A Tremendous Labor Day

This morning I got down to the studio around 9am. The weather was nice and never did get too hot to work. When I get to the studio I usually take a little time to just get acclimated...read the newspaper, pick up some stuff, read an art book for a little while...just a nice quiet place...and of course, put on the music.

I love Nita Leland...her art is wonderful and her books are great. I read and reread them frequently.

Nita has put out "The New Creative Artist" which was redone from her original book, The Creative Artist. She has great things to say about getting into the flow of working. So I was reading some of her stuff and I realized that I wanted to revisit my Coral Sea series and work on sea anemones again. I was also thinking a lot about my streamers series and how much fun it was to work on. So, out came the batiks which were already pre-fused and I just started cutting out streamer type thingies that now look like underwater grass. But it is all on a background of deep black and the batiks are browns to purples and I used one that has some yellow in it. Got that cut out and fused.

And then I decided it was time to work on something that I had sketched a long time ago in my sketchbook and had been in the back of my mind for a long time. When that happens, you just have to do it.

Well, it became a heavily quilted piece with lots of close vertical lines, some columns of circles, and then three columns of batiks in purples and browns stacked like teetering rocks. Was that ever fun! Went to work on George and got the balance rocks piece all quilted, blocked and cut square. Then I quilted the other little piece, got it blocked and cut square and both have come home with me to do the binding on them.

I also got my piece for Quilt National all done and photographed so now I can do the digital work on that and get the entry sent it.

The juices are flowing.

Nita's book is also my bible when it comes to understanding the creative process. She helps to remind me that not all creative time is spent doing the actual creating but there is much "mind" time to spend...thinking about ideas, working them out, brainstorming, writing, etc. A good book to have.