Every watercolor I work on is an exercise in capturing the flickering light that is experienced in nature. I try to combine that light with colorful elements that flash before me while I move through an area. I love spending time in the mountains in the summer because I can get outside and hike around to experience these elements easily.
Fantasy Mountain Garden
Here are some photo notes I took yesterday on a walk.
Highlights from our day at the Quilt In with the Cedar Grove Quilters
Sarah Troxler at NC History Museum
Quilts by Nancy Oliver, Marcia McDade, Ruth Richardson and Joanne Mathis
Orange Peel by Sarah Troxler, Small works by Kathi Lewis, and Morning Glories by Shirley Scarlett
Quilt Design by Barbara Phillips
Rachel Ray, Shirley Scarlett, Marianne Kimbro, Ruth Richardson
Sarah Troxler, Marianne Kimbro, Ruth Richardson, Guest Quilter, Shirley Scarlett, Rachel Ray
Shirley Scarlett, Rachel Ray, Sarah Troxler
Coastal Fantasy Landscape small watercolor
Finished on June 24th in 2019
The Blue and Yellow color scheme is a favorite of mine these days. After an inventory purging and reorganization of my quilting scrapes I am ready to start. I have come up with a pattern and I think I can pull it off with Four different string blocks. I am using a paper piecing technique.
Sorting and Ironing String Scraps
What a process.
all my blue and yellow fabric scraps
Fabric Scraps to be ironed
I have been ripping some of the scraps so that the process goes faster.
I like to use tissue paper for paper piecing strings because it tears off easily
My sketch of the pattern and the number of squares I think I will need: 16 yellow patches, 76 blue and yellow patches, 12 light value (pale) patches, and 28 dark blue patches. These numbers will change I am sure!
**If you look at the quilt you will see that I did not use any of the yellow squares. It was a nice idea but I came to the conclusion that since the room was yellow–the all yellow patches would be too much.
The only yellow square is in the center and is made up of 4 yellow-blue squares.
for sketching and figuring graph paper works well
As you can see I like to design as I go. This sketch today will help me to make some more adjustments while I am making the squares. At the present I have made 21 squares. I have enough to layout the center section and I can see that some adjustments are in order.
The corner where you see the B’s I will add the light blue strips. So I need to make 8 light+dark blue squares. This will provide a nice border in both the inner and the outer bands.
I have now added the dark blue and yellow string blocks which surround the lighter blue string blocks. Next I think I will add another row of lighter blue blocks.
The blue border I added did not work so well this time. It stretched during the sewing and did not lay flat. It was on a roll and I inherited it and have had it a long time. I think it is time to give it to the scrap exchange. It was trouble!
I Hand quilted this by myself and it took me over a month and then I finished it off with a yellow ochre print binding.
Final stitches on June 24th 2019
At Sugar Mountain Studio Retreat
Best of the summer
Mountain Garden Series 1
Mountain Garden Series 2
Mountain Garden Series 3
Mountain Garden Series 4
Painting outdoors in my front yard resulted in this watercolor and then I decided to do an oil study from the watercolor.
Autumn Landscape Capt John’s
Capt Johns in Autumn
Not quite finished
Brother from Another Planet and Princess Leia sitting on the shelf in the sewing room. Brother was inspired from a shrunken Alpaca sock and some scraps of wool, and cotton. Princess Leia started as two shoulder pads a d a baby sweater and some wool knit
