Mask fun

When my grandson was over the other day we had fun decorating and painting masks. These were just simple wooden masks from the Dollar store, but fairly sturdy, and I had lots of paints and various "bling" to decorate them with, so we had fun painting and gluing.

And we liked how they turned out. I did one mask and my grandson did the other. I'll leave you to decide which of us did which. :-)

Water coloring doodles

 

 On Monday evening we had the fall kick-off meeting of the Jacksonville Artists Guild. It was fun, different from usual. They had a presentation from watercolor artist Janet King, but then also a gentleman from Reddi-Arts, and we all got little "goody bags" with various samples from Reddi-Arts, but basically all watercolor based.

We then got plates with little dibs and dabs of blue, yellow and red in various water-bases paints, cups of water, some brushes to use (but not to keep) and told to have fun playing with the paints! It was sort of like being a kid, though I'n not much of a watercolor fan - but I had fun mixing and smushing the paints around on my paper - I used the Bristol board from the sampler pack we got. So this is my "doodle"  - the only art I accomplished this week! :-)

Pottery again

Well once again I had my lovely summer vacation up in New Brunswick, Canada. I was away for about 7 weeks and had a nice escape from the worst of the Florida heat right in the middle of the summer. When I got home in mid-August it was still hot, but I knew I was on the "home stretch" towards the loveliest 7-8 months of the year, which we are now entering.

But up in Canada I once again enjoyed taking classes at the Tidnish Bridge Art Gallery in Tidnish Bridge, Nova Scotia, just over the border from New Brunswick. As before our instructor was Melanie Landau. The pieces are all hand-built, not thrown on a wheel. Can't you tell from their lumpiness? LOL. But I managed to successfully create an actual usable coffee mug, as well as two small bowls.

Quilting again

Yay, I finished it in time! This is a baby quilt I made for my nephew Chad and his wife Shannon. This past weekend I drove up to Wilmington, NC for a baby shower for Shannon. I'd only started it two weeks previously, even though I had bought the fabric months ago, LOL. So lots of stitching there when it came to the hand quilting.

And if you look, you can see it's really the exact same pattern as this quilt I made for my granddaughter Finlay for Christmas:

I think Finlay's quilt came out well also. I find quilt very nice and cozy to wrap around oneself on chilly evenings. And since I made a quilt for Finlay I decided I needed to make one for John as well! 

John's was a different pattern - the design sort of organized around how much I had of certain fabrics. But I wanted the stars since John is interested in start and planets right now, and the backing fabric I used was covered in stars and planets.

Anyway baby Ava Lynn is due early in May. I hope things go well with the new mother and father to be and that they get to enjoy the use of the quilt.

Finlay's quilt

Gee, my granddaughter Finlay will be 8 months old this week, and I suddenly realized that I had never posted a picture of the baby quilt I made for her! On Facebook, yes, but not here. I discovered Magrieta's Quilt Shop in St. Augustine, and they sell the most luscious fat quarters of fabrics I totally fall in love with. So Finlay's quilt is wild and crazy as it's made from all sorts of cool fabrics I just loved so much I couldn't narrow down my choices as to what to include in the finished product. Their only unifying theme is that they all have some of the same purple shades, and there is an asian feel to the patterns.

Even the back is a quilt! And a little less busy than the front. Here I got to use the butterfly fabric I had also bought that I just could *not* work into the front of the quilt. I like making baby-sized quilts. They can be done pretty quickly, though getting the letters of her name right was a bit finicky. But all in all it was a fun project and I like the quilt!

Art projects with my grandson

One fun thing about having a four-year-old grandson is being able to do art projects with him! The Art Guild of Orange Park decorates Christmas balls every year, so I had a few at home I picked up at the meeting last week, and let my grandson decorate them. It's hard to go wrong with these. You just drop paints inside the balls and then turn the balls this way and that to let the colors swirl around. You get great marbling effects and they look all lovely and shiny because of the glass on the outside. I just got out all my acrylics (slightly watered down) and let my grandson pick whatever colors he wanted to drop into the balls. And I think they came out great.

