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

Giveaway and more

Judi over at Approachable Art is hosting a giveaway for a gel printing plate.
"Gelli Arts, makers of those new and very cool gel printing plates, has generously donated one 6" x 6" Gel Printing Plate (a 20.00 value) to one of my readers and all you have to do to win it is comment on this blog post and tell me about the monoprinting loveliness you want to try with your new Gel Plate!" Go here for more information: http://approachable-art.blogspot.com/2011/10/gelli-arts-giveaway.html
Judi's blog is full of wonderful art and information and I would recommend reading it to anyone interested in the arts.

I have been working on my monoprints more and I'm ready to start stitching them when I have some free time. I used a gelatin plate to make my monoprints, but I would love to use one of these plates made by Gelli Arts.  
Here are pictures of a few of my monoprints that I haven't shown yet.

I also started crocheting a basic pair of fingerless gloves that I can wear while I'm sewing and painting.  It is getting cold here and my art spaces are always cold in the winter.  






Happy weekend and enjoy Halloween if you celebrate it.
Janelle

Autumn Fun

My kids and their cousin picked their pumpkins yesterday and carved them.  They had a lot of fun playing outside on this gorgeous fall day.

 
My oldest had her uncle take some senior pictures for the yearbook and graduation announcements.

Today I am making some art for my sewing room.  This week at the whimsical workspace class we are decorating our space.  Those pictures will come later.
Have a wonderful day,
Janelle

Studio Work

I have been working on my wet studio and my sewing room through Whimsical Workspaces.

whimsical-workspace

I wanted to share some of the progress that I have been making.

My inspiration area in my sewing room before organizing.

My inspiration area after organizing.

My sewing books before organizing.

My fabric cupboard before organizing.

My books and fabrics after organizing.

My ribbon jar before organizing.

My ribbons after they are separated by color.

My jars after sorting everything.

My desk in my wet studio area before cleaning.

My desk after cleaning.

My paints, dyes, and tools after organizing.

 I have only been sorting and organizing using things that I already had.  I haven't bought anything new.

This is the stack of art/quilting reading that I have been doing lately. 

Happy Creating,

Janelle

Crayon Cakes

I have been too busy with a cranky toddler to blog much, but I wanted to show off my crayon cakes.  I used directions from Traci Bautista's collage book to make these.  I haven't had time to use these to make any art, but hopefully I will soon.  Now my kids don't have any small bits in their crayon box.  I also made some collage papers using some fabric dye that I had mixed up.  That was a lot of fun too.  I will have to get pictures of some papers to show off to everyone. 

Have a great week.
Janelle

Mono-prints, and sketchbook work

I have still been working on my studio spaces through Whimsical Workspaces which can be found here: http://willowing.ning.com/group/whimsical-workspace  It has been good to get cleaned up and organized.

I have also been making some art.  I am still working on my fabric mono-prints, more cuffs, another background and my owl that I showed earlier this month.

First the background.  I layered gesso on a piece of water color fabric thickly and then doodled into it.  When that was dry I painted some water colors over it letting some of them drip.  I will be adding more to this piece soon.  Hopefully it will turn out to be something nice.

Next are the mono-prints that I am working on.  I am adding color the the white spaces.  Some of them I like better than others, but after adding more paint and stitching I hope that they look better.

Here is the little owl that I have been working on in my sketchbook.  I added paint and some words to this page.  I am not completely happy with the way he turned out, but I know that practicing will improve my skills, so I keep trying.  At least the process is fun even though I wish that my skills were up to what I want them at.  

I have been reading a couple of books that have me itching to try some new techniques.  The first one is: Collage, Assemblage, and Altered Art by Diane Maurer-Mathison.  The second one is Collage Unleashed by Traci Bautista.  They both have a lot of great information and I want to try some of the techniques that I am reading about.  If only there were more hours in the day.

Happy Creating!
Janelle