us.

I used my fountain pen with Noodler's ink and a little watercolor in my sketchbook.  It was done very quickly while waiting for our food to arrive. [I wouldn't have noticed the cool 'swoop' of the chair legs if I hadn't been drawing them.]

We had a very nice relaxing time sitting there enjoying the day.

DARRELL'S CNC

This guy is making a CNC machine for Darrell.  We went up to check on the progress and get some questions answered.  I sketched while they talked about stuff I couldn't understand...vectors, g-code, CAD, spindles, tool path...on and on until Lucy fell asleep.

WATER TRUCK AT WATER TOWER

VIEW FROM THE FISHBOWL

Looking out my window at work.

BORDERS AND DONE

After the body of the quilt is done, I added a 2" red border (same color as the outside triangles).

I measured the quilt top across the middle both directions and cut the border strips to length.  I was amazed at how much easing into it I had to do.  I hope the quilt top will be flat.  Better then a ruffly border though, I guess.

Then I added a 5" purple border.  It's now done.

My sewing machine started making a clunking noise just as I was finishing up the blocks.  It wasn't sewing quite right when I put on the borders.   I had to take it into the shop for a good cleaning and tuning up.  It will be gone for two weeks.  Yikes.

I'd bought the machine in 1993 brand new, a Bernina 1230.  It's 20 years old and has a lot of miles on it.  But it's been a great machine, I have a newer one I've never used because I like my older one so much.  I'm going to have to get the newer one out while mine is in the shop.

Post:

The newer one doesn't work either, the repair shop says it's just gummed up from not being used, so it's going to get a good cleaning, also.

My sister loaned me her Bernina, I'll have to clean and oil it too, probably.

PEOPLE AT WORK

Sitting in the lunchroom at work, I sketched Wanda and Steve and then I wouldn't let them look at it.  Doesn't look anything like Wanda, but I got a good likeness of Steve.

IKEA GARAGE

 I took Lucy to the vet's for some tests.  I had to wait about an hour for her to be finished, so I headed over to Ikea, which was practically next door.  I went in, flew through the place (not an easy task) looked at the fabrics, bought some and headed out.  Whew.  I still had time to kill so I sat in my car and sketched the garage.

 She's going to be fine.

BLOCKS INTO ROWS

Then, I put the blocks and sashing and cornerstones up on the design wall.  I need to make sure I get the pattern and colors going the right direction.

Then I take them down, a row at a time, sew the row together, then put it back up on the wall.

FOUR PATCHES INTO BLOCKS

Using all  those Four-Patches I made and some solid purple squares they become the blocks for the quilt:

All the little blocks, stacked up and ready to go..
First row sewn together

Two rows sewn together, keeping them in order so I don't mess up.

The Blocks - sewn together. 

MAKING LITTLE FOUR PATCHES

I started on my new quilt project using my dyed fabrics.

First thing was to make some four-patches.

I did it the easy way.  I got out a sharp pencil and figured out how many of each color combo I needed.  I cut a bunch of strips from the different fabrics, joined them together according to plan and then chain pieced them.  Easy-peasey.

Step One - sewing strips together.

Step Two -Join two of the strips right-sides-together and then cut them cross-ways.

Step Three - Chain those together.

Step Four - Iron open and voila!

107 Four Patches

DYEING FABRICS FOR NEW PROJECT

I got a strong urge to dye some fabrics for a new quilt project.  I saw a quilt pattern in a book recently, and I really loved it, but wanted to make it with my own fabrics. 

Mixing the different dye colors up first.

Smaller pieces of fabric are in plastic bags.

First day, two purples and gold.

Clean-up.

Plastic bags of fabric, dyeing overnight in the sink.

And a big chunk of fabric in a bucket.

And here they all are:!

The colors are not right on here, you'll have to come see them in person.

VALENTINE'S FLOWERS 2013

My husband's and my anniversary is just a few days after Valentine's Day.  I tend to just jam them together in my head.  [Actually, V-day seems more fun to me.]  So, I've been doing a painting of the flowers he gives me for V-day every year, so I'll have them always (aaahhh).  

This year I told him I didn't want red roses any more.  So, I got tulips instead.

After I got through sulking, I painted them.   They were really starting to droop.  They were nothing but stems by the time I finished.

I love you, honey.

MAILING MY YOT SNAKE CARD

I finished my Year of the Snake card this week and put it in the mail today.  They are slithering their way all over the globe, hopefully there's one on it's way to you.  Below are some progress pictures.

I did a reduction cut on a piece of bass wood. (Meaning I used the same block of wood throughout the process, cutting away the parts I want to remain the color I just printed)

I rolled on the Akua Intaglio inks with a brayer and used a baren to transfer it to the paper, which is probably Rives (I forgot to write down what it was after I bought it).

The pictures are in reverse order, the first steps are at the bottom...

Finished!

All the cards laid out to dry

Made quite the mess trying to decide on final color

Auditioning different colors for final outline

After the third color 

Rolling on the third color - a darker green

Second color - light green

First color - Red

First stage of block

Carving using a magnifying glass with a light

The original drawing

Happy New Year!

Hope the Year of the Snake is a great one for you and yours!

FIRST CARVING ON YOT SNAKE

I cut away everything I want to remain yellow.  It looks like this is going to be a reduction cut.  Oh my.

Celtic ring, Celtic snake

After the first carving

Tomorrow I need to get another color on the cards.  I'm thinking about doing a stencil for just the red tongue.  Everything else is pretty much going to be greens.  Red and green don't like to mix, and if I try to layer them it will be ugly.

I've seen another printmaker, Sherrie York, do wonderful things with stencils.  I haven't used a stencil in a long time, so I'm hoping I can work out the details in my sleep tonight.