FORAY INTO BROOKLYN

So Martha & I took the train down to NYC yesterday & met Pat & Peter in Brooklyn.

Pat was up from Atlanta area and staying with her brother Pete, out in Oyster Bay.

Pete knows Brooklyn like the back of his hand and had a great French Cafe picked out for brunch.

After a round of lattes & espressos along with delicious brunch choices, we headed to the Brooklyn Art Library to see Sketchbook Project 2011.

Both Pat & I had sketchbooks in the 'show'. I had been there last Sunday but this was their first look.

Bookended the day at

another cafe. Desserts, coffees & so much to talk about.

Photos from yesterday from the top:

Pat & Marge

Martha, Pat & Pete looking at 3 of the 10,000 sketchbooks! (Pat is holding Kathy Maghini's sketchbook, Martha's sister.)

Pat with her sketchbook - theme: Things Found on Napkins

Looking & laughing.

Crowd at the Brooklyn Art Library yesterday, Sunday, afternoon.

FINDING MY SKETCHBOOK

I have to see this! How are they going to find my book on this wall of 10,000 sketchbooks !?

Ahh they have a system. I figured it out. They are organized!

My book's theme is A record year of rainfall. So the theme, beginning with the letter A put my book somewhere in the first bay of shelves.

After finding books of the same theme, the Art House gal looked for mine, alphabetized by artists names.

Note the rope in front of the bookshelves. Only the Art House staff takes the books off the shelves.

I have to admit that I was so excited about seeing my book, RAIN, pulled off the shelves! It really was at the Brooklyn Art Library ! And there I am holding it!

I headed for a table, sat down & upon opening it, found the glued-on pocket on the inside cover with my bio, as promised.

This is such fun to be a part of. Maybe I'll do it again! Oh - I'm wearing the blue sticker identifying me as a sketchbook artist participant.

more to come...

COME IN WE'RE OPEN

So said the sign on the door when Nelson & I stopped by the Brooklyn Art Library on Sunday evening. The mob scene had dwindled to just a few people. Great time to see the sketchbooks! There it was, a wall of 10,000 sketchbooks. Somewhere on those shelves was mine & sketchbooks by my friends, Pat, Kathy & Jo! We all participared in The Sketchbook Project 2011.

First stop inside the door was the Library Card desk. I had mine already. They sent it along with the blank sketchbook some

months ago when I joined the challenge. Being a participating artist I was asked to sign the ledger & given a sticker to wear, identifying me as one of the Sketchbook artists. Nice touch.

Next stop was the Checkout desk. (that's me in photo) I was pretty impressed with how organized everything was! They could find a specific book in their IMac's without any trouble at all. They scanned my library card & keyed in the info I gave them.

A printout of my book & one other one, popped out of a machine & was picked up by another staffer at who went in search of the book(s). You could take out 2x at once but only on the same theme.

When I finished looking at the sketchbook(s) I returned them to the Check-In desk, where they were scanned back in.

Story to be continued.

MOVING FIL

I moved Filomena De Andrade Booth's painting in the grand re-mix of art at our place. I'm enjoying her Golden Pastures in a new location. (lower photo)

I went to college with Filomena, where we were both art education majors. Years later when we met on FB, I discovered an accomplished painter. Some months passed by and I bought this wonderful painting by Fil.

I love the oranges in this piece and the fields remind me of blocks of colorful quilt design.

Fil features her work on the web, the way I bought this piece. She has beautiful work posted.

http://filomenaboothart.blogspot.com/

http://filomenabooth.com/

(Top photo-my quilt, Window of Hope, to the left.)

MINIMAL ON THE WALL

Rearranging the art on the walls this week, I hung all four of my Dye Vat giclees. Here's one on the wall.

I had to laugh when I stepped back and took a look. Once up on the wall I could see how minimal the design is.

I keep talking about going minimal. Yes indeed! That's my direction!

Think I'll post this in a minimal gray.

The 4 Dye Vat originals are framed and spoken for but giclee prints can be ordered.

REMAKING DRIZZLE

WHOOOOPS! I missed scanning the drizzle page of the RAIN book.

The book is now down at the Brooklyn Library. I received word this week that it arrived.

My book is part of the mega event - Sketchbook Project 2011. I say mega because over 28,000 people have signed up to create in these sketchbooks.

Plan on going down a week from Sunday to see it with friends. Expecting a major mob scene.