"Hurricane over the Mountain" - by John Cusick (age 4)

 Of course we had lots of wet lumps of paint sitting on a paper plate when we were done, and I hate to just waste it and throw it away. So I got out two pieces of 300-lb watercolor paper cut to a 5x7 size, and we each had two minutes to paint a picture. John gave a running commentary as he did his painting:

 "I'm making a BIG mountain. It's a big dark mountain. Now a big storm is coming. It's a big hurricane over the mountain".

"Sunrise" by Debbie Cusick (age undisclosed)

This is my two-minute painting, which I call "Sunrise". :-)

After that we still had a bit of paint left. So we finished up with "Blobbies". We fold a piece of paper in half, then open it up, and drib-drab paint on one side of the paper. Then we fold it again and press down on it hard! Then we re-open it and have our Blobby picture. They are usually quite fascinating. 

"Blobby #1"

We managed to finish three blobbies before we ran out of paint.

"Blobby #2"

But I'm sure there will be a next time!

"Blobby #3"

Christmas Craftiness

My grandson John was 3 months old for Christmas, 2009. His other grandma is an excellent seamstress, and she made him this cute little elf costume to wear! He sure was adorable in it on Santa's lap.

So this Christmas my granddaughter Finlay will be 9 months old, and my daughter-in-law would love for her to be an elf also. But at 9 months Finlay is much too big (and too chubby) to fit into John's little overalls. The elf hat and shoes still work at least. My DiL said her mom was wasn't able to make an outfit this year so asked if I could do it.

She had hoped fabric could be a brighter green to match the hat and shoes, but the felty fabric John had only seemed to come in dark forest green.

So I decided a Florida elf could get away with lighter fabric and went with a pretty dotted cotton.

And this is the result I came up with. I'm pretty happy with how it came out! The green color is right, and is cheerful, and I think I made it look a little more "feminine". 

And since John's elf outfit was reversable I made Finlay's reversible also. John's was red so Finlay's is also red in the same dotted cotton as the green side.

It truly is reversible as each side has a small button on the bib which can be covered with one of three button covers.

The pattern I used said I needed a yard of each fabric, but I had a lot left over! At least I had just enough to make this small 3-foot by 3-foot quilt top using the two fabrics plus white. Now I have just scraps of the red and green, not enough for a 4th row. So I'll probably just add a border around the quilt to make it a little bit bigger.

Angels for Allison

Angels for Allison is a local charity that serves a sad but very necessary purpose. As their site says:

Angels for Allison is a nonprofit organization located in Jacksonville, FL dedicated to helping bereaved families in Northeast Florida. 100% of the profits donated to our charity help families who have lost a child with expenses, such as funeral or burial costs.

The thought of losing a child is unbearable, but to lose a child and have no money to them a proper funeral or burial? Far worse, so Angels for Allison helps those families out. One of the way they raise funds is to have local artist paint "angels" which are later sold at a charity fundraising auction.

Above is an angel I created for them. It was fun to do, and I hope they will raise a good amount of money at this year's auction. I still have one more angel to paint! 

Fairy Houses

In the late spring I took my grandson to the Jacksonville Zoo to see their incredible and awesome dinosaur exhibit, so we got combination tickets that included their Butterfly Hollow.  There were not many butterflies there then, but the exhibit itself was cool, As it says on their website:

Let your imagination take flight as you look for fairy houses, garden art, water features, comfortable seating and beautiful arbors.

So we looked, and I did find many of the fairy houses, and I loved them! They were just darling.  They were so adorable I felt I just had to create some of my own.  And so I did. I had such fun creating them that I think I may be trying more of them.

Bird Houses

Finally starting to post things I've done in the last few months. These are birdhouses my grandson John and I decorated. John's is on the right and mine on the left! I did mine to show various activities performed by the St. Johns Audubon Society, one of the organizations I'm on the board of.

We did these for a birdhouse decorating contest run by the Anastasia branch of the St. Johns Public Library system, an activity geared around the annual Great Backyard Bird Count held every February. There were well over 50 birdhouses entered in the contest, some of them true works of art. John is only three so he had tough competition in the 12-and-under category.

So neither of us won a prize, but we had fun decorating our bird houses and felt we were participating in a good cause.

Sketches and Scribbles - Part Two

Here are some more of the sketches and scribbles I did in the life drawing sessions these last 4 weeks. The drawings here are all 5 or 10 minute poses (possibly one 15-minute pose).

