A Product of Procrastination

" Our Town"

Back in June I volunteered to make 2- 24 x24 inch quilt squares for the upcoming Viroqua Harvest Moon Celebration in October.  I haven't been much in the mood to sew over the last year, so I thought perhaps this might motivate me, but so far it has not.  Ideally the squares should be done for our next meeting on August 17th, which is just around the corner.   There will be 4-6 quilts total that will be marched down main street for the parade and then raffled off afterward.  The theme for my quilt group is "homes/houses".  I've been thinking a lot about my quilt squares but haven't done a thing to start them, for some reason the thought of sewing almost seems painful to me.   So while thinking about homes and houses to quilt, this little painting popped into my head and away I went.  So much more fun than sewing!  I really should be sewing houses instead of painting them, but I'd like to think that this is a way of brainstorming or sketching out my ideas, right?  I'm starting to get a little bit of that panicky feeling I used to get when I would put off home work.  Just like the homework, I'll probably wait until the last minute.  I have a bunch of ideas for  paintings brewing inside my wee little brain that I'm sure I will start when instead I should be starting my quilt squares. 

Blooms

This little piece was a fun one to work on.  The paper had been used as practice  for stamping with  the plastic doily that I used in my last piece.  I didn't know what I wanted to do with it and had actually thought it might end up in the recycling bin, but then I just started to draw, doodle and paint on it with no worries of what will happen and this is what came about.  My garden is filled with little seed heads from my poppies and were the inspiration for these little flowers.  
I used coffee again for the background in this painting.  I'm really loving the feel that this gives. I used little bits of painted tea bags for the bottom and also used some little scraps that Amelia painted.  (they just happened to be laying on the table and seemed perfect for the piece, the purple and the brighter blue pieces are hers.) The piece is mostly painted with watercolor, but I did use acrylics in a few areas. 
This piece made me realize that I need to doodle more and loosen up, and that I don't always need to have a plan.  Just go with it, if it works, great, if not, oh well, nothing lost, but always experience gained.

Black eyed susans

All in the Downs the fleet was moor’d,
The streamers waving in the wind,
When black-eyed Susan came aboard;
‘O! where shall I my true-love find?
Tell me, ye jovial sailors, tell me true
If my sweet William sails among the crew.’
"Black-eyed Susan" by John Gay

(Our native American wildflower probably got its common name from this British poem )

Little wings

Don't these little maple tree seeds look like little wings?  We found them all over the sidewalk in front of our neighbors house.  Amelia and I couldn't resist from picking them up.  Amelia gathered quite a few and put them in her basket on her bicycle and I brought a few home too.  We have quite a few of our own maple trees in our yard, but our whirly birds/helicopters/seeds are single and  they also fell down way back in June.  (when they fall, they love to clog up our gutters!)  Our neighbors maple tree must be a different variety than ours. 



This little painting was inspired by these sweet little maple tree seeds.  I'm thinking I'll title it "Contemplating Flight".  It's a little different style and colors than what I usually paint in, but as soon as I saw those little seeds, I knew how I wanted the painting to look.  The background of the painting is done with my cold press coffee, nice and concentrated, I love the look of it.  I'll probably be using more of it in the future.  Yesterday I went to a yard sale and found some plastic doilies and used that to stamp the pink image in the back.  A little cheesecloth, tea bags and  scrapbook paper for the dress and she was done!

An Old Soul

This painting has been through many transformations.  I started it last fall and I just couldn't get it to work.  I loved her face and hair, but I just didn't like anything else about her.  Just like my last painting it sat in the kitchen for months and then went down to the basement for awhile and then made its way back to the kitchen to be finished.  She started out with golds and reds, probably because I started it in the fall, but  that didn't feel right.  So then  she was in very bright colors, pinks, oranges, lime greens and that felt too bright for her.  I literally peeled layers of paint off of the background and what came through was some nice old colors with just hints of brighter colors.  I then added some small bright colored pieces of painted tea bags and coffee filters and painted some brown over her bright pink dress to knock the color down and things started to feel much better.  It has the feeling of something which is old,  but still beautiful to look at.

Garden fairy

I've been trying to finish up some paintings that I've had lying around the house for awhile.  A few are in the basement, a few in the attic and more in the kitchen.  They are mostly paintings that I started and lost interest in.  This one I started back in March or April, I knew what I wanted to do with her, but was not inspired at all by the piece, so  to the basement it went after it sat in my kitchen (aka my studio) for awhile.    A few weeks ago I saw her lying there in the basement and I pulled her up out of there, but then she sat in my kitchen again as I tried to muster up some motivation to finish it.  Well, I finished her  and I'm really liking her. 
I  painted used coffee filters for her hair, I dug up some lace that I got at a yard sale for her dress and used some of my vintage metal for her wings. 
I think she might be one of my favorites that I've done in this style.   The plan is to take her tomorrow to a local store here in town to sell her.   My little Amelia wanted her hung up in her room, which I'm very tempted to do, we will see. 

"Cultivate"

Here's my first ever commissioned piece!  It's being hung up and circulated around the area for the event "Cultivate."    I did it for the Valley Stewardship Network who's mission is  "to promote stewardship and inspire cooperative efforts to improve the sustainability of the communities and ecosystems in the Kickapoo Watershed region."  Organic Valley, who's headquarters is about 20 minutes from Viroqua, is hosting this event and all proceeds from the dinner will go to VSN.   Unfortunately I'm not attending, $60 a person is not in our budget, even if the proceeds go for a good cause, but hopefully others are going.  Dr. Fred Kirschenmann is the special guest and he will be talking about building a sustainable food system.  Rooted Spoon Culinary is featuring a 5-course meal with local, seasonal and organic food.  What a great way to spend a summer evening in the Kickapoo region!

Another daisy

Daisies remind me of being a little girl and sitting on the grass in the summer with my friends as we talked about  what boys we liked  at the time.  We would take the daisies and pluck off the petals one at a time and say "he loves me" for one petal, and then the next petal would be "he loves me not" and pull all the petals off one by one and see what the last one was, always hoping it would be "he loves me".  Of course if we didn't' get the answer we wanted, we would start over with a new  daisy!   While working on this painting, I began to wonder if the boys ever did this with flowers?  or just us silly girls!  I'm almost sure they didn't.  While the girls were sitting in the grass daydreaming, I'm sure the boys were off doing fun things like baseball, climbing trees, catching frogs and bugs and not thinking about silly girls and their flower predictions!

Have a wonderful weekend

Daisies, daisies

It seems like ages since I've posted a painting.  My garden is in full swing and consuming most of my time.  Painting gets put on the low priority list.  I did find a little time to paint some daisies.   They are such a sweet little happy flower!

small things forgotten

Remembering the excitement of loosing your baby teeth and putting them under your pillow for the tooth fairy.