Paper and Threads

Home from Quilt Festival - tired, but happy - and I'm posting a drawing inspired by my visit to the Delacroix exhibit several weeks ago. 

I sketched Delacroix's Tanner with graphite pencil when I was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art several weeks ago. His Morocco watercolors are among my favorites, and I finally painted it using the colors he used for the clothing and the background.  Below is the first drawing and the painted version.

Delacroix Tanner painted.

Posted by Shirley at 5:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am going to the International Quilt Festival in Houston Texas this weekend for 5 days.  This is my 33rd annual Festival - and it has grown from several large spaces at the Shamrock Hilton Hotel, when I first attended, to the Convention Center in Houston, occupying 3 floors in this HUGE space.  There are hundreds of Vendors, Quilt, Doll, Clothing exhibits, and lots of classes and lectures - to name just a few activities.  They report 50-60,000 visitors each year from most parts of the world. 

This is where I take classes and keep my textile passion alive.  For many years my classes were devoted to "surface design" which means taking white fabric and converting it into colored decorated fabric using a variety of techniques. 

I use my hand-dyed fabric for many projects, and even make book cloth with it for my handmade watercolor sketchbooks.  I just finished making this book and a matching pen pocket which I now use with every sketchbook when I'm sketching out of my apartment..  

These are the end papers and the back side of the pen pocket. 

Here are Sketchbooks numbered 29-50, and the new one is #62. I need to do another shelf photo.   I enjoy using these colorful sketchbooks, all with 140 lb watercolor paper that I love.

I'll be back blogging next Friday, unless I can figure out how to do it easily from my phone.  I'd love to show you the art quilts that can compete with the best of the art we see on paper and canvas. 

Posted by Shirley at 2:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

This week in our figure drawing class we used toned paper and black and white media- my pencils were Conte.  We had two models and two poses, each about 40 minutes to draw the two models together.  This was one of my goals, so I'm glad we did it, and I think I learned about how to add dark and light tones - with the paper representing the mid-value.  I actually made myself a sketchbook of toned paper last year and had picked out various types of black and white pencils, and tested them all in preparation for my project.  Then I fractured my wrist and that was a project I deferred.

It was Halloween and the older male model had on devil horns and the younger one had his real Mohawk hair gelled into position.  

Posted by Shirley at 1:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)