Still not in the groove

Bruce and I have attended many NHL hockey games for all of our 40 years together as a couple.  On Thursday night we were given seats to the Oilers game.We go occasionally these days when we are fortunate enough to get tickets.  It was a terrific game where the home team won ( this has not been a frequent event lately in Edmonton).  It was a lovely date night that had capped off a  full day. I had a couple of appointments earlier in the day followed by a visit with family and then a surprise offering of a pair of tickets from a very generous friend. That is a very full day for this retired person  :)

Over this first retirement winter, I have done various artsy things that have not always been quilty. I have been playing with paint for the past couple of  years. When I first started to paint, I worked exclusively with acrylics but, this winter, I decided to take an art course that is teaching me how to use oils. It is a different medium- I have learned a great deal about color, value and how one sees light versus dark. It has also taught me how to see things in different shapes. It has been a challenging thing for me-  learning how to use a brush in a controlled manner as well with a steady hand, takes patience and persistence.
  Here is painting number 1:
 I called it Oiler Rose as the flower is Orange and the background is blue which are the colors of the Edmonton Oilers. This flower was traced onto the canvas except for the leaves and the bud, which I drew free hand..

My second painting was taken from a calendar photograph of a Nova Scotia seascape. I drew this piece on the canvas using a grid technique . I, then under painted the picture with black and white, to help give place markers for the lines, values and shadows. I finished it by adding the color. This realist painting is fairly true to the calendar picture, except for the rocks and the addition of water at the bottom. One thing I learned was that it will be awhile before I want to do windows again.

 My husband, Bruce grew up in Newfoundland on Canada's most easterly shores. Both his mother, Betty, and his grandfather Jefferson, painted seascapes that we already owned. We added my lighthouse painting to this collection of  paintings and they hang together  as a family trio, in our front entrance.

 My new oil painting project is in the early stages - I have pencil drawn the butterfly and flower onto the canvas. I hope to complete the black and white flower stage soon .
 Like Quilting, it always takes longer than one expects. One needs to spend hours learning the specific techniques such as developing one's brush control. I have found the class helpful in other ways. It is developing some skills that will be helpful as a quilter. 
Not content to just play with paint, a friend and I decided to try our hand at making a Mosaic Mandala. It was a fantastic project using found objects like beach glass, tempered glass,marbles,cut up china,  shells chain, old jewelry etc. The sky is the limit as far as what you can use to glue on the boards that form the base of the mandala.

The central motif  has tempered glass followed by chain and flat beads and a floral section that is made from cut up Sri Lankan china tea cups. The instructor used a special tool to cut into chunks for me. Everything was all glued on a wooden board . The wooden board was first gessoed( acts as a primer) and then bits of torn paper napkin were glued on - If you look carefully, you  can see under the marbles and sea glass, some of the napkin bits.
Like my fabric stash, the instructor had infinite choices of what found objects one could use to create the patterns on the board- In some ways, that was the most challenging part for me, as I can get lost in a box of fabric possibilities, and end up making a numberof combinations of one pattern. It then causes two problems - one is that I get playing with combos and don't get anything made, and the other, is that I end up with re creating the quilt pattern a few different times because I can not settle on one choice. With the mosaics project,  I had to made a choice  and then get moving on my choice, as there were many more choices and layers to be added before one could make it ready for grouting.
 After all the sea glass, flat marbles, broken china, other tiles, chain and tempered glass were glued over the napkin layer, we left it to dry overnight. The organic shell, glass star and other smaller shells were added to the glass surface, after the piece was grouted . The next day we came back to add the black grout material. Making mosaics was indeed messy, but oh so much fun.. There are patterns everywhere to be found in the art world. In a couple of weeks, my friends and I will try some polymer clay work and create a story totem. It will be lots of fun too.

Perhaps there are other creative forms that you have explored or tried. I would love hearing about them.  There are so many ways to express one's self creatively.. It is great to have time to play and create these days.

 In my coming blogs I will return to sharing some of the pieces that I have quilted more recently.  I have a few quilts to share that I have made in the last few years as well as some other kinds of projects too. Hope that you will stay tuned...
For now stay warm ( if you live in most of Canada and Northern US and stay cool if you live down south of the equator.

Warmest regards,  Anna