Be*Mused is Back

Jan over at Bemused Blog is posting about quilt blocks again. She has been working on selling her house and, thus, has been distracted. I am glad to see her post the basket blocks.

Be*Mused really has a way with color. I love what she did with the baskets. I tried to analyze what appealed to me about these blocks. I think the thing is the neutrals she added to the blocks: the various greens and the gray-green. I also think the colors, even the gray-green, are pretty clear.

I am especially enamoured of that dotty red. I wonder if I have it? St. JCN?

Thr3fold Journal Articles Review Part 2

The Associated Press is reporting that the restoration of the frescoes in the Pope’s apartments (called Stanze of Raphael), done by Raphael, are almost complete after 30 years of work. Hooray!

I have spent a remarkable amount of time writing notes for Thr3fold reviews during the past couple of days. As a result, you do get a part 2.* Amazing!

Challenges: thr3 and 3/4, p.6-11

This article is lavishly/lushly illustrated. The first picture is a quilt of 3 trees. The photo is so clear that the detail of the quilting is clearly visible. The article is about challenges that “stretch us…stretch to rise to the creative challenge. We challenge each other to think in new ways, we challenge each other to go beyond our personal comfort levels, we challenge each other to experiment with a new art material or a new technique.” p.6.

Catherine writes the main text, but each artist puts in her 2 cents in adjunct kind of journal entries interspersed throughout the main text. In the course of the article, the artists talk about different types of challenges: particular techniques, limited colors and/or fabrics. Catherine uses a particular challenge with the theme of ‘home’ to illustrate challenges in general. She incorporates LLC’s philosophy of challenges as well. One interesting part of the article discusses historical challenges between famous artists. Picasso and Matisse as well as Hemingway and Fitzgerald provided creative stimulus and support to each other. “The benefits of challenging a ‘like-minded’ friend brings out the best in each of you, you become both a sounding board and a ‘net’ for each other, a safe place to land.”

LLC, through this article, are challenging me (us) “to think about challenges and what can be gained in stretching a little further than you are comfortable.” pg.11 I have done round robin challenges, Carousel and Starry, Starry Night, in the past and I have been fortunate to be in good groups. St.JCN and I collaborate quite frequently. She Had to Have her Latte is one of the first, but Ocean Avenue, Get the Red Out and the Punk Rock Quilt are all examples.

Leaving my challenges with St. JCN aside for a moment, the other challenges I have done have been great, but they have not been the day to day support group that Catherine describes. I don’t think that you can have a growth experience through a challenge without working with people you know very well and who know you. In reading the article, it made me think wistfully about an art quilt group that would provide a supportive environment. Obviously, such a group would take time to develop since relationships don’t just happen. No time for that now and I am quite happy working alone in my workroom for the time being.

“How Can You Resist” pg.11-12

This article talks about watercolor. I almost skipped it, because I am not interested in watercolor, but I ended up reading it and came away with some interesting information and thoughts (interesting to me anyway). The article seems to start to go in a direction of talking about a variety of media, including oil pastels, but the watercolors really take center stage and the discussion of watercolors was the text that drew me in.

Linda spends some time going over materials: paper, paint and brushes. The bottom line: you get what you pay for. You know that if you buy cheap materials, there is a higher probability you will fail. However, if you buy expensive materials, succeed and don’t enjoy the experiment, you will be stuck with a lot of expensive stuff that will clutter up your workroom (see Melody Johnson’s blog about moving two states away). Solution? Find a friend (or iSoldIt or eBay or Freecycle) with whom you can trade or give those materials.

I liked the description of what watercolor paper is and what all of the cryptic descriptions mean. However, I just want to sew and work with fabric, but this article makes me think about how other media can integrate with/help with my quiltmaking.

I had some particular thoughts about watercolor:

  • Would it work?
  • Would it be inspirational only or would I do sketch-paintings an try to replicate them?
  • How would it work?

In a strange twist of my brain, this article brought up the failings in my workspace. I have a large room that is still suffering the effects of the remodel (I am going to work on this today, maybe), but the actual space in which I work is quite small and usually, embarrassingly, messy.
I also use the floor, when I am laying things out, and the ironing board. It is a flat surface, after all. This article, however, makes me think that it would be lovely to have a long desk/table in my workroom, where I could set up paints, pastels, oil pastels, and sketchbooks, collages and just pop in to work on one or the other for a few minutes, let it dry while continuing to be able to to eat dinner at the dining room table and walk across the floor of the garage. More space for creativity.

In the journal, Linda has posted a fabulous picture of a watercolor paintbox. I love the texture on pages (from background photos) is another asset to this journal. The non-completely white pages really appeal to me and make the journal much more interesting to look at. The background draws you in and made me look at the details more closely.

The article is finished with a video on the CD.

* Of course, creating a part 2 in no way implies that there will be a part 3. 😉