It didn’t take long for me to work up TWO pair of mittens sized child medium.
Once I got into the rhythm, I completed a mitten in a few hours each evening. The pattern made it easy to match each one to its predecessor. The yarn was soft and bouncy with a good contrast of values.
My mascot mouse approves highly.
And here is the left-over yarn. Just enough to save for future repairs.
It was a good week for busting stash!
It feels like months since I worked on the 100 day project. But I have new inspiration that pushed me into making a sketch today.
Bill took this photo earlier in the year.
I have no idea how he got our grandson to pose AND to smile. There must have been a story to go along with this image. I’ll have to ask about it. Anyway, the photo touched my heart and motivated me to get out my pencil, eraser and Micron pen.
Here is my initial pencil sketch.
I worked on it sporadically over a few days, trying to get all the proportions and subtleties of the face accurate.
Today I inked my lines, refining shapes as I worked.
I used number .05 and .005 Micron pens, adding light hatch lines to indicate contours and shadow. The boy has a multitude of freckles, which I felt unable to render with any degree of delicacy. So, you get to see Henry freckle-free.
I believe this drawing brings me to Day 41 of the 100-day challenge. While I feel no particular urgency to reach 100 pieces of art before a year has passed, I’ll continue to plug away at the project. Bill continues to offer up excellent photographs for my artistic consideration.
Knitting mittens is like eating tortilla chips with salsa. They go so fast and are so much fun that it’s hard to know when to stop.
When my grandson was a toddler, I think I made four or five mittens in the same yarn. I was operating on the theory that, since they are easily lost, spare mittens would come in handy.
This time around I am using the purple and pink Elision yarn for the third time. That’s extreme stash-busting in my world. The skeins were purchased for Lu’s simple sweater, to complement a hand-painted merino wool skein she had selected.
Earlier this year, I added a pale blue color to make her a balaclava.
That left a full skein of purple and a partial of pink. I am using a basic pattern to get my stitch count and proportions right……
https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/zen-little-fingers-and-toes-part-1-mittens
…….. but substituting a different stranded pattern: a favorite from 750 Knitting Stitches published by St. Martin’s Griffin, New York.
Diamonds in the Snow has a 6-stitch repeat. It works perfectly with my cast-on count of 36 stitches. In colors selected, the pattern looks more like Posies in the Meadow.
Now if I can only use up both colors at the same time.
Not many people would call a pumpkin a squash, but I just love alliteration. I can’t help myself.
I’m a few weeks late in finishing my pumpkin painting. Painting was supposed to take place on the first Monday in October, when Cheryl Bryan conducted her once a month tutorial. I had prepped my paper and packed my traveling paint kit, but didn’t attend class. I was at a funeral for a friend that morning.
As the month wore on, I kept busy in the garden (and with stash-busting knitting.) So, it’s today that my pumpkin painting is ready to be viewed.
My reference photo is by Megan Lee, who generously shared it on Unsplash.
Thank you, Megan.
What attracted me to this image was the background primarily. I liked that the pumpkin is still in the pumpkin patch, surrounded by its vine, whose leaves are changing to yellow. The white tendrils (or roots?) which are visible throughout the image keep the eye moving through the scene.
My goal was to capture a spooky feeling, along with the intense highlights, as if a beam were focused on the pumpkin – the star of the show.
Did I achieve the goal? I believe so. What do you see?
Painted on Arches cold press using Winsor yellow, Winsor green, transparent orange, alizarin crimson, burnt sienna and ultramarine blue. White highlights emphasized with Dr PH Martin’s bleed-proof white.
I gave myself a gift by purchasing another Blaukopf tutorial through Teachable. This one appealed to me because it featured ink and watercolor.
https://learn.shariblaukopf.com/p/sketching-a-french-village-scene
For the first lesson, Shari walked us through the mixes we would be using throughout the course. My swatches came out nicely, despite the fact that I had no Hooker green paint and substituted Winsor green.
Our first painting was of a balcony scene in a Normandy village featuring lots of stone and pots of plants perched on a wall.
Shari suggested that we avoid pencil lines and draw straightaway with the ink pen. I am using Pigma Micron with archival ink.
Not too bad. The basic shapes and textures look as expected.
First wash.
I was so focused on finishing that I didn’t take any other images of intermediate steps.
Here is my final ink and watercolor painting of the balcony scene.
While I didn’t have fun throughout the entire experience, I got re-introduced to my watercolor paint and had enough fun for a Wednesday.
Daily Fiber 