2012 Goals Recap

This is going to be a quick rundown of the goals I set for myself at the beginning of the year. I have had so many changes over the past year; going from a full time college student to unexpectedly having to work full time instead, working way too many hours a week, to finally finding a good balance.

The original post is here, if you are curious to read more detail.

1. Buy less fabric.

This was achieved mainly because I starting knitting more than sewing and bought yarn instead. Heh.

2. Experiment with dyeing and printing.

So-so. I wanted to get into this more over the summer but time got away from me. I did paint fabric and turn that into sewn items, however. I am counting this one as a half victory (for now).


3. Dive into art quilting.

Another one that I just dipped my toes into. I took advantage of my upper level art classes to try out some of these goals. This is my favorite mixed media piece (fabric and paper).


4. Expand knitting techniques.

This was so vague that I'm surprised I managed it. Concrete goals from now on! As it is, I did accomplish this. I knit a toy, lace, basic colorwork, used a provisional cast on and kitchener stitch. I also learned short row shaping and completed a project with the yarn held double. I really have Camp Loopy to thank for the push because before the summer, I only knit casually. I wasn't pushing myself on my own and having a challenge really helped launch my learning and bring my knitting to another level.


5. Transfer photographs to fabric and combine it with sewing.

I did this a little bit in my advanced photography class. I want to revisit this again in the future.


6. Make more clothing.

I sewed two tops this year. More than before, yes, but not what I was thinking. It's a start though.


7. Sketch daily.

FAIL. (And a little unrealistic with my schedule.)

8. Start selling pattern or things I have made.

Didn't happen and I am really ok with it. This would have added another level of craziness to my life. Maybe in the future.

9. Start weaving.

I've touched my basic loom only to move it around my creative space.

10. Learn leather tooling (nope!), spinning (nope!), paper cutting (one time), enameling (nope!), and felting (nope!).`


Tomorrow I will share my goals for 2013. Here's to a great new year for us all!

Thanksgiving Visit

    The images here were taken on Thanksgiving on our visit to Chad's father's gravesite. This cemetary is located next to the farm he grew up on and is the resting place of many of his family and neighbors. I am sharing them for a couple reasons. One, I just love images of rural North Dakota. I live in the heavily populated area of the state and being out there is heaven to me. Second, I also am enamored with the history of this area. I won't go too deep into it other than to mention it's the epicenter of the German-Russian immigration into America. The iron crosses are an homage to their culture and are sprinkled over the surrounding counties. I also love the German on this one. Languages get me every time.

New Series on Photography

I know what you are thinking. Every blogger out there does a series on photography tips for bloggers. But I think this is going to be different for you. My perspective on photography is not the same as others because I have different goals in mind when I take a photograph. When I read some tips and tutorials, I can't believe anyone would follow them. I'm not here to knock any one specifically, so don't worry about that, it's just that we all have our own way of approaching something.

Capturing a moving object can be tricky. With practice you can achieve a clear photograph that is as dynamic as real life.   Animals have personalities that are waiting to come to life in an image. My series is going to focus on the basic elements of a good photograph. This can apply to fine art as well as presentation of a project. My background in photography comes from experimenting as a child (well, and adult) as well as studying it as an art form in college. I also intend to share some bad photographs along the way. To get the ones I share here (and keep in general), I sometimes take dozens of options.

Shooting from a different angle can bring about a surprising result. (This photo was shot from high above the wolf.)   Darkness and indoor, direct lighting can be tricky when shooting.
The main topics will be in composition, lighting, capturing movement, self portraits, photographing animals to show their personality, perspective, abstraction, telling a story, and more.

Forcing a viewer to see the world in a certain way can be eye opening.
I have pulled a number of photographs I have taken with a simple point and shoot digital camera to share in this post. In future posts, I will be using photos from my past as well as taking new ones to illustrate the topic. I have not edited these in any manner except to had a watermark.

Another forced perspective that is unexpected.
My hope is that there will be something you can take from this and apply to your own photographs. I will not be teaching how to use your camera (at least not yet). The majority of my background is in film and there are different considerations when shooting in that manner.

