Red Dog

My favorite dog in the whole world, my granddog, Red Dog, is spending his last weekend at home doing all the stuff he loves to do.  His visit to the vet today was bad news.........he has cancer and is terminal.  The dog psychic said he wanted one last weekend at home so SB daughter is doing all the stuff he loves to do with him.  He got to hang his head out the window of the car, eat ice cream and go to the beach without a leash.  She didn't let him run on the freeway or chase pregnant miniature horses though.  I think he should have red jello - isn't that the best when one is sick?

Beginner

Artquiltmaker suggested a website the other day called Illustration Friday which I managed (after my usual futzing around the web) to get into.

It is similar to Artquiltmaker's Creative Prompt Project.  The website puts out a word each Friday and artists send in their illustrations.  I haven't figured that part out yet.

Last Friday's word was beginner.  As my main art form is drawing I came up with the illustration below.

I have many empty sketchbooks so I choose one and am dedicating it to Illustration Friday projects.

On the home front, I returned from ten days in SB, spent with my nephew, last Saturday.  I drove Super G and JJ up with me.  Planted them at the local Comfort Inn as we are still fixing up our fixer upper.  Also JJ wanted to watch the basketball playoffs.  (Weren't the Lakers sad on Sunday?)

On Sunday, Mother's day, we went to Daly City for the grandchild's confirmation.  The boys took BART and Gma and I drove (the boys don't fit in Gma's Focus!).  Except that Gma disappeared during the mass it was a lovely day.  It turns out Gma was kidnapped by a nun and made to sit in the handicapped section.  But it was scary because none of us witnessed the kidnapping.  My son-in-law found her when he ushered during the collection (does your church have the ushers pass the basket three times?).

The party afterwards was fun.  The kids trampolined and the adults chatted.

The family matriarchs

One of the nice things about the day was that it was Mother's Day.  All my family moms were together.

Well I'd better get back to blundering around the internet to figure out how to post to Illustration Friday.  Belated Happy Mother's Day - you know who you are!

P.S. Finished editing the medical book!

Inspiration deficit

I am back in Santa Barbara with the nephew.  Sad news - I am totally uninspired!  So decided to upload some of my 'inspiration' pictures to see if that will jump start the process.

So, here goes.....

AAARGGGG!!!  I'm not on my computer!  Have to go look for my thumb drive, but think I do not have the inspiration file on it.  Bummer!

I know!  I will web cam the Zentangles I have been drawing!

Well, that took almost an hour!  I actually have four thumb drives with me.  One has 1300+ photos on it!  And still has room for more!

The above ZT was totally off the wall!  I had been on the wildflower train at Railtown 1897 and one of the places it stopped to let folks off to photograph the train was prime rattlesnake territory,  Yours truly did NOT get off the train!  No snakes were sighted, thankfully.  But they lodged in my head and came out my fingers in this tangle.

This tangle is called a 'Bud' by the Zentangle website and is a new design out of their newsletter.  I have a hard time with them as my hands are not very steady anymore.  This one turned out well and I like it.  These are even more beautiful with color.

What do you see in this one?

I love doing these in pencil although the books and website want one to use black Micron pens.  Haven't come across my micron pens recently so am using a variety of media.  The pencil doesn't photograph very well.

I started this one with pink highlighter and then enhanced it with black pen.  Pretty retro!

This was inspired by the big wedding on Friday.  Wasn't Kate's gown perfect?  I loved it.  She looked every bit the princess.  I wish them well.

These are copied out of the books.  Good exercises and references for later drawings.  Also handy when inspiration is lacking.

Lack of inspiration is plaguing me currently.  I have two quilts I can work on, a medical book to edit, a journal to write in and my Zentangle sketchbook.  Nothing appeals.  No passion inside bursting to come out.  Artist block, I guess.  So I will have to give myself some assignments and force me to do them.  Perhaps the passion will sneak in when I least expect it!

Railtown 1897

Welcome to Railtown 1897 State Historic Park, Jamestown, California

The Big Guy has a new hobby - volunteering at Railtown!  I have gone up there the past two weekends with him.  Two weeks ago I went because I had been in Santa Barbara for three weeks and wanted to spend as much time as I could with him. 

