Austin's Stocking

I made Austin (my two year old Grandson) a Christmas Stocking. He loves baseball so did a baseball theme.

Austin's Pig

I painted this ceramic Pig for my Grandson Austin's second Birthday. It is never too early to learn to save money!

Salmon Button Blanket

I finally have finished the Salmon Button Blanket. I began this journey back in March and now the blanket is finished and has made its way to Laura in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada! You can read about this journey by clicking on this link: Salmon Button Blanket

Button Blanket – The Journey Begins

Back in March my clan sister Laura (Desert Fire Hawk), had a request for me, to make a button Blanket for her. I was greatly honored by this request and started to do some research into this ceremonial art form. There is a great book about Button Blankets, "Robes of Power: Totem Poles on cloth" by Doreen Jensen and Polly Sargent. I also picked up a child's book, "the button blanket: Northwest coast Indian Art Activity Book" by Nan McNutt. And to further my understanding of Northwest art I found the book, "Northwest Coast Indian Art: an Analysis of Form" by Bill Holm to be very helpful. And then there is a short video on the web called Vistas: Button Blanket . After reading all about the process of making the Blanket, I started searching for the materials. I wanted Black wool Melton cloth and Red wool felt. I live in Florida so wool is not a big selling item here. I found a few good websites for the fabrics and ordered what I needed. I also needed Abalone Shell Buttons, so I found a website for that.

The most important part of the Blanket process was to come up with a design that would show Lauras Family ties and stories, so we had many Skype conversations, and I began to get an Idea for the main design element the crest.

My Annual Trek to Boise

I made my annual trek to Boise to visit my BFF Susan! We hiked and did art projects, met with friends, went out for sushi (yum!), shopped and did I mention Hiking? Well in all we hiked about 25 miles in the week. The First hike was up Bob's trail, schlepping all our rain gear, just in case, (the humor of the Gods would be not to bring the gear and it would pour, bring the gear and sunny Sky), It did snow just as we got back to the house, very nice! We hiked Polecat Gulch twice, the second time going the full outer loop for 5.75 miles. Then we hiked Upper Hulls Gulch for 6.75 miles.

We did watercolor monotypes, this was new to me and very fun, see my efforts below. Also I wanted to learn to use Acrylic modeling paste so we had fun with that. I tried my hand at lynocut printing, hand registering each plate and using a Baren to make the print. We had a wonderful time. And as always the time goes by to fast then I have to go home!

Scorpion

I wanted to learn how to use acrylic modeling paste so Susan showed me how! Why a scorpion you might ask? Well, we were talking of the old moral of the Scorpion and the Frog....The story is about a scorpion asking a frog to carry him across a river. The frog is afraid of being stung, but the scorpion reassures him that if it stung the frog, the frog would sink and the scorpion would drown as well. The frog then agrees, nevertheless, in mid-river, the scorpion stings him, dooming the two of them. When asked why, the scorpion explains, "I'm a scorpion; it's my nature."

Sightings

This is an abstract as you can tell! Watercolor monotype, while in Boise visiting my BFF Susan, I was experimenting with new art forms. Ended up with a little pink alien, an ostritch head, peacock tail, and possibly the Flying Spaghetti Monster, maybe more!

Landscape

Susan showed me how to make watercolor monotypes! Very fun.

Birds

This is the current challenge for Studio Atelier, I just might have made the deadline on this one. due today! Smile. Sweet little birds on a metal fence.

Cathie's Journal

I have been working in my Journal, trying out different mediums, collage, acrylic, pitt pen and watercolor. I was having a bit of writers block so I started with a few "thoughts for the day". Some have turned out OK, some not so OK. You can see the rest of my journal pages here. I am a bit behind on getting them onto my website but there you have it.

Calle del Monte las Vueltas, Tegueste, CN, España

The Virtual Paintout challenge this month is the Canary Islands. So I did the virtual gadabout and found this road with flowers, cactus, village and mountains in the distance. Very Nice!

Saturday Night Jukebox

Well, I did it again, I missed the deadline for the Rookie Painter submission! I was doing research for a different project and wow did the time slip by. I had fun painting this. Though the reference photo did not have great resolution so had to make it up as I went along.

The Kitchen Sink

This was to be my submission to the rookiepainter challenge but I left it a bit late and missed the deadline. Drat, work got in the way of my fun. I tried gessoing heavy watercolor paper then using acrylic paint.

Malibu Fountain

This is my submission for the Studio Atelier challenge for March. It is a picture of the fountain in the East Garden at the Getty Villa in Malibu. I tried using gel medium and glazing. I don't know how successful it was but it was fun!

56 Lokkeveien, Stavanger, Norway

This is my submission for the Virtual Paintout. The Challenge this month is for Stavanger, Norway.

Sunshine Award

I want to thank Ann Rogers for honoring me with this Sunshine Award! I am really excited about this. I didn’t know that my blog was award worthy. This will definitely spur me on to better blogging in the future. Thank you Ann.

The rules for accepting the award are:
Put the logo on your blog or within your post.
Pass the award onto 12 bloggers.
Link the nominees within your post.
Let the nominees know they received this award.
Link to the person from whom you received this award.
So I am passing this along to these 12 boggers that I follow and admire their work!

Susan Moore
Dominique Eichi
Reana
Carol Nelson
Gringo Zero
Linda Smith
Diane Morgan
Sally Tharp
William Cook
Barb Hillier
Nancy Tasker
Elaine Magliacane

Karin Jurick Thank You

This is my submission for the Thank You Book for Karin Jurick.

In December 2009, Karin Jurick through her wonderful website "Different Strokes From Different Folks", mounted a portrait challenge. 180 people from around the world were to submit a head and shoulders photo of themselves to Karin so that some other person of the 180 would paint it. Painters painted each other anonymously and then Karin posted all of the wonderful paintings and drawings.

As a Thank You to Karin Jurick Tribute, 118 of the above 180 artists (those who could be located) painted a portrait of Karin from a photograph supplied to them by Jill Polsby. She created a link to the Picasa album for everyone to enjoy. Album:

http://picasaweb.google.com/polsby/The118FacesOfKarinJurickJanuary2010?authkey=Gv1sRgCLCMzN6K7LOCGg

Motel Capri-San Francisco

This month’s challenge for the Virtual Paintout is San Francisco! I love San Francisco! One year my friend Susan and I went to the Empty Spools Quilting Seminar at Asilomar, then drove up to San Francisco and stayed at the Motel Capri. Susan and I had the best time, we walked everywhere or took busses, and we could get to everything from the Motel Capri at the corner of Greenwich St. and Buchanan St. Here is my painting from the Google street view of the motel.

Portrait of Kaylyn Munro

Karin Jurick's DSDF December's challenge was a portrait exchange. I sent Karin a photo of myself and she paired me with this beautiful gal, Kaylyn Munro. Check out her blog to see the painting of me! I hope she likes my painting as much as I like the one she did of me.

Multiple Patch Quilt

I made this multiple patch quilt for my son Jim. I have been saving scraps from quilts for years and had accumulated about three big bags of them. so I set out to use them in a quilt. Nine patch, log cabin, and made up designs. I am happy with how it turned out. Just in time for the cold weather to snuggle up with.