SHOW & TELL - Rug Hooking Gallery

Rug Hooking Gallery~ In honor of the Royal Wedding I will be hooking & hooked to my TV tomorrow! These are rugs, pillows & rackets I hooked in the last two years.

INSPIRED TRAVEL - Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef

I am often and always inspired by my travels. I am lucky enough to visit Washington DC a few times a year. My hubbies family is based there and I love being able to visit the Smithsonian's too. They have become like friends to me. I love visiting and being inspired (I am lucky my family allows me to bring my sketch book and they don't mind waiting it out- Thank you!)

In the Smithsonian Natural History Museum Hall of Oceans there is an astounding Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef. Wow. It was stunning. I actually visited in December and loved it.

The exhibit is a traveling one and has left the Smithsonian but check the website for where it will be next. http://crochetcoralreef.org/index.php

Here are a few pictures from the trip.

SHOW & TELL - MOLESKIN JOURNALS EDIT

I love carrying a little journal in my purse. These are baby moleskins that I reworked with stamping & adding a vintage ruler trim & button closure. Cute and easy my favorite type of project.

ARTIST TOOLS - Dover Images

Dover Pubulications - http://store.doverpublications.com

If you haven't poked around on this website yet - go do it! I often check out Dover books from the library and I even own a few books. I love this resource for artists.

How I use the images~

• I love taking the old architecture images and pulling out details to inspire stamps & stencils. I like to tweak the image to my liking. I often make both a stencil and a stamp so I can use the images both in the positive & the negative.
• Sometimes practice my drawing skills by copying images
• Use patterns in my rug hooking. Often I am trying to find interesting border patterns for rugs I hook.

Here is an image of the favorite rug I have done so far. I call it a celtic family rug.

EASTER & ARTIST CRUSHES!

Happy Easter! Had a great morning at church. Everyone loved the prayer flags and we had three baptisms this morning and I even learned how to ring the bell at church.

Sundays are my day to profess my love - for blogs & artists crush on.

Short but great list-

• http://web.me.com/annebagby/Anne_Bagby/home.html. Anne Bagby has inspired me to use layered paper. And given me my favorite new tool in the studio - DELI PAPER
• http://www.stephenbwhatley.com/ Yummy color and astounding paint.

Show & Tell - Prayer Flags

Secret of Kells - Prayer Flag Project

I have long been inspired by Tibetian Prayer Flags. Tibetian's believe the wind carries the intentions of the writing & imagery on the flags out into the world for the benefit of all living beings. I wanted to create a set that wound these beliefs, my Christian beliefs and the beauty of illuminations, all into one project that will hang both at my church on Easter Sunday & at my home over the door frame for summer.

I started with researching the colors of the flags and thier meanings- then I made a map and found biblical verses & book of common prayer writings to add to each flag.

Materials -

• I made paper-fabric (toutorial to come),



• then fused a layer of ciffon over the top.



• I backed each flag in hand-painted fabric



• with a layer of fast2fuse inbetween.



• finally I hand-stiched buttons & scraps to make them hang.

They are unique, heartfelt & I love them. So the Kells blog is done. But my friend already pointed out that a lot of my stuff is starting to have a Kells-ish look. I believe in all we take in becomes an opportunity to shuffle it up and create something new with it.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you walk along the road, when you are going to bed and when you wake. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorposts of your home and on you gates. Deuteronomy 6:5-9

GALLERY 3 - New place to see my work

My work is now showing at Gallery 3 in Puyallup, Washington. Thier website hasn't caught up yet. But, here is the site, look for updates soon - www.gallerythree.org

17 local artist- watercolor, acrylic, fiber, glass, sculture & jewelry artist. They are a fun group and I look forward to getting to know them better.

Please join us for The Mad Hatter Party, May 21 - 5-7 pm. It is the opening reception for the new artists. I am one of four in this new freshmen class.

Secret of Kells project will continue tomorrow... I am working at Gallery 3 all day and felt the need to annouce my new endevor today! Cheers.

FROM THE LIBRARY - Illuminating the Word

Illuminating the Word : Making of The Saint John's Bible, by Christopher Calderhead, ©2005

Secret of Kells project continued-As I bounced around the library search engine this book popped up, called by most "the American book of Kells" I was intrigued... This is the backstory on the Saint John's Bible commissioned by Saint John's Monastery in honor the Millennium celebration.

The book of Kells inspired me as a history, but the artwork in the Saint John's bible got me to thinking about how I could illuminate the word in my own life. It is a great and interesting thing undertake illuminating the biblical text by hand in a era of very little being done by hand. A modern day Scriptorium was born and letter artists came together to illuminate.

