Archive for the ‘mandalas’ Category

Last week I show the beginnings of my Ice quilt, to complement the Desert Heat quilt I made. I went to Girls’ Night Out at the LQS last Saturday and got a lot of quilting done. I then decided what to select for the first interior border. THe cool thing with the Deat quilt is the inner border really is unexpected. The blue really sets things off nicely.

For the Ice quilt I decided to look for a yellow to represent the very weak winter sun, especially being from New England! You can see the yellows I pulled from the stash. I decided to go with the middle one because it was pale, and there is some very interesting texture within the fabric itself, with brighter yellows in a few places.

Here is the finished center. It is fairly “cold” and rigid, which of course is what ice is. Hopefully by next week I’ll have the flying geese borders on as the next step.

Also this week I have been having some fun with the Sketchbook Challenge. I uploaded my first pic to Flickr and got some very nice feedback. I was so pleased with the first one that I had trouble sleeping, because I kept thinking of more things that are “highly prized,” and I wanted to get to work on them. So far this week I have a zentangled book, which I love!

And then, since I am working on trying to keep balance in my life, I went for the yin-yang symbol. I kept only two patterns, one straight and one curved. I’m liking what I can accomplish with these patterns. I think  a music note and the comedy/tragedy masks might be next.

Send me some links to see your sketches if you’re doing the Challenge. You can click on the link on the right to get to information about the Sketchbook Challenge. I am also thinking of looking into 3 Creative Studios for their Journal Quilt Challenge, and potentially their color challenge. I just want to keep myself motivated and try some new ideas, but no pressures on me – if I do it, fine, and if not, fine also.

Over the last thirteen years I have been entering fiber shows and the occasional quilt show with some success. The “Fish Follies” show each year at the Cordova Historical Museum in Cordova, Alaska has been very good to me, with acceptance both in fiber and digital categories each time I enter. I really think through the pieces I enter to be sure they fit the theme – I think I’m just not crazy enough in the “Follies” area to place.

In 2004 I took a BIG chance and entered the Expressions in Textiles show in New Haven, CT. My “Rock Garden” piece made it in, much to my delight, and when I saw the list of acceptances, I was kinda stunned. All of a sudden I was in the “big girl” league. I was thrilled. This was essentially a whole cloth quilt, a half yard of a stone marbled pattern that seemed like it was quilted to death.

This is just a small portion, but everything in this quilt came together perfectly. I had initially bordered it in a black satin, thinking of the Japanese laquerwork, but eventually Iplicked out a smooth sand-ish fabric so the stones wouldn’t seem “hemmed in.”

That same time I had my “Mandala 1: Core” accepted into a quilt show, Fabric of Legacies, in Ft. Collins, CO.

This was another whole cloth quilt, but at this point I was thinking that there were going to be a lot of venues that would look at very non-traditional fiber. I have since had my “Low Tide” piece juried into that show.

Most of my quilts were rejected over the next few years, and I pretty much stopped entering shows. I think some was due to poor slide quality, some to the whims of the juror…one piece I did for a show about changing the world’s problems. I chose endangerment/extinction and did a piece on the rain forest and was told it didn’t fit the theme. So I guess the learning from this was to continue, that not everyone interprets things the same way.

When we went through our “dry period” of marbling, when nothing was working, I didn’t even work on pieces, like my bamboo, that had already been started. Now, though, I have started to look ahead to shows, quilt and art, and plan for new pieces, since most of what I have is too old. If my early pieces were accepted, and I’ve improved a hundred fold in my skills since then, then I should be on track for a few more acceptances.

We’ll see…deadline for the bamboo is September 3, with notification around September 15. Time to make a list of new deadlines and what will be entered…and what will be new creations.

On Wednesday, February 20, Eric Maisel will be stopping by this blog, with an interview on his new book, The Van Gogh Blues. I really want to look at the issue of making meaning for adolescents. I am having a terrible time encouraging kids to want to learn. Maybe Eric will have some insights.

I am working on making my own meaning with the kids in art. I prepared a rather long presentation for the kids, with lots of websites on mandalas. The Mandala Project is quite involved, and there are some great examples of individual mandalas that have been created and added to the site. take some time to look through the site. The kids did not, on the whole, know anything about labyrinths, so that was another interested segue.

We also looked at the Tibetan Healing Mandala made after September 11. The kids were fascinated, and couldn’t believe the mandala was “destroyed” at the end. This led to an interesting discussion about our western perception of “art” and the difference with a work of art that is very temporal. There are hourly pictures of the 2-week project, as well as detailed pictures. The kids were fascinated.

The eighth graders in particular had a very hard time getting going, but once they mastered the compass they were able to get a little more involved, and by the end of the period, most were getting into detail. My seventh graders are doing some great stuff. I actually had some time and I started on one – wanting to use some symmetry. I like where it’s going – would make an interesting quilt – probably need to start some digital work in that area. Hmmmm….

Also, as a way of trying to bring the mandala home to Arizona, I included a link on Navajo sand paintings, which also work with the circle motif. It was a productive two days in art class. I am looking forward to scanning the finished work – last semester it was a very successful project.

I am continuing to spotlight some student work of my seventh graders. I think next semester the kids will keep an art class blog so they can publish their work. Here is another mandala and the manipulation that was done.

Some of the students have been doing graffiti-like drawings, and then we’ve been snapping a photo in PhotoBooth and moving it into Photoshop.

This next is just playing around with shapes and backgrounds.

This is a cool letter from our stained glass letter project.

THis last is an illuminated letter from another assignment.

I am sitting here with my wonderful seventh graders, who have been busily at work for this class period. I want to share with you some of the wonderful work they have been doing. This first is taking a photo in PhotoBooth and then moving it into Photoshop to play with filters. The first is the line drawing, and the second is a photo only a mother would love….

These next started as a mandala assignment – highly successful in getting the kids to represent themselves. A couple said they wanted to try putting their mandalas in Photoshop to see what would happen. Here’s two versions of one of them, with the first being the original.

This next is the mandala of a typical teenager!