Painting and Reading

What have I been doing since May?
Let's see...

First, I got sucked into the Instagram Vortex.  That's one of my excuse for not updating my blog. I've been posting photos of much of the artwork I've been doing over the past several months to my Instagram account and neglecting this blog. Also, because I really haven't been doing much besides painting or reading books all summer. 

Second, I went on a reading binge (yes, that is a thing, at least I do it from time to time). I have spent July through November reading all 17 books (15 novels and 2 books of short stories) in the Jim Butcher Dresden Files series. And some other books, fiction and non-fiction, 25 in all since May.

Third, I've been tired, a lot.  I can read, and do some art, and a few other necessary things every day, but not much else. I thought it was just my migraine problem and the horrible heat of this past summer, ( I hate summer), but I found out at the end of August I had a thyroid problem. I'm on medicine now so that problem should improve over time.

But I do manage to do some little bit of art every day, even if it is just one more layer on an acrylic painting or some watercolor practice.


Shown below is a collection of some of my art of Summer 2018:

 

Thanks for reading.
Aileen Biser

Still having fun with Arts and Crafts

I'm still here.
Still finding time to do arts and crafts.
I've filled spare hours with painting, artwork, sewing and bookbinding.
But I just haven't stopped to write about it.
So, to start with...
 
I find myself sitting down and playing with watercolor paint a lot. Unlike acrylic painting with the constant fear of permanently ruining something with the paint, I can do watercolors virtually anywhere. All my acrylic painting projects are done in my craft room, usually with old cloths on. But I do most of my watercolors sitting at the kitchen table.

In January I was thinking about Valentines and set out to make some watercolor heart art.

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In February I was busy making a watercolor mixing chart with the different watercolor paints I have been collecting over the past year. I just buy colors I like without any goal or plan in mind. This is the first time I've made one of these charts. It's a little messy.  I'd like to do three different charts; yellows and blues, yellows and pinks, and pinks and blues.

By March I was thinking about Shamrocks but didn't spend much time on that and moved on to just playing with watercolor paint in the form of colorful abstracts.  I've been doing a bunch of these, experimenting with different color combinations.

 

I often go back over the watercolor with some pen or marker embellishments. 

It's all just doodling to me.

In April I stopped long enough to make something for the monthly ArtSnacks challenge.

But I can't seem to make a really symmetric butterfly freehand.  If I'm trying to be a perfectionist I draw an outline of one side of the butterfly, trace it on to tracing paper, flip that over and transfer the mirror image outline to the other side. I didn't do that this time so I can't look at this without seeing all the asymmetric differences. 

So I scanned in the drawing, split the image down the middle and with some help from Photoshop created two different perfectly symmetric Butterflies from the original drawing. 

Thanks for reading.
Aileen

End of 2017 Wrap Up

For several weeks in October and November I worked on another Project Linus Mystery Quilt Challenge.  The theme this year was Ethan the Elephant and his travels around the world. Each block represents a different continent or area of the world. You can see more about this challenge at the Project Linus website.

I also worked on a another artwork challenge with the monthly ArtSnacks box:

And designed a Christmas Card and Christmas towel with some artwork my son created and a little Photoshop magic. The towels were printed on cotton canvas fabric at Spoonflower.

 And the cards were printed at Shutterfly.

And with just a little sewing we have cute new Holiday towels.

I found time to sew a couple more fun zipper pouches. They are big enough to hold pencils, pens, markers and small notebooks.

I love the Ghastlie and Sebastion Cat fabric.  I think the grouchy little cat is cute.  I have a skinny 17 year old cat and I've seen that look before. 

Several of the fabrics I used to make this pouch are sample prints of designs I uploaded to Spoonflower.  The solid fabric is from the Grunge Basics by Moda fabric line.

And made a mini traveler's style journal and filled it with homemade mini notebooks that I made using Star Wars themed fabric for the covers.  The secret to using fabric like this for covers is Heat'n Bond Ultra Hold Iron-On Adhesive between a layer of fabric and paper.

Thanks for reading.
Aileen