Sketches and Scribbles - Part One

These are just some of the quick sketches from my Life Drawing sessions I did the last 4 weeks. Most weeks we started with 30-second poses for quick gesture drawing, and likewise some 2-minutes poses. Then we moved on to some 5, 10 and 15 minute poses, and eventually 20-minute poses which were the ones I tried to capture with pastel. But the quick ones were good experience too so I'm posting some of them here. The ones posted here are all 30-second and 2-minute poses.

My Studio

One of the things I was excited about with my new home in Florida was that I was going to be able to have one entire room to devote to being my studio! Except I've been in my house for 8 months now, and the studio room was the one room of the house that was still a wreck with boxes stacked all around. I also love quilting and fabric arts (though have not done much of it lately) so my studio also needed room for my sewing machine and fabrics, and I had boxes and boxes of fabrics and nowhere to put them.

Not to mention paintings, boxes of pastels, beading supplies, quilt batting, canvases, pastel paper.... I just needed more storage space. So finally this past Monday I went out to look at storage units at Home Depot. I had planned to just buy an open metal shelving unit, but while I was there I was quite taken by this inexpensive Martha Stewart 9-cube organizer that can accomodate fabric boxes that fit right into the cubes! The oraganizer is stackable so I bought two of them.

I had to shift things around a small bit to make room for the organizers, but that gave me a good spot to put the IKEA children's easel that my grandson and I love to use when he comes over for visits.

And the organizers look great. Some of the cubes I left open, and some I bought boxes for - so I now have boxes for things like acrylic paints, beading supplies, picture hanging supplies, small bits and bobs of fabric.

It looks so nice I may have to paint a picture today. :-) Or start a quilt!

Art Critiques

Beth Haizlip of the Art Guild of Orange Park holds a monthly critique session at her house, open to any members of the AGOP. You are allowed to bring up to three paintings and put them up on an easel for critiquing. It's a great experience. Beth has a wonderful eye, and the other members often have valuable comments to add as well.

In Beth's own words:

You man bring up to 3 paintings to be critiqued. I will put the painting up on an easel and anyone is free to comment, good or bad. You must have thick skin - but this will help you become a better artist. 

I've been going to them for the last few months, and find them a fun and valuable experience. I'm always in awe of the work done by other AGOP members! This was the last session before the summer break, and I brought the three "barn" paintings I had done this past week. The feedback was great and I've made some changes to the paintings as a result. Some of the critiques - such as my clouds - I had noticed myself. But some of the other advice was not something I would have thought of. So I always learn something new.

Canvas Rugs

For some time it has seemed to me that in this Internet age just about anything you could possibly want would be available somewhere in the world. Small niche markets that might have withered and died could revive and flourish with the economies of scale offered by reaching out to a worldwide market. 


But I have come up against a brick wall after hours and hours of googling, to find that apparently it just ain't so.


One thing I miss in my new home is area rugs. I love area rugs, especially oriental design. I had a few in my old home, but except for one they all had to be tossed in the trash when I headed south. The reason? I have one sweet elderly cat who I've owned since kittenhood, who in the last few years began *peeing* on every carpet in sight. I couldn't get them clean, had to throw out a few, replaced them with cheap carpet remnants. Those got peed on and had to be thrown out also. She's been to the vet multiple times and had multiple tests, and they can't find a thing wrong with her, and finally concluded it must be "emotional" .

So I got musing on my childhood and recalled what I had seen often back then - LINOLEUM area rugs, often in lovely oriental or floral designs. What a perfect idea that would be. Linoleum is made from natural materials so considered to be rather a "green" product. I found online articles about linoleum making a big trendy comeback in home decorating because of this. I was sure someone would have jumped into this niche market. 

But alas it seems not so. At least not that I can find, and I have googled and googled. I did find someone who agreed with me, though: Author Jane Powell, who wrote a book called "Linoleum". In a 2009 interview she said: 

 "I'm pathetically grateful to anyone who is a fan of the linoleum book—apparently it was ahead of its time. Probably my favorite vintage pattern is the linoleum oriental rug—I'd probably have one in my dining room if they still made them! All the beauty of an oriental rug with no need to worry about spilled red wine or cat barf [NOTE: or cat pee] —what's not to like?...I think there is somewhat of a resurgence, but it's based more on linoleum's "green" qualities—it's non-toxic and made from renewable resources, and gets you a few points towards LEED certification. No one seems inclined toward making the fabulous patterns again. I always joke that if I ever win the lottery I will open a linoleum factory." 

