Friday Favorites

Drawing Lesson Update:  Last night we warmed up doing quick sketches of shoes. We used a new technique--cross-contour drawing.  So far the score is Contour Drawing --I suck.  Gestural Drawing--I rock.  Cross-Contour Drawing-- that one is mixed.

 Our homework is to finish in our sketchbook 2 drawings by great masters.  This one is a Rueben.  Not done yet. Still don't have the mouth right.

Friday Favorites.  In our play blog "And Then We Set It On Fire"  and play group "FIVE" the question often comes up after making some wonderful fabric, "Now What?"  Arelee helps to answer some of those questions with a series of recent posts.  Her goal is not to give you patterns for stuff to make the fabric into but to work with the fabric to let you create an art work.  My 2 favs are:   Part Two tells you to hang the fabric and let it speak to you, and Part Four that shows how to go from sketch book to the fabric.

Sometimes when I am working on a piece I know its name.  I know it before I start it.  I know where I am going. Sometimes the name changes but generally I know what I am doing.  Not always.  Sometimes what I am doing is experimenting with a technique, or even more likely, calmly meditatively just playing around.  Those pieces may be very satisfying but may not have a name at either the beginning or the end. Debbie (who lives in Jerusalem and I met through One World One Heart blog hop) had the same problem and asked for suggestions.  Here is her post with suggestions from other fiber artists about how they title a piece.
 
Oh Man! Oh Man!  Take a look at Terri Stegmiller's new inks! Here is the description of the inks and here is the tutorial and finished project.   I have my ink and gel pen ordered and (heads up "And Then We Set It On Fire" play mates) I am gonna be playing like this in  March!   This is the perfect next step for my drawing classes!  I am also interested and have been for a while in the difference between working with dyes, paints, and inks.  This will give me a chance to find out.

While perusing blogs this week I stumbled upon Fannie Narte.  She creates fabric she calls artful cloth.  I am linking you to her blog rather than to a specific post so that you can see more than one of her artful cloths.  Enjoy.  I did notice that her pieces start off with shibori and then get added to with wax pastels.  Good to know for those folks who asked what to do with their shibori pieces.

You may not be into handwork, and that is okay, but I discovered a new embroidery stitch that I am thinking about using on  my heart of steel series.  Most stitches that I see demonstrated are variations and combinations that just look busy and over done to me. This woven picot looks simple and I think will make a nice addition to the blanket stitch that is my 'go to' stitch for the quilt series.