A sense of humor is a welcome addition to a photograph.   Changing the viewpoint (in this case kneeling down instead of shooting from above) results in a superior image.
In the future, I will be investing in a DSLR. For those of you who have read my blog (and remember my views on digital), this may come as a surprise. I am still very pro-film over digital but I also know I miss taking photographs like I used to. Having a digital camera that can shoot like my SLR will spark that again. Once I learn this new camera (model yet to be determined) I may start to walk through how to take advantage of your cameras features.

Overcoming distance and moving objects are a challenge at times.   Even faster moving objects here. Also the challenge of bright sunlight.
I hope you join me as I share my approach to capturing life with a camera. Photography is a passion of mine and while my favorite form of it is dying, I want to ignite the passion in others. This series is not going to have a set schedule but I am aiming to post at least twice a month.

Not the best photograph of myself but this captures Jameson so well.
See you next time with some progress on my WIPs!

Studio Saturday on a Monday: Photography Final and First Week of Drawing

I have no idea where my weekend went. I had plans to do many things and didn't get to most of them. That includes this post (which was going to be split, but now is all in one). This post is going to be photo heavy so I will try not to ramble on as well.

First up is my final project for photography. We were to create five pieces using the techniques learned during the semester. They were to show who we are right now and did not have to be related. I decided I'm only going to share two of them here because I really don't like the other three.

This one is about my renewed love of where I live. I finally realized why I always hated living here and since those circumstances have changed, I do like this area. Not to say that I want to live in town for much longer as there are too many people and not enough space for me. Here's my piece dedicated to my love for the Red River Valley.

There was a lot that went into making this. I started by painting the canvas yellow and adding blue along the edges to make a green. Then I transferred maps of Minnesota and North Dakota to the canvas. I whitewashed those to fade them a little and then added the gel lift of the satelitte view. (If you look really closely, you can see my house! Ha!)

I painted the stereotypical heart before tranferring an image of an anatomical heart. Then I embroidered the river, connecting it to the heart. Finally, I added the texture around the edges and painted the sides black. Oh, and I stamped around the piece to add more texture.

The second piece I am showing you is my pocket full of dreams. My inspiration for this piece came from the book Personal Geographies by Jill K Berry. In the book, she made this to show items on a bucket list. Mine is more lifestyle based.

I gathered images that I have taken over my lifetime. Most are more recent (the past couple years), but there are two that I took as a child while visiting the Badlands in North and South Dakota (a must see if you ever get the chance). To pull them together visually, I exposed them as cyanotypes. I forgot how much fun I had with that in the beginning of the semester and am glad I picked that route here.

That wraps up the semester finally!

Now onto my first week of drawing class. I'm in level two, so I got to submit a proposal of what I want to work on during this four week class. I had already decided that this summer was going to be about play, so this is carrying over into class. I proposed to work with mixed media, as well as my sewing machine, and to explore how the mediums interact with each other. My inspiration is going to come from my day-to-day life and environment.

To start off, we had to create out best drawing. This instructor always does this and it is nice to have a benchmark to work from. It's been awhile since I have drawn anything other than sketches. I warmed up and did a few drawings before deciding on the one I was going to show in class. I just sat out on the deck and started drawing.

Here's part of one. I tried drawing Jameson and Angus, but they just wouldn't sit still.

Then I honed in on the danelions that are taking over our yard (and everyone else's). The one I brought to class is on the left. After our informal critique, he wanted us to draw the same thing again, taking into account the comments from critique.

I spent the rest of the first day playing around with a few things. First was this ink drawing, which I didn't finish before class ended. I also did another piece, but realize right now that I forgot to take a photo of it. If I remember on Saturday I will.

Our first project for the week was to draw the same object three times: one photo realistic, one abstract, and one non-objective. I played around with more of my materials working with my object: this beautiful, old dress form. You may remember that I painted one in painting class as well.

I worked with layering and textures here.

Then decided that I needed to get my go-to drawing style out of the way before digging into this further.

The next day, we spent working on these and also starting another project. This new one is to use the computer and projector to create a series of drawings. I had to wait on this one until the weekend when I could get transparencies made up.

So instead, I worked on my abstract and non-objective pieces. The non-objective is pretty straight forward. I picked out the basic shapes of the dress form and used a variety of materials to create this.

For my abstract piece, I started out by collaging a background of various cardstock and tissue paper. I covered this with a layer of vellum to dull down the colors of the papers. Then I painted the vellum a golden yellow, using a translucent paint. I put some pastel on the surface in the same color of the dress form and then added the charcoal outline. The final addition was the string. After seeing this photographed, I may go in and add more of the pastel.