Why? One of the monks explain "The word becomes sacramental. It is not just a text, it is like the Eucharist: A visual image of the Word." Engaging people especially young people to encounter the scripture in a new way.

I am feeling inspired... off to the studio.

From the Library - The Book of Kells

The Book of Kells: Reproductions from the Manuscript in Trinity College Dublin, ©1974

Secret of Kells project continued ~

This is a beautiful book that I flipped through then more intentionally sat and took out my sketchbook and here are the results. Very little of this could be considered copies. This is meant to be more of homage to the book itself, than a copy. I am always trying to bend drawings to make sure I can then use those in my original artwork.

· HHistory of the Manuscript - Said to be of the Early Middle Ages, it is a Gospel Text, in Latin long lines, written on calf vellum, the age of the pages had a beauty to them, I loved the stitching that is visible in the high res plates in the book. Quills were the tools for both the text & illuminations. Other tools they were thought to have - rulers, set-squares, compasses, and early french curves. Housed in Trinity College in Dublin (Check Dublin just got a star next to it in my travel journal).

I loved the illuminated Celtic beginnings, knot work and crazy creatures. It is a stunning achievement of precision craftsmanship.

INSPIRATION FOR THE FLAGS~ I put an alphabet together to work on the prayer flags… loosely based on the text in the book of Kells.

Tomorrow the St. John’s Bible – Yummy book.

Secret of Kells inspiration- peek into my sketchbook

After watching the movie a lot... I have been sketching with Kells on the brain. Here r some of my sketches from the movie. Tommorow I will share the book of Kells...

INSPIRATION FROM NETFLIX - The Secret of Kells

Directors - Tomm Moore, Nora Twomey ©2009

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0485601

I adore this movie and so does my 2.5 year old (yes he is a little young for it but he loves it… he calls it his tiger one). I have had the opportunity to watch this movie a lot lately. I mean a lot. Did I mention almost daily…. Now I sit back with my sketchbook and watch with artist eyes.

It is beautiful – I did an imdb search and was disappointed to not see any more by the director or art director. So then I went to the library and looked for the Book of Kells, And found a beautiful book about it. I also found a book about the making of the Saint John Bible. Funny moment with this film, my painting partner Darcie & I often trade tips on "art obsessed" movies, books & the like. She said she saw something animated that I simply must see and I cut her off and said "Secret of Kells." We laughed and put it on the TV as we crafted away.

I wanted to start a prayer flag project and over the next week I will show you how the Secret of Kells inspired me to do more research then eventually do an illumination project of my own!

BLOGS I LOVE TO VISIT

On a lazy Sunday I love to stroll craft/art blogs I love... here is my current crush list

• http://www.oneprettything.com/ -OK this one I stroll everyday!
• http://www.terribleyelloweyes.com/
• http://alisaburke.com/home.html
• http://kollaj.typepad.com/
• http://www.teeshaslandofodd.com

For a short post - this took me a long time... yep got caught in the idle surf of the web again. Thank you to all those artists and crafters who are so generous with sharing their work. I aspire!

FROM THE LIBRARY - Woman's Work

I am an obsessed library user. I check out about 50 books, dvds & audiobooks a month. I love to consume this free craft/art information. Only problem... I don't always know where I put my notes from those interesting watches, reads or listens.

This is my attempt to capture some of the knowledge "from the Library"

First up is a DVD - here is the amazon link - www.amazon.com/Womans-Work-Making-Quilts-Creating

Woman's Work

Making Quilts- Creating Art

www.womansworkvideo.com

2003 CGPP

This video shows 10 women and how they work. I don't currently quilt but have been attracted to some of their books and videos because they are basically building art pieces. I love to be able to dip into other creative pursuits and see how they explain design. I am also interested in their color theory.

These women gather and work as a critique group and sounding board for each other. I have been urning for a creative art gypsy group near where I live and this video made me renew my efforts in that area.

TWO TIPS FOR MY STUDIO-

• I loved the artist who was building structures to hang her pieces from using willow.
• I also loved how one artist organized her fabric stash all to the same size and by color. I think I will apply this to my growing stash & my collage materials.

Antiques & Art

Went on a fabulous quick trip to Eastern Washington with Mom last weekend. I am pumped about some interesting finds & incorporating them into my artwork.

Quick tip- used my phone to take pics of things I was interested in, spend the night evaluating... when back & picked the special well-priced finds.

Happy hunting!