Melanie Testa's Blog, page 30

A hoot and a toot!

I am doing some Top Secret art making for a proposed magazine article. And Top Sectret means...well? hm.

Instead I give you this:

Cuteness.

So this weekend I am going away for three nights and four days to a Yoga Retreat. A yoga dance retreat, no less. I will be without Internet connection, gasp! Hooray! This is the Hoot!

Now for the Toot(s):

So now, I have a facebook fan page set up and what to do with it? I am going to start talking snippets of inspiration and daily thoughts on art making. They ...

Down the rabbit hole.

It was a bumpy start, but a start none the less. I say this because I started reading about the birds on the list.

I opened two internet windows, one for Audubon Common Birds In Decline site and the other for the Cornell Ornithology Lab site. And the Cornell Ornithology Lab cites the Evening Grosbeak as a bird of Least Concern, backed by a site called the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.

Now, I am no researcher.

What I know so far is that Audubon has...

Scrap advocate

I really do think it is important to keep a scrap of fabric near by your work table. When you have scrap at the ready you can try things out without going straight to your 'good' work. You don't know how many times I just went right into my good piece, then had to compensate for my exuberance.

So this scrap was made as a result of wanting to check out my deconstructed screen print.

But once I had that scrap hanging around my work space, I had to keep working it. I call these my rags. Pretty r...

Facebook Fan Page

I now have an Inspired to Quilt Fan Page on facebook. If you become a fan, you may win one of 5 scrap bags of my own hand dyed and printed cloth. Each bag contains about a fat quarter of printed, color coordinated scraps!

Become a fan and win!

I am going to be hosting some challenges from there and would love to see you there.

Because I would like you to join over there, commenting on this will be closed here.

Facebook Fan Page

I now have an Inspired to Quilt Fan Page on facebook. If you become a fan, you may win one of 5 scrap bags of my own hand dyed and printed cloth. Each bag contains about a fat quarter of printed, color coordinated scraps!

Become a fan and win!

I am going to be hosting some challenges from there and would love to see you there.

Because I would like you to join over there, commenting on this will be closed here.

The 20: a start

It is a snow day! My man is home, we are supposed to get 12 to 16". The subways are sluggish, the streets are quiet. This is the view out my kitchen window. I tried to get a photo of my beggar squirrel, but he took the peanut butter on rice cracker and ran! Doing my duty to keep the little guy warm.

Thank you for all of the encouragement. There are some commenters to the last post that I have not heard from before, and I love comments, don't we all? I was hesitant to post my hopes and dreams o...

For the birds.

I have this idea.

I know I said that I was looking for an idea. I am ready to make new artwork. I am not convinced of the last posts idea in the least. In fact that idea diminishes by the nanosecond compared with this idea.

You see. I love birds. Everyone who has read this blog, even for the shortest amount of time, should know this. I have wanted to be a bird since I was nine years old and even wrote an essay to the effect. (My best friend wrote that she wanted to be a watermelon seed going ...

Thinking it though.

I am searching for a new piece, a new idea. I am ready to start. Something.

So I opened up journals past and began looking through each page. The above image is a drawing I did just recently. I may have posted it, not sure. But because I now live in a city, I figure it is a good idea to draw using perspective, which is not a strong point of mine. I have never taken a class and don't know the principles of the endeavor. But I try.

This drawing I did a few yeas back and I have to say, I love the ...

Not lost!

I have been working up a storm. Working so hard, in fact, that a fun deficit occurred. I am now in the process of fixing this deficit! In fact, I have been playing for the last two days and plan to play today! A friend is coming into town and we are going to HANG OUT!

I have been teaching two online classes through Joggles, and creating the content was an intense experience for me. But I created some neat samples which spurred some personal creative growth as well. So, it is like a win...

Creative language

I did get some schooling in art, it wasn't fine art training so much as vocational artists training. The fine arts training that I have acquired is as a result of being released into this creative world of ours. It takes time to integrate what you learn in school and to make it your own. I think it is a lifetime pursuit. (Don't believe for a minute that you need to go to school to embark on this journey).

I have to say that school learning is dry and perfunctory-the playing field needs to be ...