Up next: New Quilt

 So I started another quilt. I wanted to use the same color scheme as the last one, with white and brights. I wanted the whites to form rectangles around color. And I decided to alternate the direction of the rectangles again like I alternated the white motif in the last quilt. So I did a sketch to sort out which side of the block to add the longest pieces to in order to have no seams butt against other seams (to have smooth lines along all edges as I add blocks together). I'm going to make 12 squares that are 14" x 14". Here are the first four squares:

Art Journal

 This is a portion of a page with floral doodles. I love the colors in this one and some of the leafy patterns.

 I bought a circle template recently that I'm very excited about. I know. How excited can someone possibly be about a square piece of plastic. But seriously. It has ~40 circles ranging in size from 1 5/8" diameter to 3/64 diameter (very small). I picked it up at Graphaids. They had a good selection of pens too.

 These circles/gears/triangles/Xs are a work-in-progress. I'm going to add paint.

 Random doodles. I like the flying geese on the left side, and the yellow triangle motif on the far right.

 In this one I used sheet music (Moonlight Sonata) and painted over with fluid acrylics. I love Moonlight Sonata. It's one of the few songs I can play on the piano.

 Here I was doodling floral patterns. And I saw the triangle motif recently in something on Pinterest so I wanted to play with it here.

 This one includes a nice poem I heard recently by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. The 'stairs' are squares of fluid acrylics. I also used some silver paint pen to make some stars on the dark blue/purple portion. I love the silver paint pen. And I used some alphabet letter stamps that I recently acquired.

The zebra's "ears" are too far forward. I've considered fixing it. Instead I'll draw him again in another entry.

I find that in my art journaling, I produce a motif here or there that I really like. Even when I'm not satisfied with the entire page, I usually find something that I like and can use in future work - color combos, lines, shapes, motifs.

The Zebra situation

I'm trying to make a stuffed zebra. I wanted the legs to be sturdier under the body compared to the giraffe I made. So I was looking online for tips. I found this great tutorial about something called gussets, which apparently are the add-ins like the pieces on the bottom and to the right (in the photo) that give the stuffed animal shape and dimension. In the tutorial, Abby explains how to add darts on the leg gusset(s) to help the animal stand up straight. So I've sketched my zebra. Now I want to make striped fabric. We'll see how it goes.

Finished Quilt

50" x 64" - This quilt was fun to make. I'm going to make another one with white squares or rectangles in the middle of each block.

Art Journal

Art Journal

So I've been thinking about hexagons after seeing this pretty pillow on Pinterest the other day. And I've been thinking about cross-sections of lemons and oranges for a few weeks now.

I can't seem to bring myself to NOT use sharpies on everything. In this case I forced myself NOT to use it on the hexagons and used a brown colored pencil instead, but I really wish I had a brown sharpie... As for the lemons, I just HAD to outline them with a fine-tip sharpie.

To make this, I created a 'letter sheet' on Word and glued that down, then covered it with white gesso. Then I painted over everything. I love the design on the bowl. So pretty. I want a bowl that looks like that. I might have to take a ceramics class so I can make one!

Art Journal

I painted this art journal entry today after seeing this sweater a woman was wearing. I couldn't stop staring at the pattern and was thinking of how to make it into a quilt. 

Meanwhile, regarding the color gradient, I think this would look really cool on a cylindrical lamp shade, with the yellow continuing around to the lime green and the purple continuing around to the red/pink. Next, I want to make a wall hanging with this design using colorful fabrics.

Art Journal

I like this little bird. I created a letters + numbers page in Word, then printed it and glued it into the notebook. Then I sketched with pencil and filled in with Golden Fluid acrylics and used a sharpie to black in some details.

Art Journal

When in doubt, use ALL the colors!

Quilt update

After adding more strips of color to each square, the squares grew to 15" x 15" each. Definitely bigger than a typical baby quilt. What should I do with this? It's not big enough for a bed. But it's colorful enough for a throw... Now for borders and a back. I'm thinking of quilting it with a greek key motif, or maybe loops and swirls.

Art Journal