Snow

It is a winter wonderland here today.  I sent my daughter out to take some pictures and I thought that  would share a few.  My kids are all home from school because of the snow and ice.  The country roads don't get plowed here unless we get a lot of snow, which makes it tough for the buses to pick up kids.

Now I am off to crochet and hem choir dresses.   One and a half  weeks to get these dresses done, a few choir moms and many many dresses.  I will be going a bit crazy now.
Have fun,
Janelle

Another Mandala

This is the mandala that I made this weekend.  I am still finding it fun and have many more that I want to make. I would like to practice the techniques that we are being taught in the mandala class.  I guess that I will have to keep on making them.

 Janelle

Thankfulness

Happy Thanksgiving.  I am thankful for many many things this year.  Having more art in my life is one of them.  I am also thankful that there are people to share my journey with.
I thought that I would share one of the things that I have been up to today in preparation for my family get together tomorrow.

Dark chocolate cream pie

Here is a picture of my little guy too.

Mono-Print Quilt

Have been working on my quilt slowly among all the other art, mothering, hemming, and life that I have been doing.  I wanted to share a few pictures of what I have done so far.

Art Papers

I have been experimenting a bit and making some art papers for book collages.  Right now I am just playing around and having some fun.  I want to find out how each paper and paint react.  Someday I will put some together and make collages for some art books.

Have fun,
Janelle

Mandala

Here is the mandala that I made today.  I am finding these to be a lot of fun.

ATCs and Mandalas

I have been practicing free motion satin stitching lately because I am using that technique on my mono-print quilt.  I made three ATCs.  I had various degrees of success on these little cards, but I have been working on my quilt too.  The larger format of the quilt is easier to work with and has been turning out quite nicely.  I will share pictures when I get more done.  I volunteered to hem dresses for my daughter's high school choirs, so that has to be my first sewing priority.  I am also taking a free Mandala class on willowing.com, so I have been practicing drawing mandalas a bit yesterday.  

These are my first two Mandalas drawn from a template.  I haven't colored in the second one yet.  

Crochet

I have been learning how to make crocheted basic finger-less gloves and flowers.  I has been a lot of fun.  I wanted a pair of these gloves that I wouldn't mind getting paint on since I paint in my basement and it is starting to get cold down there now.  Now that I have made a basic pair I want to make some thing a little fancier.  It is a nice thing to do while hanging out with my family and watching Dr. Who.  My oldest daughter knits and she is mad that I can crochet these so much faster than she can knit them.  She has only been knitting for a year though, so I'm sure that she will get faster in time.  

My flowers are a little lopsided, so I will have to practice those more.

     

Little Basket of Goodies

Katrina sang beautifully last night.  She sang Home from Beauty and the Beast.  There were many other talented kids too and some lovely desserts.  It was a wonderful evening.  My basket went to my friend Ann who is a marvelous seamstress and who knows special fabric when she sees it.  

My daughter, Katrina, loves to sing and has an amazing voice.  She is performing tomorrow night at her school choir fundraiser.  All the kids have to audition and then they sing while people eat appetizers and desserts.  The choir also asked families to create themed baskets to raffle off to make more money for the choir.  I created a little basket full of quilting fabric and embellishments.  I also included a little art quilt, slightly bigger than and ATC and a business card.  I included five fat quarters of my snow dyed fabric for the quilting fabric.  Tomorrow I get to see what people will bid on my basket of goodies.

I made the tag too.

I put in lace, ribbon, and buttons.

A good statement for a choir event 

Snow dyed fabric by Janelle

Two different business cards

Happy creating,

Janelle

Wordless Wednesday

Love is Sweet

Here is a new piece that I have been working on.  I used acrylic paint and ink, Inktense pencils, gesso, and a button.  I took a picture outside and I also used my scanner.  I am trying to figure out which method gets better results, although most of the time I won't be able to take outdoor pictures through the winter.  

outdoor picture

scanner picture

I used pearlescent ink on this painting, so the scanner picked up a lot of the shine and washed it out a bit.  

How do you finish up a piece of art that is done on watercolor paper?  I don't quite know what to do with it now.  Any suggestions are appreciated.

Janelle

color palette generator and a painting project

I just learned about this website from Jane at JaneVille at http://janeville.blogspot.com/2011/11/color-palette-generator.html  It is fun and addictive and I just learned about it.  If you take a picture this program http://bighugelabs.com/colors.php can make a color pallet from it.  You can then take a screen shot and copy it to a program and as a jpeg.  I used Photoshop for my pictures.  I used a couple of pictures and gave it a quick try and here is what I got.

It is useful to have the colors broken down if you want to make a painting or another art project from a picture.  I will have to keep playing with this and find ways to use the color palettes. 

I worked on a painting project for my sewing room last week and I want to show what I have done so far.  Here is my shelf before I worked on it.  It is a pretty ugly yellow and I have been wanting to paint it for years.

I painted it with acrylics and water-soluble crayons.  I glued down book pages, music paper, and tea bags in the back of each cubby before I added the designs and a color wash.

I haven't finished the sides yet.  I still want to paint some hearts and vines on the outside.
Have a great week and happy creating.
Janelle