While it was a struggle to pull my eyes away from yesterday’s news feed, I got a surprising amount of work done. We even managed to take down and store the Christmas tree.
My new approach to watercolor painting adopted on Jan 1st has me excited about the potential. This time I chose to apply a quinacridone red wash. After it dried, I added a miniature landscape of snow-covered mountains at dawn.
This took me very little time to complete and I enjoyed every brush stroke.
Moving on to sewing, I got another block design worked up on the Animal Friends project. Here is a little pet condo in bright colors and fun geometric shapes.
That brings my completed block count on the project to twelve. I’m half-way there!
And finally, I found a use for some old yarn from a knitted item that I frogged almost ten years ago. It is a KnitPicks yarn called Gloss – a very soft blend of wool and silk in a dark green color. I bought three balls of a complimentary color to make this charming capelet.
Yesterday I got to work on changes to my studio, so that I can keep painting and sewing projects going at the same time. First of all, I put together a table top pressing board. It is a rectangle measuring about 19 by 21 inches. This addition allowed me to put the big ironing board away in the closet. I set up the card table under the window.
There is just enough room to allow me to paint on one canvas at a time, with all of the painting supplies directly at hand. To the right you see the big table that serves as my main work surface. The Bernina is on the shelf, ready to go at a moment’s notice.
To test out this arrangement, I got busy with the watercolors. I brushed washes on to two pieces of paper. My inspiration for the first painting was a photo I took when visiting Ohio in November. It is a slightly fuzzy image of Mogadore reservoir, the shoreline surrounded by bare branches.
Quite a lovely, abstract landscape. Here is my interpretation of the scene using a violet and turquoise wash blended slightly.
The second piece of paper was washed with the turquoise alone – two coats to get it even. For inspiration, I flipped through some reference photos I had saved and came up with this indigo bunting.
It inspired me to attempt a negative painting. In this technique, you paint around the area of the subject, drawing it out by subtracting the surrounding space. This first try at negative painting didn’t go very smoothly. I ended up having to use some white gouache on the bird to pick out the details.
Once the paint had dried, the little bird flew away. He found a perch among some of his feathered friends. I quickly snapped this photo.
“Birds of a Feather” by Cheryl Bryan. This watercolor also features negative painting
He seems so at home there.
Frame made from old fence slats by my husband.
The casual observer will notice that my background turned out very streaky. I used a combination of burnt sienna and Payne’s gray with not too much water. It took a few coats over the turquoise wash to get the uniform color I was seeking. I used quinacridone gold on his perch.
Day Two of 2021: I’ve spent some time pondering how I might use my creative collateral in the new year. While I have no grand plan, I did make one resolution regarding the pursuit of water color painting.
I will keep my painting efforts small, regular and modest. For example, in January I plan to practice painting washes every day, on small canvases of artist quality paper – no bigger than 4 by 5. Today I did an abstraction of the grapevines growing along the Pathfinder trail. Here is a photograph I took last month.
And here is my simplified study:
There are two potential good outcomes of this decision.
1. My watercolor skills will continue to improve.
2. The rest of my time can be spent on making improvisational and art quilts, which have gained my attention this past year.
Of course, I will spend the twilight hours of each day knitting.
To make the plan work, I will need to re-arrange my studio slightly, so that I don’t have to put away the paints every time I want to sew. It can be managed, with a few adjustments and additions. I will set up a small table for painting, near the window. And I will construct a table-top pressing board, so that I can put away the ironing board.
My usual practice on New Year’s Day is to clean out my clothes closet, eliminating all those items I no longer wear and taking stock of any needs for replacements. But this year? Staying at home 90% of the time? Who needs new clothes! I fell into a consistent pattern of wearing jeans or stretch pants and cotton knit shirts.
So today, I will ignore my closet and instead look back at the work emerging from my studio. In glancing at my 2020 posts, I realize how much my work has changed since I started this blog in 2019. What comes to the front are the forays into making art quilts and painting with watercolors. But I’ll start with my first love –
KNITTING
While this year was not a high point in creative design, my output was strong. I completed 3 hats, 4 pair of socks, a toddler sweater, a dress, a top down cardigan, a serape and a water bottle holder. My most complex object was the Weaver’s Square vest made for my daughter.
Technically, I did design this garment. But the fair isle pattern on the vest’s back was adapted from one I saw on Knit/Lab’s website. I don’t take credit for that part. The vest turned out pretty great and she loved it. Here are a few photos of some other knits I made this year:
I finished the year with two UFO’s – a pair of men’s socks and a pair of gloves.
PAINTING
Last year I was focused on learning to sketch. But this year, I was determined to start painting. To that end, I joined the local art association and signed up for some on-line classes. Anyone who has tried to paint with watercolor will freely admit that the medium has its own set of challenges. I spent the year more disheartened than encouraged. In July I followed the daily challenge on World Watercolor Month, organized by Charlie O-Shields of Doodlewash. That’s when I started to see some improvement. I began by painting copies of other people’s photographs. Eventually I was able to paint from my own photographs, from life, and from my imagination. Here are a few favorites.
QUILTING
Confession: I learned how to quilt only for the purpose of realizing my fiber ideas. So there are a lot of technical areas of quilting that I choose not to pursue. While my favorite thing to do with fabric is to paint on it, I am willing to piece fabric into a quilt top when my inspiration seems to require it. I use commercially printed fabric as well as hand painted fabric for these pieces. During the past year I learned how to mount small art quilts onto stretched canvas. This allows me to present them as works of art suitable for hanging.
At the beginning of 2021, I find myself with a number of unfinished objects. I also have more ideas than I have energy to pursue.
So perhaps my goal for the new year needs to be a narrowing of ambition. The hardest part is deciding what to leave behind. I love it all.
First of all, I want to say that the Christmas To-Do list posted on the wall was a big hit with family members who visited us this year.
Of the twenty items on the list, all but four were completed – with great enthusiasm, for the most part. We made a few changes: no one was interested in making wreaths, but the fly fishermen among us wanted to tie some flies. So there was that substitution. And since the cars took up the whole driveway, we played sports in the backyard. Many times. The weather was remarkably warm and sunny, hence No Fire in the Fireplace.
I received two fibery gifts. The first was a pair of sock yarns, originating in Wisconsin.
I have worked with Ewetopia sock yarn once before and found it very pleasant – it is round, tightly twisted and produces a sturdy fabric. The swatch of the dark plum gave a deep tonal, slightly shaded fabric. The yellow green color, named Caterpillar, gave a stripey fabric characterized by short repeats.
My second gift was a handful of woven linen swatches, made decades ago by my son in law’s grandmother.
After studying them for a while, I was able to work out which direction were warps and which were wefts. Some of these brocades must have been devilishly difficult to construct. I want to preserve them, but I also want to use them in some way. At the moment, I am considering working the swatches into a stretched canvas piece.
It was a busy and tiring week at chez LauraKate. While I intend to write about my body of work made in 2020, that discourse must wait for tomorrow. Today will be dedicated to tidying the craft room, folding the laundry and roasting a chicken.
Daily Fiber 