Travel Faces

One of my favorite travel destinations is in Mexico.  So today for the face off, I am sharing a couple of older photos from my travels.

First up is a fun bit of art from a museum that I visited in Merida Mexico.  

These two characters were larger than life.

Next up is a photo of me on a Mexican beach.

I have no idea which beach this was, but I have a Mexican haircut in the photo.

When I travel, I like to get a haircut in every foreign country I visit. 

A couple of places (cruise stops) that hasn't been possible.

But if I am there for a week, I will be getting a haircut if possible. 

My motto: It is just hair, it will grow back. 

I see that I wasn't smiling - but I was having a good time.

The fact is that the sun was blinding me and I was trying to keep my eyes open. 

I am linking up with  DVArtist for the Friday FaceOff.

  Clicking the link will take you to her blog.  It is great fun

 to see how various people interpret the challenge.

Until Next Time,  

Stay Creative 

Comments are welcomed. I will reply when possible. Of course if you are a "No Reply Blogger"- I can not reply. Links in comments will result in the entire comment being deleted.

Well! That was fast.

On Wednesday, my oldest niece and her two daughters visited Mom.  Of course when they got there Mom was working on the puzzle and said "Y'all come help me with this puzzle."  According to my niece, the youngest is a puzzle whiz.  All I know is that before lunch time the puzzle looked like this:

Yes,  they finished it in a short time.  I think I am glad that someone else got to sort out all those tree parts. I find that the tree foliage is always the part that I leave for the last.  I suppose we will start another one in the next few days. 

Until Next Time,  

Stay Creative 

Comments are welcomed. I will reply when possible. Of course if you are a "No Reply Blogger"- I can not reply. Links in comments will result in the entire comment being deleted.

A little fun with Mom

Some of the presents my Mom got were puzzles.  So we have started one of them.  The first day we got the outline - which is how I work on a puzzle. Mom, of course, just starts trying to fit any pieces together. 

As long as she doesn't leave pieces loose in the "frame area" I am okay with that.  Ha ha. In the photo you can see that she has  two pieces that I haven't yet removed. 

Of course sometimes, I can take those pieces and attach them. She is much better at finding pieces than fitting them into place. Mom is fantastic at sorting pieces sometimes. That is why the barn and the house are in place. Mom had piles of "barn" and "house" pieces, all I had to do was make them fit together. 

I think we are a pretty good team. 

Until Next Time,  

Stay Creative 

Comments are welcomed. I will reply when possible. Of course if you are a "No Reply Blogger"- I can not reply. Links in comments will result in the entire comment being deleted.

Merry Christmas

Here is a portrait of a guy you may be familiar with. I painted this several years ago. 

This is one of my favorite Christmas paintings. Merry Christmas to you all! 

Until Next Time,  

Stay Creative 

Comments are welcomed. I will reply when possible. Of course if you are a "No Reply Blogger"- I can not reply. Links in comments will result in the entire comment being deleted.

An Early Merry Christmas to You

First of all, I want to say Merry Christmas to all of you that celebrate Christmas. Today I am sharing two small wall hanging quilts that will be Christmas presents. I don't think either of the recipients read my blog. If they do the only surprise will be which one they get.  

Since this is also a Friday post,  I hope you notice that there is a face on each of them. 

Some of you who saw yesterday's post may see that the trees are constructed with the hearts and of course the stars became the tree toppers. 

And just one more photo to show how much love I put into these - I did some of the quilting with metallic thread. That stuff is a booger to quilt with. 

I am linking up with  DVArtist for the Friday FaceOff.

  Clicking the link will take you to her blog.  It is great fun

 to see how various people interpret the challenge.

Until Next Time,  

Stay Creative 

Comments are welcomed. I will reply when possible. Of course if you are a "No Reply Blogger"- I can not reply. Links in comments will result in the entire comment being deleted.

What?!?!

What on earth am I doing with these?

Check my post on Friday to see. I hope your holiday season is happy.  Stay warm!

Until Next Time,  

Stay Creative 

Comments are welcomed. I will reply when possible. Of course if you are a "No Reply Blogger"- I can not reply. Links in comments will result in the entire comment being deleted.

Friday Face

Welcome to another Friday Face! This lady seems to be suffering from seasonal depression which can be a very big problem this time of year.  Did you know that many people suffer winter depression? Some people call it the "winter blues,"  but for those prone to depression, it can be a serious issue.  I know that I need more light in my house in the winter to combat the gloom of winter.  I freely admit that I have suffered depression in the past.  I needed both medication and counseling to get past the problem. I no longer require either, but I stay vigilant and would seek help if needed.  

People, this is NOT something to cause shame - the only shame is not seeking help and overcoming the depression.  If you would like to read more about seasonal affective disorder, here is a link to the Mayo Clinic article.
(end of my public service announcement/rant)

I enjoyed creating this lady, and I didn't realize how sad and forlorn she looks until after I had finished. I think part of that is created by the heavy eyes and perhaps by the colors I used. Also, the mouth is "pouty/sad" because I used the darker color for the top lip. 
Because the face is darker, I chose a bright yellow into green hand dyed fabric for the background. 

All of the face, neck and hair are also hand dyed fabrics. The torso bit is a nice batik that just looked perfect, but it needed that hand dyed ruffle around the neck to keep it from blending into the neck. 

Ms. Nancy

 The next stage will be to mount the small quilt onto a 12" square stretched canvas. The canvas will be painted black around the edges and on the front part that will show in the completed piece.  Putting it on a canvas makes it easy to hang this on the wall like a painting. 

I am linking up with  DVArtist for the Friday FaceOff.

  Clicking the link will take you to her blog.  It is great fun

 to see how various people interpret the challenge.

