Periodically I peruse the various that comprise Urban Sketchers. Yesterday I found Caroline of the Artist’s Smock. Her drawings remind me of Seattle Sketcher, but with a European Twist. I like her descriptive bio as well. I can’t insert the drawing I like, but you can see it at http://tinyurl.com/artistsmock.
Tag: Other Artists
Drawing, 3D Illustration and More
Mostly I was attracted to this blog because Seattle Sketcher has his Seattle Post-Intelligencer featured in today’s post. I really like Gabi’s work. In looking through the blog, I found I liked some of the other drawings artworks shown as well. Some I didn’t like, but I can’t like everything.
I also thought the look of the blog was great.
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Thinking about Drawing
This is, apparently, a blog that a professor is using for a class. What a cool idea! I like the text that the blog writer cites about drawing being a way to externalize ideas.
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Notebookism Inspiration and Prompts
Notebookism has two things that are useful in terms of inspiration today. One is a kit for getting over writer’s block. I like the format. It reminds me of the Dodecahedron in The Phantom Tollbooth. I think it could modified for fiber blocks. Also, if you look at the top photo on the right, there is a notebook with some words surrounded by bubbles. From what I can see, the design looks really interesting. Perhaps I will try it.
The lower photo is just downright hilarious. I’ll have to get out my Chanel No.5 (assuming Eau de Toilette works as well as cologne) just so I can be cool.
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Urban Sketchers Nice & Inspiring Today
Michael Nobbs frequently posts (to Twitter) updates on what is new and interesting in the sketching world. He posed some links today, which made me go to Urban Sketchers. I just scrolled through he sketches and there are some very nice ones, including one from Gabi of Seattle Sketcher. Take a look.
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Louis Armstrong Collages
Illustrated journals,visual journaling, personal pages and collage have all been big news in the last few years. Recently Louis Armstrong’s collage work has come to the fore. Collage gets legitimacy???
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Donna’s Serged Eyeglass Cases
Donna has a great method for learning to use her serger. She also has a fabulous sense of color and her series of eyeglass cases shows that in living color. Take a look!
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Patterns for Fun
I am on another CraftSanity jag and listened to an episode where Jennifer Ackerman-Haywood interviewed Meg McElwee, owner of Sew Liberated and writer of the Sew Liberated blog. Jennifer is a huge fan of aprons and these look really fun. I have been thinking of making a bunch to entertain some friends and relatives at Christmas, but we will see.
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Meg has a nice way about her and I enjoyed her calm speaking style. I took a quick look at her blog. She takes gorgeous photos and I am looking forward to seeing the result of her new book project.
Perhaps Origami?
I saw this article on Jennifer Ackerman-Haywood’s Grand Rapids Press blog (isn’t it cool that they have a craft column??). This man is amazing and I just shiver thinkng about what the world would be like if everyone did something as creative.
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Mark at McCall’s
Mark Lipinski of Quilter’s Home fame highlights the recent issue of McCall’s Quilting, which has more bags in it. I might just have to get a copy, or at least check one out. Lots of people are asking me about bags now.
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Anna Maria Horner and Blogging without Obligation
You may have noticed the little badge I added awhile ago from TartX. The Blogging without Obligation badge is a reminder to myself that if I don’t post every day, nobody will die and the world won’t end.
To that end, I try and be patient with people who don’t post as often as *I* 
would like them to post. Thus, I was thrilled today when I saw a couple of posts from Anna Maria Horner. She obviously reads her blog comments, because her post is answers to a number of questions that came up in comments when she posted her multi-tasking bag -soon-to-be- pattern. I really liked the post. I clipped a little piece of it to get you there easily, though I really wanted to clip the part about the patterns and couldn’t.
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Quilting By the Sea #2
The second CQFA Retreat was the weekend of January 25, 2009 (read about the first retreat here). What a great weekend for sewing. You have already seen my completed top, FOTY 2008, but I thought I would share some of the highlights of the trip and other people’s projects with you. I highly recommend going on a weekend retreat once in a while, especially if you normally don’t get several hours of uninterrupted time to do your sewing.
On Saturday, I went out for a walk and to get some food and saw this flower, which I thought might make a nice sketch or a “Big Idea” for a quilt.
Terri, a talented writer whose books you should go out and buy right now, is also a talented quiltmaker. Above is her Kaleidoscope project. Since I had recently completed the Eye Spy top, I gave her some unsolicited advice on putting the top together. One of the things that I enjoy about the retreat is that I like seeing what people are making. Terri uses a very different color palette than I do, but it was great to see how she worked on the hexagons.
CQFA has a free fabric connection. Julie went and got some free fabric and made the above couch throw out of it. I love the cabbage rose feel that this top has, mostly because it is not too sickly sweet.
I didn’t crop the photo above, because I wanted you to see the set up. Julie and I were working at the table on the left side of the photo. You can see FOTY 2008 on my portable design wall in the background. Dolores was working on the right. We had nice big tables to work on.
Dolores, the organizer, had a goal of getting to know everyone better. Last year people did introductions and everyone talked about how they got into quiltmaking. This year she asked everyone to talk about what inspires them. Above is a picture of everyone gathering around one person’s work.
Debbie talked about taking a summer course at Cabrillo College with Richard Elliott. The class was called something like Frankenstein Fabric and they learned to manipulate fabric in new and interesting ways. The fabric above has been manipulated so that it has little puffs all over it.