Both of these projects are due for critique tomorrow. I did finish the projects today in class, but may make some tweeks before I go to class.

For the rest of this week, we have a few drawings to do as well as play around with making a kite. The kite will be a challenge and is basically a pass (it flies) or fail (it doesn't fly) project.

That's enough for today. I hope your weekend was a good one!

Studio Saturday

I don't have much to update this week. I worked long hours both Thursday and Friday nights, so that ate up my free time on Friday and for today. All I managed really was to run errands and visit one of the art museums so I can write a couple papers for next week.

I did start one of my two projects for painting. It is going to be a large (about 5' x 4') painting. I only got the gesso on the paper as I forgot the actual paint at home, but I think that's a good thing. I popped in to the studio today to check on it and the paper has not flattened out. For my second project, I still need to prewash my fabrics before I start painting. I also want to pick up a plastic tablecloth to work on, so I'm hoping to get on that tomorrow.

No updates on sculpture. Unfortunately.

And in photography, I'm still deciding what I'm going to do with the images I've printed.

I have these three on muslin. I was going to use all three in one piece but stitching them down to a large piece of canvas, but my instructor wasn't fond of that direction. She told me I could still do it, but she didn't think all three were needed to "tell the story". I have an idea, which I really need to get to soon in case it doesn't turn out the way I see it in my head.

And this one on a plastic sheet. I was thinking about adhering this to a saw blade, but looking at this, I really like the wood coming through. I may have to pay a visit to the secondhand building materials/salvage place...

I really need to get busy on these projects. Final critiques for painting and sculpture are in a little over a week, with photography coming the following week. For now, though, it is time to get to bed to try to reset my sleep schedule.

A New Purse and a Photo Adventure

I spent more time on Sunday sewing. Again, nothing on my to do list for April, but at least it is something that I've had fabric for since, oh, Black Friday. (Last year though, so not like it's been sitting around that long.)

I remember it was Black Friday when I bought the fabrics because I was wandering around, waiting for my number to be called at the cutting table. I don't usually walk through the home dec section because I don't have any projects needing that weight of fabric. But then I spotted the chickens on mustard yellow print. I knew exactly what I wanted to make with it once I saw it.

Awhile back, Cheri at I Am Momma, Hear Me Roar shared a pattern and tutorial for a purse she calls the Tohoku Tote. I fell for the style of it and filed it away in my head to make in the future.

I paired it with a mustard and a red linen. I added a large pocket panel for those things that always seem to get lost in my purse. I wanted to also put in a key clip, but didn't have any at home and was not driving to Joann's to get some. Since I was on a roll getting some things done, I wasn't about to put this project off for another six months.

As far as my thoughts on this project, I don't think I would make another one, at least without tweaking most of it. I decided to follow her directions for the most part, and there are steps that I would have done differently. I also needed to switch out for my zipper foot to top stitch the bag around the top because of the snap. Not a biggie, but that wasn't mentioned in the tutorial. The straps are a little wide as well. I know I could have changed this before sewing them in, but I thought I would give them a shot and see how I feel about them after using this purse for awhile.

I do love the purse and how roomy it is. The pattern is free, so it was worth sewing up.

Today, I spent some time shooting photos for my photography project. One of the pieces I have to create is going to be about my love of nature, so off to Buffalo River State Park I went.

The lighting wasn't what I wanted. It was a tad too sunny to shoot everything I had in mind, but what I did get will work. The wind was an issue and half of the photos I took with my self timer had my hair flying like crazy.

I noticed when looking at the dried prairie grass that it is pretty close in color to my hair. Here's a photo for proof. Mine is a little darker, but after the summer, it will be dead on to the color of the grass.

I also took some photos of myself at another favorite spot, also along the Buffalo River. It's a part of the train tracks that is just peaceful to me. No photos to share from that as the wind was not my friend there.

I may take more in this theme for this project, and definately will take more just for fun.

Now, off to walk my dogs before work. Have a great day!

Studio Saturday

As I briefly mentioned in my FAL post earlier, I'm feeling a little down. I don't want to go into details because it's mostly work related, but it affecting my mood and motivation. That includes the projects I have to do this weekend for school, so I will be working on them all day Sunday.

