Portland, Maine, retreat with Susan Carlson, Part 2

It has been two weeks since I came home from Susan Carlson's fabric collage retreat in Portland. I've had such a good time working on Elizabeth! Here is how she looked on the last day in Maine, and then her progress:

Elizabeth on the background

Adding shadows

Adding more shadows

 

Quilting

Trying to quilt with Elizabeth's help

She seems quite pleased--won't stay off of it!

All done but the whiskers and facing

Susan Carlson wrote a blog post about the retreat. You can read it here and see pictures of the  other students'  pieces in progress. She is an amazing teacher and I would love to take another class with her!

Portland, Maine, retreat with Susan Carlson, Part 1

I have admired Susan Carlson's work for several years, especially after seeing Dixie Dingo Dreaming in Houston in 2012. For any lover of fabric, Susan's technique opens up a world of enjoyment as we search for just the right bit of fabric that will create an eye, a bit of fur, a nose, a cheek, skin. Instead of dipping a brush into paint, this method uses scissors to cut pieces of fabric to place on our canvas.
Susan teaches all over the U.S., but my choice was near her home in Maine and October was the perfect time weather-wise. From Mississippi, the trip took three plane rides, but since I love to fly this was not a drawback. I've never flown into New York with such good visibility, and this scene was especially beautiful. To get to Portland I went from Gulfport to Detroit, to JFK, to Portland. Coming home was to LaGuardia, Atlanta, and Gulfport.

(Click to enlarge any photo)

I had one free day to see the downtown section (called Old Port) and the Art Museum and along brick sidewalks and streets. A ferry ride to Peaks Island and back was a treat, since the Hyatt was only two blocks from the Atlantic Ocean.

There were only 10 students in our class, which allowed Susan to circulate to each of us several times each day. She brought in different quilts each day, and seeing these (that we had seen in magazines) up close was a great learning experience. She lectured about an hour each morning, covering from selecting our subject matter to finishing and hanging. We had access to the classroom after hours, and several worked into the wee hours.
Getting ready for the class involved cutting pieces from as many of my fabrics as I had time to cut! I grouped these by color and by value into Ziploc bags that filled a suitcase.

Here is my starting point--my subject outline drawn onto a muslin foundation. I taped my reference photo to the styrofoam board. As I cut small bits of fabric, I pinned them to the foundation. My subject is Elizabeth, My Almost Perfect Cat.

Susan brought many examples of her work, from early in-progress pieces to large completed ones. She also had step-by-step photo books so we could see the progression from idea to finished product. 

My Elizabeth grew gradually as I decided to add in some colors instead of depicting her in totally realistic grays, tans, and black. I was very worried about her eyes, but it turned out that the eyes were a piece of cake compared to the nose! 

More details will be added, along with the table she is lying on. In the picture she is lying on a white/red cutting mat in my studio, but I haven't decided about her base yet. More on the next blog post.

Finishing My Artist's Altered Book Pages

Making artist's altered book pages has been a challenging, interesting, and satisfying activity. There are 10 of us in this group, living all over the U.S., from California to Florida to Massachusetts--talented artists who I only know from online contact. But we share a passion for creating art and sharing it with each other. Theoretically, it works like this: every month I create a 10" x 10" page and send it to someone on the list. Every month, one of the group sends me a page. We can make our pages any technique and style we choose, and several have used this as an opportunity to work in a series. We try to keep on schedule but don't get upset when other events cause us to be late. It is a wonderful surprise to get a large envelope no matter when it comes. I have my August, September, and October pages ready for tomorrow's mail--October 5, meaning I was late with two and on time with this last one. The last one is inspired by the large mushrooms growing out of the tree stump which I pictured in my blog a few days ago.

for Gabriele DiTota

for Carol Jones Frank

for Nanette S Zeller

September Happenings

Interesting things happen in the yard when we're not looking. These huge mushrooms are growing around the edge of a cut tree stump. I thought it fascinating how a little twig was captured as the mushroom grew. Although I have lots of heavy ground cover where snakes might hide, I would just as soon not have them shed their skin in my flowerbed. This one was about 36" long.

The basil produced such a healthy crop this year that I began cutting twigs for flower vases. I made a good batch of pesto sauce to enjoy for some time.