The Big Guy is a Car Host - a storyteller - the ideal job for him!

Also the park was running a wildflower train and that sounded like fun. 

This past Saturday our grandson visited and The Big Guy wanted to take him up. It is a long day, starting with a drive of over an hour, then seven hours at the park. 

The Big Guy and Grandson in the caboose

We rode the first train at 11:00 a.m., went on the caboose tour, had lunch in the picnic area with The Big Guy and then ran out of stuff to do at the park.  So grandson and I went into Jamestown and walked around.  Neither of us likes to shop and as we passed the (it seemed like) the hundredth antique shop we looked at each other and asked who had thought this was a good idea?  We stopped at a place for drinks (coffee and a smoothie) that had been owned by the same family for four generations and was the biggest antique store in town.  I think the drinks business was keeping it afloat!  The coffee was really good.  They made each cup when it was ordered.

Reinactors at Railtown 1897

 It was a long day. The last hour seemed as though it would never end.

We did finally say good-bye to Railtown.

It's been a year!

This week it has been a year since Super G fell and since the oil well in the Gulf caught fire.  Two life changing events, Super G for me and the oil well for the Southern Coastal states.

Super G was released from the doctor last week and declared healed!  She has lots of exercised she is supposed to do everyday.  I hope she is better than me in keeping up with that but I'm afraid she is who I inherited my ability to sit for long periods of time without exerting any energy!

Mom (Super G) and her friend Bill

 So that was last year.  This year, I am helping SB Daughter (http://apaperaddict.com/) with her ward and cousin, my nephew, Jim.  SB has to go out of the country for work (she is the worlds best Personal Assistant) and Jim needs a ride to school, food cooked, constant nagging (he is 16) and company in ambulances (that truly happened last month!).

Jim leaving for Europe via LAX

In addition to Jim, SB has three dogs - my beloved granddogs - who need to be fed and cleaned up after when they dump the trash.  So next week I am driving down to Santa Barbara again to stay with Jim.  I'm looking forward to hearing about his Europe trip (he returns from London and Paris tonight), and interacting with him again.

Nixon, Red Dog, and Cherri

 Do you think Jim gets his penchant for hats from his Uncle Buck (AKA the Big Guy)?

Inspired by strange things (or the Brothel Blog!)

Went to a wonderful panel discussion on Sunday at the San Francisco Main Library sponsored by Contemporary Quilt and Fiber Artists  (CQFA).  The title was "Primal Green: Environmental Art Quilts" and was held in conjunction with the library's Earth Day programs.  There was also a display of CQFA's quilts and fiber art on the fifth floor in the Wallace Stegner Gallery. 

The four women on the panel were Jaye Lapachet ( http://artquiltmaker.com/blog), Julie Stiller (http://jzs.homestead.com/), Nancy Riffle (http://www.linkedin.com/in/nancyriffle) and Soyoung Lee (killerhobbies.blogspot.com/2011/03/primal-green.html) and the panel was moderated by Delores Miller.

So what does all this have to do with the Brothel Blog?  And strange inspiration?  One of the members of CQFA, Bronwen, gave Julie Stiller a lovely piece of fabric, it was sheer and iridescent and changed color, from green to orange, with movement.  After the program we were sitting around chatting and the subject of what to do with such fabric came up.  Someone suggested it would go well in a brothel!  Another mentioned the (former) brothel in Mountain View and how interesting the building is (apparently tours are given?) and another mentioned that prostitution is now legal in New Zealand! (who knew? who cares?)  We talked about how the fabric would be used in a brothel and the discussion segued, with much laughter, into other topics as such chats do.

Anyway, if you have the opportunity, go see CQFA's exhibit at the San Francisco Main Library (http://sfpl.org/), it was thoughtfully hung in a wonderful space.

Sorry, no pictures - copyrights, you know :).

Television and movies

I haven't really watched much TV in the past 20 years.  Staying with my nephew in Santa Barbara has changed that! When he is home the TV is on.

One of the things he enjoys are old movies.  Understand that he is 16 so old is from his perspective, not mine!

His choice of movies is really good.  The other night we watched The Shawshank Redemption.  And throughout, discussed what was going on.

