Melanie Testa's Blog, page 11

Go Tutorial Hopping!

Jane LaFazio has a tutorial about using freezer paper with paint sticks.

Carla Sonheim has a tute up about drawing an easy wabbit using Tombo.

Traci Lyn Huskamp has one about painting bird eggs.

Lyric Kinard has done a tutorial about making a sketchbook slipcover.

The prolific Alisa Burke has a tute up on making a butcher paper wreath.

Judy Coates Perez has a tute on how to make a faced binding.

Jill Berry has a journal mapping tutorial up.

My tutorial on incised fun foam stamps also mentions:

Kelli Nina Perkins small media slip cover with stitch paper.

And Gwen Diehn's recycled cover for a small book.

As if that isn't enough, when you are done hopping and you have 25 minutes of viewing time, this Ted video is phenomenal.

Tutorials are popping up all over!

We all know how very addicted I can become with stamping. Words like potato chips come to mind and mottos that go something like, 'You can't make just one' are a few of my favorites. Last week I was thinking through easy-peasy things you can do to make your mark and Incised Fun Foam Stamps came to mind.

What you will need:

Sticky Back Foam Sheets

An Awl

Mechanical pencil with 3B Lead

Scissors

Tracing paper

A terrific sense of fun and creative play.

Stamp pads

A journal, ATC cards, sumpthin' to stamp!

Not only that but the Art Spark Gals are rolling out their Tutes all week long and these are just from todayl:



Today (Tuesday):

Gwen Diehn will be posting a Tute on a Recycled Slip Cover for a small book.

Kelli Nina Perkins will be doing a Small Media Case with Stitch Paper.

I will post the rest of the Tutorials here and on the Inspired to Quilt facebook fanpage as they go live. Enjoy!!!

A Smattering

This week will be a full blogging week. The Art Spark Group has scheduled a Spring Fling of tutorials, so please check back here starting on Tuesday.

I am so happy to be writing a book about journaling, even if for the mere fact that it is a healthy and creative distraction from my health concerns. It helps me to get out of bed, to focus on deadlines (I love a good deadline). I honestly love to journal and for me it is an exploration of my world. This week my focus will be on drawing buds. I would like a page of buds, I was even thinking I might walk around my own block, drawing as I go. It is this type of challenge, a challenge of self, that makes me feel I am exploring my world. I also like to explore the imagery I create in other ways, for instance, I will check David Sibley's, The Sibley Guide to Trees, just to see if I can identify and learn more about what I have drawn.

My Man and I went to the Red and White Quilt exhibit at the Armory today. It is really called, 'Infinite Variety', but by local parlance, it is the Red and White show.

I walked in, and stopped in my tracks. I was amazed. The quilts glowed, they were displayed fantastically. Now let's consider that word for a moment:

fantastic |fanˈtastik|

adjective

1 imaginative or fanciful; remote from reality : novels are capable of mixing fantastic and realistic elements.

• of extraordinary size or degree : the prices were fantastic, far higher than elsewhere.

• (of a shape or design) bizarre or exotic; seeming more appropriate to a fairy tale than to reality or practical use : visions of a fantastic, mazelike building.

2 informal extraordinarily good or attractive : your support has been fantastic.

I mean, I think we use this word reflexively and I would love it if you would reread that initial sentence.

I walked in and stopped in my tracks. The show was so cohesive and brilliantly displayed, the quilts were so well lit they glowed. Each and every one of them, 650 quilts in all, collected by Joanna Semel Rose. The showing was organized as an eightieth birthday gift by her husband. Now that is some kind of love (Don't you love stories like this?).

What really got me? The display was so well executed and presented, I felt honored as a quilter and an artist. I took it personally. It was very similar to seeing the Gee's Bend Quilt show at the Whitney. I felt proud and happy that so many quilts were put on display, I hear a book is in the works.

Thinc Design designed the display and there are links to articles about the show on their news page.

And you know what else? This is my I friggin' love living in New York City! I have it good.

Watercolor

In a previous post I have spoken about gouache, getting started and purchasing paint. In this post I would like to extoll the virtues M Graham paints.

Last year, I decided to honor my love of paint and purchase professional quality paint. Quality manufacturers set grades to paints, professional, student grade, and unlabeled. I have had enough of using unlabeled paints that don't mix well. I love color mixing and when I reach for a red, and want to mix a neutralized red, I want to get solid almost predictable results. So, the paints I use, need to be made of specific pigments, not mixtures of pigments. Napthol Red is a color in and of itself, Napthol AS-D (PR112) to be exact.

When I decided to honor my abilities and intent I looked to Roz Stendahl's blog. Roz confounds and amazes me with her ability to sort through knowledge, contain it and write and sort it out. She writes about choosing a palette in gouache, watercolor, palettes for types of outings, what to pack in your, er, um, fanny pack. I mean, it is all right there.

And when I email her to ask stupid questions like, 'You like the band aid color, Burnt Sienna?', which already shows my bias against it, she responds thoughtfully.

