Tuesday, June 28, 2011

High Fashion and Knitwear?

First - go to this blog and read the post from Tuesday, June 28 "Men's Fashion Knits"

Seriously this is what gets me inspired. The mixture or all the high fashion and runways with knitwear! I dont usually send people to other blogs but this one was so great I just had to pass it on. Thanks Michaela!

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Ballet and Chopin always inspire me to paint

This week we made it to Colorado! Upon waking up Monday morning I found myself with an incredible amount of time to do whatever I pleased. At first I was at a loss. What on earth was I going to do with all of this time?

Over my morning coffee I decided to check out what was going on at the dance studio I danced at while in high school. I was hoping to check out their recently remodeled studios and perhaps find some old friends there. I hopped in the truck and drove down to Loveland only to find a locked studio. Humph. It was still pretty early so I sat down at the coffee shop across the street to see if anyone would show up. It was there that it dawned on me that all of the summer sessions might be taking place at the Fort Collins studio. I called and confirmed my suspicion.

Around one thirty that afternoon I showed up at the Fort Collins studio and was given the grand tour by the wonderful owner Jennissa. I then asked if perhaps I could stick around long enough to sketch the pointe class. She was only too happy to oblige. Here are a couple sketches I came up with. I focused mostly on the legs and feet.









I left the class feeling inspired and after returning home decided that I needed to paint. I browsed around the internet to find a picture to work from and finally found one of a dancer in Alonzo King's LINES Ballet.

Conveniently my mom is an artist so even though I left my painting supplies in CA I managed to find a blank canvas, brushes and some paint.

I decided to only use a portion of the canvas so the very first thing I did was cover the unused parts with gaffers tape so I wouldn't smudge the white of the canvas. Then I painted in most of the background except a general area where I ultimately wanted the dancer to be.


Next I sketched in a rough outline of the dancer and painted a more exact background.



Then I turned on Chopin (my very most favorite composer) and began the more precise shading and shaping. I love black and white art so it seemed natural to choose to paint in black and white for this piece. However, I always find it a bit more challenging to paint in mostly black because all of the different shades of grey require you to mix a different blend of water and paint. But with as difficult as it was at times I must admit that I loved every minute of it!

After I had finished the detail work I pulled off my gaffers tape outline to find some of the grey from the stage in the painting had seeped under the tape. This is what I call an artistic accident because I loved the effect it had on the look of the piece! At that point I was almost finished. I added some white paint over the white areas on the canvas just to add a bit of dimension and a subtle texture.

And here she is!




Earlier today I went in search of the perfect frame and decided upon a very feminine white one that cradles this piece so well! Unfortunately I neglected to take a picture of it in the frame before I gave it to Jennissa so you'll just have to use your imagination :)

With all this time for creativity, I have a lot to write about so there are more blogs coming soon!

Friday, June 3, 2011

Well hellllloooo there summer!

As of this afternoon we are officially done with all Camfel shows until August! After our show today for about 200 first graders we started on the 48 hour drive from Scranton, PA to Los Angeles, CA.
We are so excited to get home after ten months on the road!

The exciting thing is that we'll spend about six weeks of our summer housesitting in Wyoming. That means I will have a ton of time to experiment with creating all sorts of cool things!

I am just finishing up my summer pattern for a lace tunic for which a blog post and pattern should be coming shortly.

Also Johnny and I are planning on launching a new podcast soon called "Yarn Tripper"! It is a podcast all about traveling for fiber enthusiasts. It'll include things like where to eat, what to see, where to stay and a great fiber find! We have already recorded one episode that should be available after we get back and settled a bit.

I can't wait to blog about all the fun stuff that's in the works! Happy summer to you all!