An idea posted the first day:

Has gradually come to fruition in fabric form throughout the month.
Actually finished sewing this yesterday, but wanted to post it today because it seems like a good way to bring this month of art-making full-circle:

Just the squares are finished, not all put together yet, but here you can see the thing more-or-less as I have envisioned it. Each square measures 10×10″ (25x25cm). The entire quilt will measure 74×86″ (190x220cm) when it’s finished…

For this post I photographed the squares & then pasted them into one picture. They don’t look very even around the edges – this is because of my impatience with sitting in front of a computer for any great length of time. I didn’t want to fiddle about with it any longer.

a crop to show my very simple sewing techniques:

There is a traditional way of making quilts by carefully cutting out little fabric shapes & piecing them all perfectly together, triangles & such, to create repeating patterns… a very geometric excercise for which I have no patience!

(yeah, there’s that patience thing again… haven’t got much of it have I)

Mostly I just kind of wing it – start with imperfect sizes & shapes, stitch things together & then later crop the squares to uniform size before assembling the quilt.
It’s a bit like painting – no straight lines or perfect edges, which I think is ultimately more dynamic and interesting than perfection.

And this is part of my sewing area (actually supposed to be the dining nook in our apt.) cluttered with the materials of a work-in-progress these last weeks:

Well, that’s the end of 30dayartist for me.
Whew!
Doing this has sure required a very steady focus throughout the month.
It’s been great fun & hopefully interesting for everyone.

Thanks Chinyew for accepting my application & giving me this space!

Also thanks to all who’ve had a look at my work here & especially those who’ve left comments, your feedback is always appreciated.

& now on to the next 30day artist…

V

a very quick sketch of some of the musical instuments which live with us:

like friends all hanging out together…

V

That’s what an imaginary portrait looks like.

This is what a real portrait looks like:

“Real” of course meaning that I looked in the mirror as well as at the paper – as opposed to the imaginary which means I only looked at the paper…

Actually the “real” one is also quite imaginary because I don’t really look like that
too cute or something
eyes too big
looks like a prettified version of me

Which leads one to wonder about the nature of reality & the objectivity (or not) of the artist’s eye.

V

When nothing really comes to mind, make flowers!

Used black pen, ink & coloured pen
in that order

Changed it just a tiny bit in Photoshop
- saturated the reds -
now there’s a bit of red in the background, which used to be just black/grey ink…

looks more alive this way

V

This one has been worked on throughout this month.
Wondering where it’s going…

It looked like this a couple of weeks ago:

This is where it’s got to since then:

I have to remind myself that the work I struggle with the most, often turns out to be the most interesting in the end.

My process for making paintings is always a searching one.
It’s as if the painting is there in the canvas, waiting to emerge, and I just have to find it.

Sometimes in trying to find it I first obscure it!

V

June 25th…. one sixth of the month remaining

last night & this morning I sewed another 6 squares of the city quilt:

Decided it needs another row yet to balance the colours…

When that is done the whole thing will be put together with strips of probably black in between the squares, one big piece of fabric for a backing, and quilt batting in between for warmth during the cold Canadian winters –
& then I will send it to my sister for her youngest child who does not yet have a quilt from me.

Whether or not this will be finished before the end of the month remains to be seen…!

Always I have these big ideas, it is difficult for me to think in terms of small projects.
Small projects, yes – like drawings on paper. Which is what I had planned to do this month.

Sometimes I wonder if I am undisciplined, you know.
(perhaps the definition of discipline could be discussed ad infinitum)
Making art rarely goes exactly as planned, and for me that’s half the fun of doing it!
Also I love to work with colour – have you noticed? – so doing only drawings is not really my style.

That said, I’ve been drawing a lot more this month than I have in quite a while, and that has been a great discipline.

V

Went to a small-town rodeo today with some friends.
The name of the town is High River – appealing name isn’t it.
The rodeo was great!
Much better than the hyped-up, slick, big-city rodeo I went to a couple of years ago.

Of course my sketchbook came along.
Here are the resulting 6 drawings, in the order they appeared:

first one is pretty clunky – haven’t drawn animals in probably 8 years…

the horse drawings improved a bit with practice!

& lastly a small girl in a big hat.

V

Another busy day…
it’s the wee hours by now & I’d better make my post for – oh! – yesterday…!

This one done late last night in the kitchen with the light turned way down. Used ball-point pen from the pen jar on the counter & my 8.5 x 11″ sketchbook

The low light made it easier to draw – perhaps because there was not so much visible detail interfering with the basic shapes & forms, it came out quite accurate.

I like the scratchy pen marks, messy strokes creating a fairly tight drawing.

V

before:

This small painting was started long ago as part of a series, but it got left out in the end and became the canvas onto which any leftover paint is slapped after I’m finished for the day.
There is always something around for that purpose because I have this thing about wasting anything, paint included… a bit silly, isn’t it.

But you know, sometimes those ‘junk’ canvasses become interesting & get worked on more purposefully and eventually turn into finished paintings.
Which is what may be happening with this one…

after:

This next series is another one that was started a long time ago, got to a certain point, and was put out of sight for awhile. Each canvas measures 30×30″ (76x76cm)
It’s been undergoing some gradual changes this month.

Kinda liking where it’s got to tonight, though I think it may need a bit more work.

The neat thing about doing 30dayartist is that I am hauling out some of my old & unfinished works and having another look, thinking what I might do… creative juices flowing

This is what comes of focussing on making art every day!

V

is sometimes elusive

two rather lacklustre ink paintings – not really in the mood to make art today

then tried another 20-minute ink painting – like the poppies which turned out so lovely in an earlier post – but this one is not so pretty…

playing in Photoshop is almost always fun
feels kind of like cheating, though – making a blah painting and then improving it on the computer
but hey, make use of all available tools, right?

V