About The Artist

20150918

2nd Friday Art Walk

I got to participate last weekend in the 2nd Friday Downtown Art Walk in Plainview, TX. And it probably took you longer to read that description than it would've taken you to walk from one end of the Art Walk to the other! But there were lots of great people there with their work, who made it worthwhile to take your time, walk slowly, stop and talk.

I brought my newly christened "Blue Louet" and I had several people stop to ask about what I was doing. One lady even tried out the drop spindle I brought along! I didn't sell anything, but I gave out a handful of cards. I had a wonderful chat with a teenage girl about my Weeping Angel picture, and I almost sold the mini-tapestry that I had hung on the front of my wheel!

All in all, not a bad way to spend a Friday evening.

20150708

Glass Of Wine

This one was four years in the making. My cousin is a wine drinker, and I don't remember if the idea for this was originally mine or hers - whether she asked me to paint something wine-related, or whether I just came up with this and she immediately claimed it.

Anyway, like most of my paintings, it started with a doodle. Then I put it through photoshop/illustrator to get an idea of where I wanted it to go:

Then I transferred the image to a canvas where I'd already painted the blue background. I used white chalk to place the lines and shapes of the "doily" then went back over it with white paint, a little at a time. Then I started filling in the colors.

Somewhere right about here, something went wrong. The colors weren't working the way I'd envisioned, and I started getting frustrated with it. (That happens a lot) It may also be that we moved from Portland back to New Mexico about that time, and it got forgotten in all the chaos of a cross-country move and preparations for a new baby.

Three years and two moves later, when I finally had my own studio space, this was the first canvas that I got back out. This time, everything clicked and before I knew it, I had a finished painting that I was completely happy with!

"Glass of Wine"

2015, acrylic on canvas

20130113

Spinning From A Sketch

This is another one where I spun for someone else, and got part of the fleece in exchange. I love spinning for people who encourage me to be creative and don't have a specific end product in mind. In this batch I got a mix of black & white, and I really wanted to add some color so I took half the white and dyed it in rainbow colors. (with ice cubes and kool-aid)

Since I had an idea of what I wanted to do, I made a sketch of what I had in mind. I'm really proud of how close my final result came to what I had envisioned! I just spun the fiber loose, grabbed a handful of white and a handful of mixed colors and let it blend as I drafted and spun it. Then I took just the colored fleece and made more "thread" to ply with.