Until Next Time,  

Stay Creative 

Comments are welcomed. I will reply when possible. Of course if you are a "No Reply Blogger"- I can not reply. Links in comments will result in the entire comment being deleted.

Dec 9 Friday Face Off

I am still having a lot of fun creating face quilts. One of the things that I love best is the personality of each character.  Today's face is named Cora Mae. Cora Mae sings in a bluesy jazz style. 

Cora Mae was created on one of the scrappy backgrounds that I showed previously  Cora Mae is made of all warm colors to contrast nicely with the cool colored background.  The one exception is her lips. Those are a cool purple that looks almost blue in this photo. Originally, the planned photo didn't have the highlights in the eyes.  I noticed that as I was beginning to write the blog post. A quick run into the studio and less than a drop of white paint fixed that quickly.  Here she is without the eye highlights.

You can see that the highlight adds character and life to the gaze.

On this one, the quilting seems subtle to me.  

Once the face is fused, I use black thread to do what I call coloring book outlines to sew down all the edges of the figure.  In this case, while it was still under the needle, I created the hair design also. 

And prior to that here is what she looked like  fused into place with no lines added.

Although this shows the process in reverse, you can see that each layer adds and builds on the previous layer to complete the piece.  The next stage will be to mount the small quilt onto a 12" square stretched canvas. The canvas will be painted black around the edges and on the front part that will show in the completed piece.  Putting it on a canvas makes it easy to hang this on the wall like a painting. 

I am linking up with  DVArtist for the Friday FaceOff.

  Clicking the link will take you to her blog.  It is great fun

 to see how various people interpret the challenge.

Until Next Time,  

Stay Creative 

Comments are welcomed. I will reply when possible. Of course if you are a "No Reply Blogger"- I can not reply. Links in comments will result in the entire comment being deleted.

Scrappy Backgrounds

Since I am clearly not out of my "make a quilted face" phase,  I decided to make a couple of background pieces using  Steam-a-Seam, batting and scraps.  First up, I wanted a neutral one so that I can use it behind a  wildly colorful face - because you know I love vivid colors.  

 After making that one, the thought hit me to make one with analogous colors (colors side by side on the color wheel.)  I grabbed a bag or two of scraps and started pulling out greens and blues.  Honestly I could have made at least five backgrounds from all the scraps I pulled out.  Now, both of these backgrounds are "ready for my close up, Mr DeMille."  (ha ha)  

I am hoping to make a face with every color of the rainbow on the neutral background. 

Meanwhile on the blue and green one, I plan to use mostly warm colors -reds, yellows, oranges.

Of course I will probably have some purple in there also. And perhaps on the interior, I will even include some blue and green, but I don't want it "fighting" with the background. 

Meanwhile,  I was given a video with my performance in the Rocky Horror Play. 

I may get in trouble for sharing it. If I do it will go away. But for now, 

here it is 

I was amazed that some people clapped and cheered when I walked on. Then when the song ended and they went wild, I was amazed - of course the applause was more for the whole show than for just me, but I basked in the reflected glory. 

Until Next Time,  

Stay Creative 

Comments are welcomed. I will reply when possible. Of course if you are a "No Reply Blogger"- I can not reply. Links in comments will result in the entire comment being deleted.

Good Morning World!

While looking at past projects  I remembered making a chicken quilt back in 2012.  I wanted to remake the quilt with some changes and mount it on a stretched canvas like I am mounting my face quilts.  I searched diligently for the pattern, to no avail.   I decided that I would contact the artist and ask if it was still available. Shock! She sent me the pattern attached to an email.  Of course, then I really had to make another one.  (Thanks Laura!)  She then made the pattern available on her website as a freebie and told us about it in her newsletter.  What a great Thanksgiving gift. 

Here is my latest chicken quilt "Good Morning, World!" 

The background sky is a fabric that I dyed, but if you don't dye or paint fabric, I would recommend fabrics from Artfabrik (Laura)  and Colorways by Vicki Welsh.  Both make wonderful dyed fabrics. 

Several of the chicken fabrics are from my stash of fabrics from Vicki. The breast is a fun shibori that I got from Vicki.  The head, comb and wattle come from a stash pack of reds from Vicki called Zinnia. 

Have you ever made a chicken quilt of any kind?

Until Next Time,  

Stay Creative 

Comments are welcomed. I will reply when possible. Of course if you are a "No Reply Blogger"- I can not reply. Links in comments will result in the entire comment being deleted.

Friday Face Off Dec. 2, 2022

Too much fun? It could be that making these quilted faces IS too much fun for me.  I keep experimenting with the "what if's" of faces.  My first thought is "How can I make this one different?"  I love it when they seem to have personalities.  I think this lady has some personality. 

Lisa

You may have seen this background in a previous post. I decided to see if I could make it work with the face. So the colors were chosen to work with the background. 

There was one on the righthand side that was "fighting" with the face. 

It was distracting!

So I decided to use a bit of paint to mute it and make it work better. 

I think it worked nicely. 

The face drawing in the next section I have used in the Face Off previously.

But I had to share this observation.

I was looking through some photos that I had taken while ushering at a concert.  (I only take photos at the concerts on rare occasions.)  When I saw first one of these pictures and then a picture of one of my drawings.  The drawing was long before the photo, but there is clearly a strong resemblance, don't you think?  

I don't think it was a psychic flash, just a neat coincidence.  

I am linking up with  DVArtist for the Friday FaceOff.

  Clicking the link will take you to her blog.  It is great fun

 to see how various people interpret the challenge.

Until Next Time,  

Stay Creative 

Comments are welcomed. I will reply when possible. Of course if you are a "No Reply Blogger"- I can not reply. Links in comments will result in the entire comment being deleted.