Happy 2020,
I hope that good things to come to all who read this blog. 2019 certainly was a full and good year for me. With trips to Mexico and Australia as the highlights. I still have lots of ideas to explore for both of those events. They are a big part of my To Do list for this new year. After giving it a lot of though this week I think my color emphasis for this year will be Red. It is not a color that I go to often although I do like it. I hope to use more and started out this week in the studio with at in mind.   A little challenge.

Progress Report: Jumping Off Place this piece is 30″w X 15″ t. Angela gave me a work pack full of goodies last spring and I finally got it all together. It is fully my own design using mostly the things in the pack plus a lot of my own stuff that I thought went along well. The packet was to be a starting place – hence the name. I did have fun.

Three Grosbeaks This work is 16″w X 15″ t. I needed to do a little free motion machine drawing this week and the birds are the result. here is a red wool base that I felted into to  build this work.    It fits into my new  Red goal.

The leaves are silk paper.

 

 

 

 

 

25 Million Stitches Project This project is 15″w X 25″l. I will send it off to the California add this week. I have an idea for a second and may do that too as I am still quite concerned about the kids separated from their parents on our boarder.   After sewing the work to my friend Sharron  she pointed out two spelling errors.  So I will be doing some reworking on this project before I send it out.  It is goo to have friend who are honest with me and will help me do a better job.

 

 

 

 

Coral Reef I am doing the hand embellishing on this project now. Building the patterns on the sea horses is fun.

 

 

 

Experiment- Lone Tree  I had the roving out for the background  of  the birds and though why now see if one can free motion work on top of it? I drew the tree on the wash- away and put a layer of nylon netting, then the roving, topping that with a second layer of wash- away.

 

 

It seems to be effective as I did so much stitching. I will place it on this rocky landscape that I created last summer in class.

 

The clouds are silk paper too made  with silk batting so they are courser.

Creative Assistants I can see the end of creating these little faces as football season is drawing to a close. There will be a few more this weekend I am sure.

 

 

Felted Landscape The Machine Felter is still out on the desk so I ma using it. I did purchase some roving at the Plow Shears show and it was a good starting place for this.

 

Then I did some felting to try a water fall like felt base.    It is not very effective yet so  I will work with it.

 

 

 

 

 

Then I tried mixing  roving with fabric to build a surface.   I feel there is potential here but is is not quite it either.      I may have gotten carried away with the color play a bit too.

 

 

 

 

More Felting As usual I was having so much fun I just kept building backgrounds. These two have not been under the machine’s influence yet. I have only hand punched them. One of my next jobs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Drawing I have been working to improve my drawing skills  by drawing for 10 min every morning after I do my  Morning Pages.      This Thorn-bug represents about  four days with my ball   point pen.  It is a good way to start my studio work every day.

 

 

 

Childhood Memories  Geysers, Putrefied Trees and Bears

When we were in Yellowstone that summer, we visited all the Geyser Basins. Gene always ran ahead on the board walks. I remember Old Faithful as erupting about every half  hour in those days as compared to the 40 to 60 min. intervals now. But then things change. Norris geyser basin was much louder too. Growler howled so loud one could not even shout and be heard. Even in the parking lot a bus had to honk at us to let us know he was coming up behind us. Mom pointed out the sign for Handkerchief Pool- ( it was dead ) – too many folks throwing their handkerchiefs into the pool and watching them rise again to the surface had clogged it up. Mom taught us to never take anything away with us from the park except photos. “Leave no evidence of your passing” was the rule. We visited the Petrified Tree sight. It is a big tree that is about 20 feet tall and six feet in diameter. The whole thing is surrounded by a metal fence like a zoo exhibit. It seems there were three trees at one time( I later saw an old post card to confirm that ) and folks just helped themselves to a little souvenir until two were gone. We did hike the Petrified Forest trail and got to see lots of petrified trees and stumps. Mom took lots of photos on that walk and we got to touch the rock trees as well.
One cannot talk about Yellowstone with out thinking about bears. We did experience lots of “bear jams”. I remember seeing one bear family with the two cubs up in a tree. One day near the end of summer the trail crew brought a bear trap into the housing area. It was a corrugated pipe, like the kind used under roads, with metal bars welded to one end and a trap door on the other. I learned that they trapped a “problem bear “ in the cage and then released in the back country. They did tag the “problem creature” and if he continued to cause problems they would have to eliminate it. One of our trips was on a dirt road along the back side of Yellowstone Lake to the dump. We watch 8 bears foraging there from the safety of the car. I know that the garbage is no longer stored that way and trash cans are much improved. The trash  barrels are buried and all have heavy latched lids now days so bears can not get inside.
One other memorable adventure was to Cody Wyoming for the forth of July parade. Gene and I both got cowboy hats that day. Mine was red and his was black. We wore them nonstop from then until the end of summer. There were lots of horses with fancy saddles and dressed up riders in the parade. There were Indians in full regalia and floats too. In the afternoon we went to the Rodeo. I remember the sun was very hot and Dad finally bought a bottle of pop that Gene and I shared. I found the calf roping a bit cruel and rooted for the horses when it came to the bronc riding. Gene and I fell asleep on the way home. I recall Dad tucking me in and noticing that the full moon was lined up with the circular window in the door of the trailer. A coyote was howling too. It was a good day.

I hope the best for everyone in 2020 .

Keep Creating

Carol