So these are the colors in my watercolor box: Azo Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Napthol Red, Quinacridone Violet, Ultramarine Blue, Turquoise, Anthraquinone Blue, Olive Green, Phthalocyanine Green, Payne's Grey, Dioxine Purple, Burnt Sienna.

I am on a personal quest to find a different dark red though. Quinacridrone Violet, is, as you might imagine, off on the blueish side of red and I would like a crimson, or dark burnt red in my palette. That will make the art store lots of fun to visit, next time I go.

I find M. Graham watercolor to be creamy, vibrant, and highly pigmented. I have heard some other folk complain that they 'move' in the palette because they are made with honey. I do not find this to be true. I carry the box you see everywhere I go. I just dump it in my backpack without thought. When the palette is juicy with excess water, I will try to draw the extra water off the palette with a paper towel, but this is my travel palette. I travel with it and so far as I am concerned the paint does not move when traveling in my bag.

The box itself is a Winsor Newton palette that I bought on sale years ago and was previously filled with their brand of watercolor. Watercolor palettes can be quite expensive. They usually come in half pans or whole pans, this is a half pan set. When I decided I wanted to carry quality paints, I carefully wet each half pan, allowed the pint to soften some and pried out the paint. Once they were out of the half pan, I allowed them to dry and labeled them. I can, if I choose to, reuse them. But I bet I will give them away.

But this and this seem quite affordable. I have a crush on both boxes and hope you will too! It seems an easy way to start.

Next time I write about paint, I will discuss gouache.

Draw what you see.

I love to paint, draw, quilt sew, whatever. I keep an artist journal. I hope that some page will ask to be made as a larger piece of art. I hope the page will inspire something, a stamp, a stencil, a piece of wall art. But I don't let that hold me back or stymie me.

Some pages are evaluations of my world and experience, and this photograph is one of those. I took my journal into the only room with a mirror, the bathroom, and started drawing my bald, bad-ass self. Last night, or the night before, David and I shaved my head bald. I had stubble, but it was looking spare. For as much as I have been being proactive about my hair, I figured it was time to jump.

And what better way to connect with self than to draw and or paint what I see?

BUT, you know what? I can't show you that page. Why? I have alluded to this without saying it. But I got the go ahead to say, I am writing a book about journaling. And I hope that page will make the cut! So now, I can verbalize, I will still need to be cagey and obtuse about particulars. But like the header of the blog (yummy right?), is part of the artwork for the book. I can give sneaky peeks. Just not full on photos.

How is that for hot stuff?

Now go listen to Elizabeth Gilbert talk about coaxing the muse.

Sunday

Meeting and Changing.

I have known that I have breast cancer for just short of 2 months. It has been a journey. It is teaching me to accept help, love and care. To ask for help, love and care. I would have thought this would be an easier task than it is. I am learning, softening and changing. I am looking forward to another Box of Love (presents from you my good reader, sent to me from Leslie) on Monday.

I truly and honestly love and appreciate your care, the time it takes to write the card, knit the hat, dye the scarf. I do have a niggle of doubt that it would be better if I were to model the hats and keep track of the loot. I am sorry that I am not doing this. I am having a hard time looking at photographs of myself at the moment. I will work through this with myself. But I do want you to know how far your love and care goes and that it means so very much to me.

The Journal Study Gals (including Benedicte who is working on a web site and The Pampster, who has no web presence) have been on a postcard campaign and have made mail time lots of fun! I get almost a card a day (Except when the mail man feels lonely and hangs onto one the the jewels for a little longer than necessary). All of this has been a real boon to my spirits.

Thanks and love to all of you.

Sometimes

A little belly love is all it takes.

Sometimes it takes a lot.

Love Nest

A few weeks back, when I was teaching at The City Quilter, my Man hatched a plan. While I was away, he measured, he double checked and he took meticulous notes. When he came to pick me up and help me get home he was so excited he could barely contain himself. He asked if he should tell me or wait. I said spill.

He'd measured the 1950's sofa, the bookcase, the Chinese alter cabinet, they would all fit. He'd found some feathers and wanted to make a nest, a love nest. There was a new and bigger TV coming, a Wii to keep us entertained and amused. And a need to draw in and take care.

This lovely, loving room used to be my sewing room, but now, we call it the Love Nest.

And don't worry. my sewing space, although a mess currently, will be well contained in our main living space. Space is to be used and well, you know. Photos coming soon.

Extraordinary Loot!

I am amazed by your support and generosity. Amazed. Thank you so much for supporting me with comments, cards, soft hats, hand dyed scarves, hippo toys, tea, magnets, ribbon pins, goofy hats, pink ribbon stoles, stuffed birds, and all you are. It's just plain Love.

I am sorry that I cannot send thank you notes to each and every one of you. I really am trying to focus my energy on healing first and art making second. I also have a Man who I needs love and affection too.

Someone even honors my Arrowcat who can sniff through any box, knowing the presense of good is inside...

And if any of you follow me personally on facebook (where I will give short updates as to my health and personal life), you will know that I think BUGS should be my totem creature right now. They are resilient, long standing and indefatigable. Traits I want to embrace.

Wish me luck today.

Much love right back you you.