Adults think teens are toughtless and shallow.  I have not found that in my experiences with teens of my acquaintance.  Particularly my nephew and my teen friend in San Anselmo.  Nephew asks good questions, and thinks deeply about things.

Last night we watched Se7en with Morgan Freeman and a young man I don't know.  The theme was the 7 deadly sins.  I was surprised that nephew even was aware of the 7 deadly sins as he has no religious background to speak of.

Again, his comments and questions were excellent and watching this movie with him was a good experience.

Last week we went to see The Adjustment Bureau, another excellent movie.  It had action, romance and a message.  We have discussed it off and on ever since seeing it.  I recommend it.

Zentangles!

I love zentangles!

Several weeks ago artquiltmaker told me about a drawing/meditation technique called 'Zentangles'.  When I packed to come down to Santa Barbara and stay with the nephew I forgot my cutting mat so cannot cut out the quilt squares I had planned to do.  artquiltmaker had sent nephew a 'Zentangles' book for Christmas and he happened to show it to me.  I was fascinated and began working on some zentangles of my own.  Am now totally tangled!



This kind of drawing is mesmerising and a truly Zen experience.   artquiltmaker  sent the nephew two more zentangle books, numbers 2 & 3, and we are both off and running!  I bought (I know! I already have several...) two moleskine sketchbooks and a square format recycled sketchbook to do tangles in.  The square one is dedicated to tangles.  Haven't started anything in the other two but think one will be dogs and the other an art journal.



I particularly like this tangle.  Reminds me of a futuristic plane.



Doing them in color is cool, too.

The Munsell Color theory and the not lost dogs

As you may know,  I've come down to Santa Barbara to stay with my nephew while my SB daughter, his guardian,  works in Florida and the Bahamas.  Isn't he photogenic!

SB daughter also shares custody of three dogs with her ex.  You may have seen pictures of the granddogs in the 'Red Sketchbook' area of this blog.  We picked them up Thursday night in my truck.  It now smells like a dog house!  Good thing I like dogs.  Was sunny yesterday so I left the back open all day to air it out.  The sun was really nice.  We sat outside a lot.

Red and Cherry spooning doggy fashion

Red is the biggest and Cherry the smallest.  Nixon was still asleep when I took this photo earlier today.  Because of all the rain, caring for the dogs in a house with white carpeting has been a challenge.  I've found it easiest to dunk each paw in water, swish, and wipe.  I close off the kitchen and let them in, one at a time.  Washing towels twice a day!

While drawing the neutrals  chart, below, I realized a little info on warm and cool colors would be helpful. While looking at your color wheel, with red at the top, all the right hand colors down to teal (B-G) are warm.  All the left hand side through teal (B-G) are cool.  I know I know - I said teal is both warm and cool!  It is, and that depends on what colors it is next to and across from!  Another tough aspect of color theory.

Two Neutrals (center colors)

 Neutrals are hues (colors) achieved by mixing opposites (complements).  Neutrals calm and bring harmony to your design.  Neutrals allow high-contrast and intense colors to draw attention to the focal point. 

Using your preferred medium, make a complete neutrals chart (all ten colors on the Munsell color wheel).  You will have five lines of color because the warms will be on one side and their opposites, usually cools, will on the other side.  For clarity (not like I did above!) put the warm colors on the right and cool colors on the left to correspond to your color wheel.  Have fun!

This and that from Santa Barbara

Wednesday afternoon I drove down to Santa Barbara.  My favorite nephew lives with my daughter here.  The SB daughter has to go out of town for work for about a week so here I am, spending time with the nephew.

Last night in the rain and mud the four dogs came home.  What fun!  Two of them, the oldest (my favorite) and the youngest are huge. The oldest is a Rhodesian Ridgeback mix and the youngest is a Newfoundland. There is also the biggest 14 inch standard beagle known to man and the smallest is Cherry, a Maltese (she's the boss).

They woke all of us up at least once during the night.  We each got up to take them out.  Needless to say, we are a tired and grumpy group this morning.  But the nephew showered, ate breakfast and got to school on time.

In my next post I will discuss tints, shades and neutrals.

No pictures today as I am not on my personal computer.

The sun is shining!

