week 1: art journal calendar

the sunny side - 4th attempt at free-form embroidery on my sewing machine! i'm loving it!!

it's week one of daily working in my little moleskine art journal calendar and i made it through with motivation intact. in fact, most days, i had to restrain myself from doing more than one page and thus far, i have done that, because part of the exercise was to develop a daily practice of drawing or painting or other artsy endeavors in the same place. to work ahead would be to let myself off the hook another day and while i'm not saying that i may not eventually do that, i'm not ready to do so yet.

so i hereby give you what i've got so far:

january 1-2, 2010

january 3 - 4, 2010

january 5 - 6, 2010

the swedish stamp was from a package i got from kristina that day.

it's a ski jump (i think), so i painted it a little mountain.

january 7 - 8, 2010

the little viking ship stamp i carved myself from an eraser.

and the robot is one of my first attempts at free-form embroidery with my sewing machine.

close up of the robot.
i just glued him onto the page.

i've noticed a few things as i'm doing this:

: : the lines aren't bothering me like i was afraid they would.

: : i feel an obsessive need to date each one, despite the fact that it goes on a page with the date on it.

: : and i want to write where i was when i did the page. i guess that's something i've done in my written journals for years as well, even down to recording hotel room numbers in hotels around the world. i wonder why i feel a need to do that?

: : watercolors are my medium of choice at the moment.

: : i am LOVING the free-form embroidery, even if the little owl i did first looks like it was vomited up by a cat.

the vomit owl

thanks spud for that name. :-)

from a rainy weekend

a bit of the weekend's creativity to share...it rained most of the weekend, so we had to stay indoors (when we weren't running off to riding lessons) and i didn't want to be too far from the fireplace, what with my battle against the dreaded twine foo...

the latest addition to my fiber art journal

it seems that with all of the focus on getting the house ready for sale, my fiber art journal wouldn't be complete without a reference to the house. i was watching husband paint up high on a scaffolding and i saw suddenly before my eyes a helleristning based on our street address. naturally, because of my blue room, i stitched it in shades of turquoisey blue. and i had to include a nordic sun symbol, as a nod to the importance of light year-round in these nordic climes.

i also started a little experiment based on this wonderful book, eco colour by india flint. it's all about using natural processes and plants to dye fibers. so i dashed out between showers and gathered some of the beautiful fall leaves from my yard and wrapped them in some plain, neutral, cream-colored cotton cloth and treated them with a sprinkling of vinegar before rolling them up into tight rolls.

i took leaves from cherry trees (above), blueberry bushes (they're a beautiful red color), red maple, some beech and some birch, plus a rowan leaf.

even a few of the last flowers from the greenhouse, just to see what happens.

now to have the patience to wait at least a month to see what happens. sigh.

and sabin and her big sister added to the growing group of happy plushie dolls.

once we crack a pattern challenge we're having with attaching heads to bodies on these, they are going to be for sale in my etsy shop. we're getting closer, but we're not quite there yet.

wordless wednesday - take 2