First up is my photography project. Portraits is the theme and she wanted us to print them onto a material other than paper/photo paper. I chose to do self portraits that included Jameson and Angus, and then printed them onto fabric.

This is what they look like now. I have some finishing to do with them, obviously. I will be sewing them to a duck cloth backing and then edging them with eyelet trim that I tea dyed today. I also need to go pick up some grommets so that I can link them together.

The photos aren't as exact in lining up as I would have liked, but it still works. Someone in my class thought I took one photograph and then just split it in two on the computer. It is actually two seperate images though.

In sculpture, we are still working on sculpting the nothing. I honestly haven't even started creating my sculpture, though I do know what I am going to do finally. I was having a hard time taking my idea from something literal to beyond that. Nothing to show here though, so look for it next week. This is due on Wednesday so I will be starting it asap.

In painting, we painted a self-portrait and then worked on painting the figure. I don't like the paintings I did at all, and most are still at school, so I'm not going to show those. We are supposed to paint another portrait painting, using the painting studio at school. I prefer to work at home though, so I have been putting this off. Tomorrow I need to go there to recover a large frame for our next painting, so I will be taking my camera with so I can shoot photographs of myself in the room and then use those to paint from. I'm toying with taking painting away from actual paint and instead, thread painting with my sewing machine.

The large canvas is going to be used to create a painting about a current issue. We had to go around the group naming current issues as ideas, but I was a little stumped and didn't even know what most people were talking about. Due to my schedule, I don't pay attention to the news at all and if I know what is going on, it's because I hear something on the radio or at work, or Chad tells me about it.

The issue I named in class was with the oil boom going on in North Dakota. Thinking about it though, I'm not sure how to paint that, so luckily the lottery was a topic that has been brought up a lot lately by people around me. Mostly in the sense of, "This is going to be the last time you talk to me because I have the winning ticket". I just laughed because everyone at work was saying the same thing. I told one person that we (ie Chad) buy lottery tickets, but that's our Plan B. They responded, dumbfounded, wondering what our Plan A was. Of course, for us, Plan A is to work, earn money to pay our bills and move towards our dream, living below our means. Plan B would get us there faster, but Plan A will do the same eventually. That person laughed at me and said the lottery was their Plan A. Thus sprung up imagery for me to use. I was a little worried I would show up to class on Tuesday without an idea, and then spend the entire class time overthinking or forcing something that wasn't there for me.

So, that's all I have to sum up this week. I'm going to get to work on this list, and then spend some down time catching up with my blog reading and email. Hope your weekend is treating you well!

Studio Saturday

I don't have much to share visually as far as schoolwork goes. Maybe I should have saved some of the paintings from last weekend. Ah well. Here's my recap of my art classes this past week.

I took a sick day for painting, so I didn't do much during the week. I do have a painting to complete for Tuesday and also wood to buy to make stretchers for canvases. Chad is going to help me with picking out the wood and I haven't started my painting yet.

I have a great start to my sculpture that is due on Wednesday. I spent a few hours today cutting steel and welding. I'm using scraps that I found in our shop so it's definately a make-do project.

I need to weld on the legs still, which I may save for class on Monday. I'm pretty wore out after all that work. To finish it I will be adding toy cars and house images.

Here's my first cyanotype for my photography class.

It's a little creepy, I admit, but it is supposed to be an image of me as a child. I was playing around with toners and once it got bleached like this it wouldn't go back to dark. I do have five more hung up at school waiting to finish exposing tomorrow (they need ultra-violet light to work). I also spent last night sizing watercolor paper so I could use it. Sizing means to soak the paper in hot water that has gelatin in it. The gelatin adheres to the paper making it easier to use. The cyanotype solution soaks in a bit too much with watercolor paper and that's what I want to use for the final project. I have been pulling my idea together but do have this whole week to work on it. I will share more about it as I start working on that part. For now, I'm just playing. And we do have to turn in examples of the techniques to show that we know what we are doing.

So that's all for now. I plan on doing minimal school work tomorrow and use Sunday as a day to take care of myself (and work on personal projects). In addition to the above, I have a take home test to do and a quiz for an online class. Nothing too big for this weekend thankfully. I'm pretty behind on reading blog posts so I may take some time tomorrow to catch up. I miss seeing what you all are up to.

I do have a finish to share tomorrow. I hope your weekend is going well! See you tomorrow.