Dear Jane, I hope you will the lottery. I want those fabulous old patterns too. I'm so used to being able to get just about anything I could ever want at the touch of a computer key. It's an odd feeling to know exactly what I want and find it doesn't exist anywhere. 

The best I could find was *canvas* rugs. Beautiful works such as those at: http://canvasworksfloorcloths.com which are lovely but *way* out of my price range. Even their "blanks" to  create your own are way out of my price range, But in general that seems to be the way I must go. I've bought canvas and gesso and acrylic clear coat. I tried out an 18x18-inch sample, which I've posted above (the rug I plan to make will be round). Now I just have to decide what sort of patterns and paints I will use on the canvas. 

Alas it's not going to look anything like the lovely oriental-pattern linoleum rug I have in mind, but I guess it's the best I can do for now, or the best I can think of! 

Birdhouse ornament

The Art Guild of Orange Park  had its annual holiday party this past Tuesday night  - a fun pot luck dinner, one of my favorite things! We were all supposed to bring a homemade Christmas tree ornament too. I was totally stumped on this, but ended up buying a small plain wooden birdhouse at Michael's and then painting it and decorating it with ribbon and bows and decoupage birds, trees and holly.

Introducting my grandson

Life in Florida is still so busy! But I hope to get more time for art soon. I'm very excited to be a part of the startup of a new pastel society called the First Coast Pastel Society, which is for our area of Florida. We are planning our first group event this coming Saturday, a plein air paint-out. So maybe I'll get some work done then!

In the meantime my 2-year-old grandson spent the day with me yesterday and we wanted to paint! So I got our a couple bottles of tempera fingerpaint I had bought a couple weeks ago and we painted. I love his a lot and figured it deserved a blog post. :-)

This is the only sort of painting I've been doing lately. I just moved to Florida last week, after leaving my home of 30 years in New Jersey. Quite a change! But my son and his family moved down here a year ago, and I really wanted to be closer to them, and could no longer afford to stay in my home in NJ anymore either, having been forcibly retired from my job last year.

So I bought a cute little house in Florida in the Jacksonville area. It's on a small pond, has 4 bedrooms, a living/dining ell, den with fireplace... I enjoy sitting in the kitchen in the morning, drinking my coffee, and looking out at the pond. I've already had a couple visits from a great egret.

With 4 bedrooms I even plan to make one an art studio! Yay. The only thing I dislike about the house is the color all the walls are painted. The whole house is done up in a color I would call something like "baby poop brown". A dark and depressing color. Actually if it was the same color but about three shades lighter I'd be fine with it. But I find the color dark and heavy - something belonging in an old gothic mansion in England.

So I'm trying to get some paintijng done before my furniture arrives. The first room done is the "John" room - the room I'm fixing up for my grandson's visit. I've also finished the art studio, and gotten a first coat on the guest bedroom and part of the living/dining area. Today I plan to finish the guest room and do the master bedroom.

My art supplies are all on the moving truck. It will be fun to set up my art studio when the truck finally arrives, which is scheduled, so far, for either tomorrow or Wednesday.

Another Baby Quilt

While up in Canada this past week I finished up another baby quilt I was working on, for the son of the fellow who was our caretaker for many years. He is the same age as my son, and they played together as kids when we would go up to Canada. Kevin's little boy Keaton is 7 months old and I've been wanting to get this quilt to him. This was a challenge, made from odds and ends and scraps as so much of my fabric was away in storage. The cat in the middle is a single piece of printed fabric, and it seemed appropriate since Kevin and his wife are fond of their cats. I just needed to find other fabrics in the right colors that I could use to expand upon the central cat. I was pretty lucky in finding scraps that incorporated the right colors, though the quilt still wound up a good bit smaller than the one I made for my grandson.

But I did get it finished while I was up there, and left it with Kevin's mom to get to him.