Lunching on a Thursday

At least I think it’s Thursday.

Voice? Style?

I remember, when I belonged to SAQA, a lot of people asked how they could “find their voice” and there were workshops and other opportunities to help find one’s voice. (OK, I also remember thinking, did I lose my voice that I have to find it?)

Tonight I was reading this. Emphasis of last line is from the original.

It is only when a painter consciously chooses a manner not his own, which he does not comprehend and is incapable of firing with his own personality, that his picture is ridiculous and conventional in the dead sense.

But every age differs in its temperament, and the artistic conventions of one age seldom fit another. The artist has to discover a convention for himself, one that fits his particular individuality. But this is done simply and naturally—not by starting out with the intention of flouting all traditional conventions on principle; nor, on the other hand, by accepting them all on principle, but by simply following his own bent and selecting what appeals to him in anything and everything that comes within the range of his vision. The result is likely to be something very different from the violent exploits in peculiarity that have been masquerading as originality lately. Originality is more concerned with sincerity than with peculiarity.

The Practice & Science of Drawing — Harold Speed (via Project Gutenberg)

I myself would have emphasized the middle sentence:

But this is done simply and naturally—not by starting out with the intention of flouting all traditional conventions on principle; nor, on the other hand, by accepting them all on principle, but by simply following his own bent and selecting what appeals to him in anything and everything that comes within the range of his vision.

and I’m willing to read it all over a few times, nodding my head in agreement. I might nail it to my workroom’s wall.

End of Day Progress Report

First off, before I worked on the quilting stuff, I sat myself down to do a small watercolor. I worked with a general idea of my primroses and roses and was pretty pleased with the results. I heard the voice of my recent watercolor instructor saying “there’s no light without darks” and the pleasure he expressed mixing some purples into whatever he was interested in darkening up.

Then I left it drying while I went upstairs to choose a back for the work-in-progress that has no name. I looked again at the blue print and it was ok. Let me tell you friends, there’s nothing much to make the heart glad than deciding on black, pulling off the fabric from the bolt and measuring it, finding it’s just not enough (and I mean JUST, even if I err on being generous most of the time) and then having another whole bolt of black at the ready. Yup. That’s how I roll: always have black ready to go.

So I measured and ironed and pinned and sewed and ironed. I measured and cut batting. I cleared off my cutting table and positioned the back and the batting on it. I cleared off my big ironing board and re-ironed the whole top, all the seams, again. Quick like a bunny I laid that onto the batting before all those seams could start flapping around again. I stuck a few pins in it. I moved my boombox and the cables for hooking my iPhone into it to that room so I can continue listening to The Two Towers while I’m pinning.

Now I’m pooped and taking it easy with Razzie here along side me for company. I am enjoying the minty iced cubes in an adult beverage and looking at the difference between the wet watercolor taken with my iPhone and the dry one that I did on the scanner. And I printed out a couple copies of the WIP to think about what I might do (other than the traditional “quilt the hell out of it”) quilting-wise.

But no rush there. There’s work to be done before the quilting starts.

#amironing

That is all. 

#Ironing miles and miles of seams. 

For the Quote Box

Thanks go to @jamesvictore for this great quote (from his How to be Brave and Scared Shitless webinar):

We’re all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn’t. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing. — Charles Bukowski

Here’s the view here right now – in a few I’ll be off to wrangle fabric. Click for the Flickr Album!

//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

Let the Lunching Begin!

#feelingvirtuous #feelingwellfed

And on Monday

I can’t say I rested since I came home and cooked up all kinds of things – green beans, potatoes, hard boiled eggs, plus dinner for me tonight and washed up some cherries and had some iced tea and now something involving minty ice cubes.

After my culinary whirlwind, I went upstairs and figured out how much fabric I needed for a back. Not so bad, about 3 yards (which is the easy way to do it and quite generous). The first piece of fabric I picked up had about 5 yards of fabric which would be plenty for both backing, facings and sleeves. It would be a forgiving fabric in terms of backing – my other option is black. I have lots and lots of black fabric.

Then, of course, thread:

A Long Long Sunday

Sometime this afternoon, I stuck a silver marking pencil in my hair to pin it up. It worked. I found it when I went to comb out my hair, pre-shower.

Also sometime today I listened to so much Lord of the Rings that my brain started to finish sentences with a random selection of “in Khazad-dûm” or “in Mordor, where the Shadows lie” (or alternatively: “In Mordor, where the shadows are”).

The world is grey, the mountains old,
The forge’s fire is ashen-cold;
No harp is wrung, no hammer falls:
The darkness dwells in Durin’s halls;
The shadow lies upon his tomb
In Moria, in Khazad-dûm.
But still the sunken stars appear
In dark and windless Mirrormere;
There lies his crown in water deep,
Till Durin wakes again from sleep.

Gil-galad was an Elven-king.
Of him the harpers sadly sing:
The last whose realm was fair and free
Between the mountains and the sea.

His sword was long, his lance was keen.
His shining helm afar was seen.
The countless stars of heaven’s field
Were mirrored in his silver shield.

But long ago he rode away,
And where he dwelleth none can say.
For into darkness fell his star;
In Mordor, where the shadows are.

From The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Tradition of Tea and Iced Tea

Those who know need no commentary.

Needed a break to recover from taking leave of Lothlorien…

Unknown Celebrity Sighting

Also this week:

At work there was a very tall, slender woman dressed to maximize her height and slimness and the whole effect was just a bare notch over the top. She smacked of ‘somebody’ but I certainly didn’t know who and none of my young co-workers seemed to be buzzing about her presence.

At last several teenage girls came in and were seen whispering to each other and trying not to point. Ah ha, I thought, she must actually be someone. and indeed they finally gathered up the courage to go over and tell the anonymous celebrity just how awesome they thought she was and how excited they were to meet her.

Then, like Brigadoon, all of them vanished.