Color theory again and more food quilt

Have had a couple of comments about 'dischord' - oops!  Misspelled discord.  Tried to correct that but couldn't find the misspelling in either previous post.  Sorry. I don't know why Munsell uses the word, discord.  I think it is because the discord colors are not ones normally used with the dominant and its opposite in color theory.  But for the purposes of this system, don't think about the dictionary meaning of the word.  It is just a label for the color's position on the color wheel and for it's use in the color theory.

Roxy really wants to learn to sew!

Got together Tuesday with Domino Sharon to sew.  We usually get together to make dinner and play dominoes.  We told the husbands it was their turn to cook and do the dishes! (BTW they made a great dinner - fresh salmon, salad, steamed carrots, asparagus and brown rice.)

Borders are not sewn on yet but you get the idea

Sharon and I worked on projects we had been stuck on.  She had a rain cape almost done, only had to top stitch and put snaps on and I had to cut my meager stash of Michael Miller's Apple Stripy fabric and sew it on.  Together we both managed to do that!  But I didn't have fabric for the outside borders so I went shopping in Sharon's stash!  She gave me about 15 yards of black fabric she had.  So now I have enough for the borders and the back and several more quilts!  I wasn't going to make the back black but WTH, with such abundance how can I not!!!!

WARNING: There is no color theory used in this quilt!

Food quilts

As you may remember I am working on food quilts for both the grands.  The above is the first iteration of the first quilt.  When I saw it up on my design wall (the hallway with me standing in the middle bedroom to get far enough back!) I realized it should be titled 'indigestion'!  I took the first border off and searched through my stash for another fabric.

I found this cool fabric that I used on MY VERY FIRST QUILT!!!! It has strips of apples alternating with strips of apple seeds.  I only have a yard of it.

I really like the way it looks surrounding the food blocks.  But I am unable to cut the fabric!  I'm afraid that I will mess it up and not have enough fabric !(  Am totally blocked!  So I made a date with my girlfriend, Domino Sharon, who is also at a standstill on a project (a cute raincape that she could really use right now) and we are going to sew together and hopefully get these projects going!

In the meantime I am thinking about starting the second grands food quilt.  Artquiltmaker sent me an e-mail with Marcus' pattern 'patch-it'.  As it happens I had seen that pattern on another website and liked it.  So was going to use that for the second quilt.  Artquiltmaker suggested I do a test first.  That is so totally unlike me!  I usually just jump in and commit to whatever I decide and outcome be darned!  Well when I replied to AQ with that she gave me a big LOL!  So I decided to do a test.  What could it hurt?

The pattern requires a template ($20).  I am in a 'use what I have' mode and will not buy any quilting stuff (today).  So I studied the picture of the template and read the description and made my own out of matboard (remember the days when we made our own cardboard templates?  Neither do I!  But I had heard about doing that.

I have a mat cutter that I use to cut mats when I frame pictures and that worked great!  Nice straight edges with one cut.  The template is about 3 1/4 " square.  And it worked perfectly.  I didn't even slice it up when I was cutting! 

The pattern I had seen a week or so ago ( which I can't find on the internet again :(  ) suggested putting a black border around the colored squares so I did.

I could tell as I put this together that it wouldn't work for this quilt.  The food fabric isn't showcased so what is the point of using it?  The black border, however, does work with this pattern.

This did go together fairly  quickly, I finished it in about two hours.  Too bad I messed up the upper right corner.  But I'n not taking it out!  This is going in my bag of orphan blocks, along with the template!

The other reason (besides not showcasing the fabric) is that it wastes a lot of fabric.  The finished block is about half the size of the original from which the template-cut pieces were taken. 

The good thing is that this is an easy pattern that looks hard.  The negatives are that it wastes fabric and isn't a good choice for (my favorite) novelty fabrics.

More Munsell Color Theory

A version of the Munsell Color System Wheel

The Munsell Color System is quite complicated in its entirety.  Here I am presenting a simplified version - only what we as artists and quilters, knitters and weavers need to make lovely color choices.
The painting was done with gouache in an Aquabee 'Super Deluxe' sketchbook.
As I mentioned in my last post, with the Munsell System we have five 'principal colors' (the ones in the squares, above), five 'opposites' in the circles and 'discords'.  A successful composition contains a dominant color (may be a principal or an opposite), the complement of the dominant color and two discords (the third color away from the dominant on each side).  The majority of the composition is the dominant color.  A moderate amount of the complement (more if the color is grayed). And small, equal amounts of the discords.