The fabric has a high polyester content. Debbie does really interesting things with fiber and is very involved with SAQA.
All in all, the weekend was a big success. I certainly got a lot done and was pleased to be able to spend some extra time with Julie.
Various and Sundry (aka Clean Up Time)
I realized this morning that I had about twelve browser tabs open, many with sites that I wanted to share. This is a post that is all about cleaning up my desktop.
Jen made a comment on my blog that got me to thinking about a problem I was struggling with. Her profile led me to her blog, A Quilting Jewel, which I mentioned in a previous blog post. Jen quilts with her aunt and she is very prolific. I like the way she shows her work in process.
Notebookism is a blog about notebooks and journals. I write every day and go through several journals a year with just writing and a couple of others with notes and drawings for quilts. I was led to this site somehow after looking at the Myndology website. They have some interesting finds in the journal department and they don’t seem to post much.
Michael Nobbs, a Welsh artist, started following my Twitter stream. I always wonder why people follow my Twitter stream because I don’t say very much on it. I certainly don’t say anything very relevant. Perhaps that is the whole point? Anyway, I went and looked at his stream and found some interesting sketches that he is doing and others to which he links, like Seattle Sketcher, which I mentioned he other day. As a result I decided to follow his Twitter stream as well. I think the Creative Mom podcast, as well as my thoughts on a Daily Art Practice, are turning my mind towards sketching. Don’t worry! I am not abandoning quiltmaking. Quite the contrary; I think that viewing sketching sites can inform my quiltmaking. When he received the notice that I was following him, he sent me a message thanking me and a link to his website. On the main page he has a drawing of a teapot, which immediately attracted my attention. There is also a link to his blog.
Matt Sparrow has some interesting quilts and information about thread listed on his blog. I like the batik star he posted. He said the pattern is called Enchanted Star. It looks like an Ohio Star with some 4 patches thrown in.
The Fresh and Modern Quilt Pool at Flickr is really inspiring. Not only are many of the quilts interesting, but the photography is inspired as well. I found this pool by working my through the Denyse Schmidt pool, also on Flickr. Some of the quilts are in both pools. There are lots of simple patterns and the use of fabric is really good. I particularly like the way people have used the large scale prints. One nice thing about Flickr is you can blog straight from the image (if you have set that up) and it makes a very nice layout on your blog. You can see an example in the New Star Block from Flickr post.
As I may have mentioned, the Creative Mom podcast has a bunch of associated sites including the CMP Circle Flickr Pool where members and listeners post their various projects.
Finally, Deirdre pointed me to the Quilt Show blog. I am a little annoyed at the Quilt Show,because of the way it has changed Alex Anderson’s podcast. I liked the way she interviewed people in the past. Now she just goes on and on about the Quilt Show. I am sure it is a great, but I don’t watch it, because I don’t have time and I don’t want to pay for something I don’t have time to take advantage of. I know things change. Blah. Blah. Blah. Anyway, the blog, even though it has a lot of ads, has a lot of nice quilts pictured. There are a variety of different topics also: block of the month, process of fabric design, guests on the show, etc. It’s worth a look.
Enjoy this surf around the web.
Sketching Life
Following up on my blog post yesterday, Deirdre sent me a tweet about another artist which led me to this blog on sketching. I like the simple yet bold lines.
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Another Reason to Mention the Creative Mom Podcast
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I have been listening to the Creative Mom podcast for a couple of months now and it has been on my list of things to tell you about. Amy Cowan creates CMP, where she offers essays, book reviews, pattern reviews, a community of like minded people, creative prompts, enthusiasm and a travelogue of her journey through the creative process.
This is a very professional podcast. She is organized and prepared for the podcast. The sounds is perfect. Her voice has a calm and relaxing timbre. There are few ums, uhs, like, hemming, hawing or dead air. Amy rarely mentions her personal issues. On the occasion she make s a brief mention, she doesn’t go on and on about them and she often weaves the explanation of the issue into the theme of the podcast. This is a podcast for the creative person who thinks about art on many different levels: the physical act of making, a daily creative discipline, and something to be studied.
I know the mom part may turn off some of you, so I want to get that out of the way too. Amy’s two boys are definitely involved in the podcast.Mostly they work as headline readers for her next section. Listeners hear their little voices saying “I am the art and the art is me” or “books to read, books to read” for the book review section. Amy reviews books that she reads to her children as well as adult books. Amy observes her children and weaves those observations into the theme of the podcast as well. I don’t think the involvement of the children would annoy those of you who are sensitive to the child worship that sometimes occurs on the web. That doesn’t happen here.
While Amy does different kinds of art than I do (more sketching and photography, mostly), I have found that I enjoy listening to her talk about her process and what she does to keep going. I feel inspired when I listen to her podcast. She has been working on a bird project for at least a year. Listening to the podcast makes me consider whether or not o focus on one word or subject for a period of time.
As I have gone through Amy’s older episodes I came across a collaboration she is doing with one of her listeners, known as Gooma8x, and was directed to their joint Etsy site. The quilt above was posted there and it is gorgeous! Amy and Opal (Gooma8x) also have a joint blog called Here2There.
Finally, I also discovered another Amy goldmine in Threaded Thoughts, another blog.
It is apparent that Amy is in her creative sweet spot right at the moment and we are the lucky recipients of her largesse. I urge to check out one or all of the various media streams Amy has created.