WIP - Untitled Corn

Experimenting with different thread colors and thicknesses.
4x6ish inches. Natural dyed cotton fabric.

WIP- Bins

Charcoal on gesso on baltic birch plywood.

This is the second time I've tried painting over charcoal, ok I'm using a brush to paint with, and I have to admit I absolutely loathe it!  First off I find myself wanting to paint 'inside' the lines like a coloring book, mistake number one, and secondly I keep expecting my brush to respond like my palette knife and well we all know that's not going to happen, mistake number two.  So when the first coat of paint is done drying I'm planning to go at it again with my palette knife and this time ignore those line!

Acrylic on baltic birch plywood.

Bins in Blue No. 1

Available in my store.

New Bits and Pieces in Progress

WIP

Trying to depict wheat field behind the grain bins, I've been biting off the temptation to paint the bins black!

Bird Harvest No. 2 WIP

In Progress 6x6 inches

WIP No. 32

WIP No. 32 Now that my wet studio is cleaned up I can paint fabric once again, I made this piece today in celebration of having a surface to work on!!!
18x22 inches
Setacolor Transparent Paint, Shiva Paintstiks, Natural Muslin 7878

My Bird Sketches Suck!!!

I had a sketch of a bird, and it's foot pattern, set off to the side and still managed to muck it up!!! I drew this with a sharpie on water color paper. I think I need to go back and study those Robin and Crow pics I took a few weeks ago!

Untitled Bird 5 x 5 inches

It needs something, aside from a better looking bird!!! I'm not putting another bird to the large panels until I get them where I want on smaller pieces.

Corn Head Girl

4x6 inches

Finished I hope we will see I'm off to work on another piece and will let this one sit awhile. As soon as the word "juggle" came to mind I knew this piece needed a bird. I had hundreds of Robins and Cedar Wax Wings visit my lawn recently, they fought with the crows for the last of the crabapples on my tree. Yet I found kernals of corn everywhere in my lawn, did they stop in a corn field or at an elevator first? One will never know.

Available in My Store

Corn Head Girl

In progress still 4x6 inches it'll live on my desk until it tells me what it needs. Right now she looks as if she's trying to juggle - hmmmmmmm.

Prairie Potholes

I didn't like these two pieces so I set them aside, with the advent of my new series Harvest, I decided to experiment and sure enough they needed some sketches as well. Lets just say I'm reviewing my entire Prairie Potholes Series now for it's potential to be changed!

8x 10 inches each

Prairie Potholes - Harvest No. 8

Prairie Potholes - Harvest No. 8
5 x 7 inches
Compost dyed cotton cloth cochineal dyed silk organza fabric, machine stitched, timtex core, black commercial cotton cloth backing.

Now Available in My Store

Prairie Potholes Harvest No. 7 & 8

In progress I decided I didn't like them as is they were not finished! So here they are before I changed them for the better.

Inspiration for Prairie Potholes -Harvest

A couple of folks have asked me what my inspiration was it's very simple actually it is what I saw day in and day out as a kid growing up in the country. Every farm had grain bins, barns, some had silo's, etc. I started the Prairie Pothole Series sometime around 2003, made several nice pieces in 2005, and made several more in 2007, but they were always lacking something.

Last Sunday I had hubby take me for a country drive and with my handy trusty digital camera in hand I snapped some shots of farms etc., and came home and started stitching. What can I say while I long for a pure prairie teaming with buffalo, prairie chickens, elk, etc., that is NOT the world I grew up in. I grew up in a prairie filled with tiled fields, ravines, silos, grain bins, barns and elevated fuel tanks.

Todays kiddos are growing up with a reality of confinement houses in their view - that was NOT my reality~!

Anyway... watch for more from my machine as I have many pieces in progress from this idea now.

Prairie Potholes Rural View

Prairie Potholes Rural View - In progress they need something I'm just not sure what maybe a good nights sleep and NO interruptions in the morning will help??? John was in my studio while I was working I have to admit I did NOT appreciate being told I had to stop because he couldn't hear the woman on the phone, you don't want to know what I was thinking but I did keep it to myself.

Got Wool?

My living room has turned into a wool room! Not for long though I have to clean the east bedroom and once it's cleaned I can move John's office out of the library and put my wool into the library with the rest of the left over inventory from the store - which isn't much these days. I'm hoping to sell the remaining fixtures etc., and soon. For now it's a good use of the space I just need to find room for my poor loom!