A drawing using the Munsell System

The dominant color in this drawing is blue. 

Its complement is orange.

Green round, purple swirl - sorry it is fuzzy!

The discords are green and purple.

These drawings were done in a Moleskine sketchbook with a variety of color pencils.  It would be an interesting exercise to do them in the Aquabee sketchbook with gouache and do the color wheel in the Moleskine sketchbook.  Next post, perhaps?

Color theory - The Munsell System

This quilt was quite stunning but I wonder what the result would be if a little of red's opposite, teal and it's discords, yellow-green and blue-purple had been added......

Artquiltmaker and I went to the San Francisco Quilt Guild show on Saturday at the Concourse in San Francisco.  The venue was great as there was plenty of room and it did not feel overcrowded.  The quilts, for the most part, were really nice.  Lots of inspiration.  It was also the first show I've been to in forever.  We had a very good time.

This is a better example of the Munsell System.  Teal as dominant, red, its opposite and yellow and purple the discords.

But one of the things that always happens when we go look at quilts together is our differences in seeing color.  I, of course, am sure that my color vision is the correct one and Artquiltmaker feels the same way!  I have often discussed with her the Munsell System color theory. That is the system I use when I think about color for my quilts or drawings.  She suggested I discuss the theory here so those interested could learn the system and perhaps integrate it into their work.

I first learned about this system about ten years ago from the book "Harley Brown's eternal truths for every artist" (no caps after the name in the title!).  The Munsell System was developed between 1898 and 1905 by Professor Albert H. Munsell, an artist.  It is a 'rational' and 'scientific' approach to color. He updated and significantly improved his 1905 publication in 1929 and the system was  again updated by the Optical Society of America in the 1940s.  The system is still used today in forensics, dentistry and the brewing of beer as well as developing colors for fabric and yarn.  The Munsell system is used by the U.S. Bureau of Standards.

The difference between the Munsell System and the three primary system is in the relationship between colors.  The Munsell System uses five 'principal' colors (red, yellow, green, blue, and purple). As the principal colors are closer on the color wheel to each other and because there are more of them, it shifts the color complements. The Munsell System uses the term 'opposites' instead of complement.  In the Munsell System red and teal are opposites, yellow and purple-blue are opposites, green and violet are opposites, blue and orange are opposites and purple and yellow-green are opposites

 The theory continues with the color distribution of a composition, whether it is a quilt, painting or your choice of an outfit to wear to the races!  With the Munsell System every successful composition has a dominant value - making it either warm or cool.  The composition could be left monochromatic - only one color - but will be more interesting with the addition of a modest amount of the dominant color's opposite.

The last component of the Munsell System is the use of discords.  Discords are located on the Munsell System color wheel by skipping one color each side of that color's opposite.  For instance, if our principal color is red, the opposite is teal. To the right of teal is green - skip it - and go to yellow-green for the first discord.  To the immediate left of teal is blue - skip blue - and go to blue-purple for the second discord.   Use BOTH discords subtly and in EQUAL amounts, grouped near the center of interest, if possible.

To draw your own Munsell System color wheel, draw or trace a circle.  Put red at 12 o'clock, teal at six o'clock.  Place the other four warm colors, orange, yellow, yellow-green and green, spaced equally to the right of and between red and teal.  To the left place the remaining four cool colors, violet, purple, blue-purple and blue spaced equally between red and teal.

In summary, the Munsell System color wheel has ten colors.  The five principal colors are red, yellow, green, blue and purple. The five opposites of the principal colors are orange, yellow-green, teal, blue-purple, and violet.  In a Munsell System composition  one uses a dominant color, its complement and its two discords.  This is a very simplified description of the Munsell System but sufficient for use in quilting and drawing.  Once you learn it and it becomes intuitive, you will notice excellent results in your color choices.  More detailed accounts of this system are available by searching the web.

For an illustration of the Munsell System color wheel go to this link .