Painting of Bob

4 August 2012

I painted a pic of Bob to take to our family beach reunion. It was fun, but, if I were ever to do another like this, I'd do more with the background. The spatter painting looks a bit weak.

Enjoying my new Bernina

8 June 2012

Last month I got my new Bernina 730 sewing machine! It's fabulous and I have lots of projects planned in the months ahead.
For years and years I have found myself being frustrated with some aspects of sewing and I finally realized that it was because I was trying to do things with my old machines that they were never designed to do. This machine does it all. I'm elated to own it. :-)
Here are pics of some burp cloths and receiving blankets I embroidered for my daughter, Susy. (She's expecting a baby boy in just a few days.)

Heather's Painting

29 May 2012 Heather said she really liked the little painting I did for Isabelle at Christmas, so, for her birthday, I did one like it in a much larger size. She seems happy with it.

Christmas Paintings

For Lily

For Claire

For Ryann

For Isabelle

For Bobby

For Abby

30 Dec 2011

For Christmas, I did mixed media paintings for some of my grandchildren. They were fun to do and each is different. Our other five grandchildren received a hand-made book about our time together last year. I enjoyed the process of working on each of these gifts, though I don't imagine most of my grandchildren can really appreciate what went into them.

Christmas with Laura's family was fun, but, I thought, at my age, I'd be in a position where children and grandchildren would be joining me on Christmas Day, instead of the other way around. Maybe, someday. . .

I've Done a Little Painting and Crafting

Cut out lots of oversized paper trees to place on these 20' x 6' panels.
Made these cute reindeer on a 20' x 6' panel of felt.

9 Dec 2011

It may appear that I haven't been doing any painting, etc. since my last post, but, I have. Its just that some of the paintings are Christmas gifts, so I don't want to post pics and give anything away. Plus, I just realized that I forgot to take pictures of most of them before I wrapped them and sent them off to their respective recipients. Darn! I'll post something after Christmas with the pics I have.

I was also in charge of all the decorations for the church Christmas party and spent a good deal of time making things for that. (See pics)

So, I've enjoyed being creative and painting and making things since my last post. I just don't have many photos to show for it yet. . .

Final Painting, Oct 2011

14 Oct 2011
This week we had our last class of the six-week still-life course I've been taking. The first week, the instructor, Kurt Schwarz, demonstrated and lectured - and we just listened and watched. The other five classes, we painted from a still life he set up.
The past two classes, we've worked from the same set up of pumpkins/squash that he brought from his garden.
I can see that I've made some progress with my painting - and still have lots of room for improvement.
I've enjoyed learning from Kurt and I'll come up with some things to paint on my own — for practice. After the first of the year, I'll sign up for another class. And, I'll keep plugging along. . .

Baby Steps

29 Sep 2011
I'm making a tiny bit of progress. Last week's painting was awful, so I scraped it off, cleaned up the canvas and started over. This week was better. In the photo above you can see that its still unfinished and needs quite a bit more work, but I'm learning to do a better job of incorporating variations in temperature as well as color and value. Based on the proverb that you have to do something 10,000 hours before you've mastered it - as long as I stick with it, I should know what I'm doing in about 10 more years!