The art of painting...

House painting, that is! I have two windows that still have wooden frames and, with the pillars and railings of my back stoop, had begun to show the effects of the weather 'round these parts. For the past week, a wee bit at a time, I've managed to paint all of the stoop, plus the window frames, and three pair of shiny black metal shutters. Aren't they pretty? And yes, the job's all finished, the paint has dried, I've learned how to deal with mineral spirits and cleaning paintbrushes (paint for metal is quite different from indoor house paint!) and removing and re-installing shutters. Never a dull moment!

Other arty activities:

I've bound and labelled "My Back Yard", and am in the midst of auditioning the beads I want to add to the flower. I have 3 colours of glass beads: black, a sort of metallic black, and clear. I've begun by sewing 1 of each to one flower, but of course, the combinations could be quite extensive -- use only one of the colours for all the flowers; use 2 of one colour and 1 of another; use the 1 of each approach; use a different combination for each flower. Whadd'ya think?

Size is 8" square DETAIL

I've also begun a new piece for SAQA's "This is a Quilt!" exhibit. I decided I'd begin with a sample, but it's in the size range so that if it turns out well, I'll submit it 'as is'. I call it "Circle Play", and in it I used sequin waste for the first time, plus some fabric that I recently sun printed. (I'm quite hooked on that process, thanks to the gals at 3 Creative

Studios!)

And this morning.... I returned to "Aspen", a piece in my "Nature" Series that I've had hanging on my design wall for a few weeks now, waiting to get up the courage to created the leaves. I took photos of aspen leaves close up, on one of my walks, but creating them into little templates just didn't seem to work -- not the right proportions. That said, I couldn't face the notion of quilting them in tiny heart-like shapes and then painting inside the quilting... So I made a wee sample, and discovered that I could paint first with thickened fabric paint, for quilting later. I made two shades of green -- one more 'blue' and one more 'yellow' -- to show the sunshine and shade sides of the leaves, and had a lot of fun creating this:

Because the process was so much fun, the challenge became trying to figure out... when to stop!