I enjoyed a visit from my son and daughter-in-law this summer, and my friend Yijuan Yin gave them one of her Chinese ink paintings.

Later, granddaughter Brittney visited with her family. Tanner and Kylee Jo had a good time trying out the Sweet Sixteen machine, while Knox created a "fabric sandwich" from a scrap he put between two pieces of bread. Luckily, he just carried it around without trying to eat it.

I enjoyed helping create a Sensory Garden for special needs students at Thames Elementary School with several of my University Baptist Church friends. Karen Walker and Lida McDowell and I worked on decorating posts with tennis balls (cut in half and tied onto the posts) and adding streamers of ribbon and zippers and other materials the children could touch and feel. Thanks to Camille Soulier for donating the used tennis balls!

Every time I sit in the recliner a cat immediately comes to keep me company. It is a rare occurrence that they will share the space with each other, and it makes for quite a warm lap. Here Tarbaby is letting Rahrah bathe his head while Elizabeth sleeps soundly.

More July & August

I entered three pieces plus participating in a slice piece in the Vicksburg Old Man River Quiltfest in August.

Shapes on the Green, 3rd place ribbon

Red Stars & Strips, 20 stars celebrating Mississippi's 200th birthday

Winter Cabin, a Kathy McNeil pattern
HM ribbon

L to R Martha Ginn, Julia Graber, Marcus Weekley

July & August

Wow--am I in a time capsule zooming along or what? In the face of the tragic flooding from Hurricane Harvey from Texas through Louisiana and into Mississippi, I am thankful that I am safe and pray for relief for my friends/family/others in harm's way.
I take lots of pictures of my cats, my flowers, my quilting but if I don't post them here or on Facebook I am doing a poor job of sharing. So here are a few recent ones.
Nature shots: I had a bumper crop of basil and made a large recipe of pesto sauce. A small green spider built a very large web where the sun really showed its beauty. I've never seen a snake in my yard, but one left his 36" long skin!

Quilt related: I made a couple of 10" artist altered book pages from my photographs taken in Ireland. The grass seed heads at the Cliffs of Moher were so interesting.
The Mississippi Ag Museum in Bloom slice quilt was displayed in the Mississippi Museum of Art during July and August, and NEA president Jane Chu admired it and had her picture taken with it.

NEA chairman Jane Chu with Mississippi Ag Museum in Bloom, at  the Museum of Art in Jackson

June Catching Up

I went on a dream trip to Ireland! I joined a Tom Kimmel music tour from June 1-11. Tom is a talented singer/poet/songwriter who has performed at our Back Door Coffeehouse at University Baptist Church in Hattiesburg. The tour started in Shannon, Ireland, and I met the other 23 people there. They were music lovers from all over the U.S. and one from France. We had shared a picture and brief bio by email, so we felt like we were meeting old friends when we arrived.
There were expected stone walls, castle ruins, sheep, cattle, green fields, views of the wild Atlantic Ocean, musical voices and brogues spoken by the friendly people, and music every evening, either in a concert just for our group or in a local pub among the happy townspeople. We spent three nights in Rosscarbery, West Cork, three in Ballyferriter, and three in Doolin, and traveled by bus in Counties Cork, Kerry, and Clare along the Wild Atlantic Way. We had sunny days, rainy days, and some combinations of weather, but nothing to interfere with our learning some of Ireland's culture and history and beauty.

Stone fences

The Cliffs of Moher

This church was built in the 10th century on level ground. Through the years sand from the Atlantic Ocean has blown up around it until it appears to have sunk into the earth.

 The floor of The Freezer's Pub was like a giant quilt!

 Stairs in Bunratty Castle looked rather forbidding.

Sheep

The path to Mizen Head and Fastnet Lighthouse.

June--what a busy month! After I returned home, I finished piecing the Red Stars String quilt and added borders. With the red background behind each block, it was tempting to leave it unquilted as a "summer spread," but went ahead with a backing and attempt at quilting on my Pfaff while my Sweet 16 is waiting for a new bobbin case. But Elizabeth and Rahrah insisted on keeping me close company, so I had to put it aside.

I also joined all 25 blocks of my Karen K Stone-inspired orange peel design and decided this is the size it will be, with the addition of "arcs" on all four sides. I will name it Mississippi Orange Peel.