Back to missing page. My husband wants us to make a Blurb book with the RAIN book images so I recreated the missing page today. I took a lot of process photos so no problem. Tonight we'll scan it & start working on the book.

GALLERY SPACE

Every couple months I get inspired to change the art at our place.

Today was that day! It's a bit of a puzzle, positioning all the artwork into the given spaces.

A few years ago, my husband designed 4 bays of adjustable gallery shelving for our great room. Made with lengths of poplar, the shelf heights are changed by moving wooden pegs.

No patching nail holes at our house!

Photo fall 2010

THE PROCESS OF GOING MINIMAL

I've been slowly working my way from complicated to minimal. Minimal was where I wanted to be years ago but it took years of artmaking to get here. It's been a long process.

17 years ago I designed the Creation Quilt. Still a favorite of many, some have called it my signature piece. Busy, busy busy...filled top to bottom & side to side with imagery. So glad I took a year to make this quilt but I've moved towards minimal ever since!

Currently I'm working on the snow book. Yesterday I drew hilly lines with machine stitches. Studying those stitches this morning.... I had to remove them! Too busy!

There is a quiet beauty in simplicity. Less is more..for me these days.

2nd photo - playing with minimal page design.

DRAWING HILLS

drawing

hills

running

stitch

jeans

needle

click

photos

to

enlarge

TRYING BLURB

My art friend, Jo, mentioned Blurb in a recent blog comment about my Apple adventures in book making. It's another internet site offering online book making.

I like the fact that they have more choices size-wise than Apple. I especially like their minimal 7" x 7" square book. Works with the little square collages themes I've been creating.

This morning I joined with user name & password and started playing! Not too much time though. Spent all day out and about again including 1 1/2 hrs.@ the Apple store learning I Photo '11.

Just put this together in the blurb program so I'd have something to post! Plan to hit the studio in the morning & work on the snow book. Maybe a Blurb snow book ahead.

CREATIVE PROBLEM SOLVING

Had a great idea that did not work. Rubber stamped some of the snow story words on a scrap of gesso painted canvas.

Very uneven results-surface too rough. Scrap that. Tried it on another fabric. Didn't like those results either.

Just problem solved in my head. Going to take a different tack.

click on photo to enlarge

Didn't work much today. Made valentine cards for my 3 grandkids. Now in the mail!

ILife '11 came. Apple store again tomorrow for 1 to 1 IPhoto workshop.

@ THE APPLE STORE

Waiting for Fed-X to deliver ILife '11 which has the updated IPhoto'11.

Meanwhile I spent this morning at the Apple Store working on a personal project. Great idea-you work on your own Mac project for 2 hours and a trainer is available to help. My project: moving images/photos from my Finder into IPhoto.

Last week I did a Personal Project learning how to create an Apple Book. Here's the cover I designed for practice. My painting on cover.

13 POSTS - ASIA IN THE BACK OF BEYOND

Met my friend, who I went with to Asia back in November 2010. She'll be presenting our trip over the next couple months to various groups. So I got together 2 quilts, 100 of my art postcards & scarves from the Asian bazaar to give her. She'll use them when she speaks.

I made labels for the back of the 100 postcards with my blog address and how to find the 13 posts about our trip.

But you can also just click here and see the 13 posts. I recommend scrolling down to the bottom of the 13 and then reading them from the bottom up in chronological order.

Snow book work still ahead.

PUSHING AROUND SHAPES

cutting

painted papers

fabric

pictures

into

squares

rectangles

triangles

houses

enlarge-click photo

Taking weekend off - see you Monday.

Regroup

or reorganize. Whichever. Whatever. I can't move ahead on this project in the middle of a messy workspace!!

With snowy sky & landscape pasted down, I'm ready to venture into the next design phase of the snow book project.

So yes, today I had to reorganize. Straightening, sorting, putting away, clearing the decks is good for the creative thought process ahead - at least for me.

I set aside the snow fabrics and brought out boxes of painted papers. Playing with house shapes tomorrow. This will be fun!

Top 2 photos are the before and 3rd is cleaned up & ready set for tomorrow morning.

click on photos to enlarge

SKY & SNOW GLUED

a couple hours cutting - pasting

background in place

pondering

houses

cats

------- lines

buttons

title

?

thinking

click photos to enlarge

PRINTING SNOW

today

paper plates

gesso

sponge

scissors

canvas

cut sponge circle

dip into gesso

print on canvas

snow

click photo to enlarge