A Pair of Pears

Here's my latest post to the sketchbook challenge.  A pair of pears to remind me how I highly prize fresh  fruit in winter.  When my mother was a little girl in the western NC mountains in the first decade of the 1900s, Santa Claus would leave one orange in the stocking of each child in her family, and it was a huge treat because they couldn't go to a store and buy fresh fruit the way that we do 100 years later.

This sketch was done with a child's set of water soluble wax pastels on a piece of watercolor paper.
I ate one of the 'models' for this sketch for lunch today. Delicious.

More Sketches

Here are numbers two and three of my sketchbook challenge.  No, they aren't perfect, but I am having a good time and loving what everyone else is putting on the Flickr group.

Free Clip Art

A great source for copyright free clip art images is Dover.  If , like me, you have no need for full books of clip art images, Dover offers free sample images on their web site, and  if you want to, you can also sign up for an email that will bring you periodic samplers of a variety of downloadable images  Cllick here to visit Dover's sampler page.

CitraSolv Image Transfer

For the first time today, I tried an image transfer onto fabric using CitraSolv.  It was SO easy.  I printed the image on regular printer paper using my (very inexpensive) black and white HP laser printer model 1018. (It uses toner, not ink.)  Then I put it--face down--on a piece of muslin.  I put a small amount of CitraSolv on a piece of paper towel and rubbed it over the back of the paper, holding the paper still.  I burnished it with a spoon, pulled the paper up, and there was my transfer.  Here is a picture of the printed fabric. No toxic fumes.  Nice clear transfer.  I'll definitely use this method again.

Journal Quilt -NatGeo/CitraSolv Background

Here's one way I am using a Citra-Solv NatGeo background---a journal quilt in progress.  I have added the word EVELYN and the photo of the young woman.  Unfinished.

2010 Review part 1

My mother had a saying:  "Better Late Than Never."
In that spirit, since I neglected my blog during 2010, I am going to go back and Show 'n Tell some of the things I was doing in 2010.
In the January-February issue of Cloth Paper Scissors magazine, there's an article on page 18 about using Citra-Solv ( a 'green' cleaner) to melt the ink on magazine pages to make great collage papers, painting surfaces, or you-name-its.  Older National Geographics are the magazine of choice, but other magazines also seem to work with varying degrees of success.  The manufacturers of Citra Solv have made a section on their website about the art and craft uses for their product.  It is here.  You can also transfer images using CitraSolv, although I have not tried this.
Here are photos of a few of my National Geo pages.  I tend to make digital photos of things like this and print them onto my fabric from the computer--sometimes after further manipulating the image in Photoshop.  I lined up the torn edges of several pages for the last two photos.  I made many more pages than these.  In the next post, above, I'm using one, printed on fabric, as background for a journal quilt I am putting together.

SKETCHBOOK CHALLENGE

I made my first page as a follower of The Sketchbook Challenge and uploaded it to the Flickr pages.  January's theme is HIGHLY PRIZED.  The drawing is of my husband of almost 54 years, and all the words describe him.  I guess I'm a little prejudiced and when he saw it he said it isn't true, but it really is, so now I guess I will need to add the word "Modest".

2011..........Beginning

It is a gray day in Western North Carolina--pouring rain, dark clouds, and fog shrouded mountains.  I got up early on this first day of the new year with the intention of finding a photo (on disk) from 1999 that my brother has wanted me to print for him 'for a coon;s age.' (For you non-native-mountaineers:  'a coon's age' means a LONG time.)  I couldn't find the disk, which is probably the reason that I never made his print in the first place.  .Frustration!
Then, while I ate my oatmeal, I thought about 2010's New Year's Resolutions, and how I had fallen short yet again!.  I was dripping negativity from every pore.  But Stay Tuned.  Here comes the part about the Visiting Ghosts of New Years Past, Present and Future, and how I had a New Years Epiphany.
I remembered that this is the day that the Sketchbook Challenge was to post their first month's topic, so I surfed on over to see what it is, and it is HIGHLY PRIZED.  Huh?  Well, I have a motley collection of stuff (mostly art supplies, cameras and computers) that I highly prize.......but, wait-----the truly highly prized ithings in my life are the people I love:  My soulmate of more than half a century (!). our two  sons, my photo-less brother, my inlaws, other family, treasured friends..........and what about the fact that although I will turn 75 (gulp) in 2011, I still have a relatively intact body and mind and an imagination and an urge to create and play.........wow    A lot to feel grateful for.....
I don't want to get all maudlin and soppy, but instead of focusing on the negative (like more resolutions that I am sure to break) all I am feeling now is GRATITUDE.  That's what I want to start my follow-along sketchbook with.  Not sure yet how to start to get it on paper, but I am going to try.