Colour Wheel Recommendation...

Hi to ReBecca and Heidi - thanks for joining and subscribing to my blog. To answer ReBecca's question about the type of colour wheel shown on the July 20th entry - the one I use is by Joen Wolfrom called the 3-in-1 COLOR TOOL. It is available in most reputable quilting stores.

She breaks colours down into 24 pure colours but on the card for each one, she has also added the tints (white added), the shades (black added), and the tones (grey added) to make the entire colour family.

Here is the wheel as it applies to my piece on strawberries, along with a close-up of some of the cards.



I have sorted every piece of fabric I own, every machine thread, every hand-stitching thread and yarn, and every bead into the 24 colours. Here is a photo of my hand threads (in my new resource room) in the 24 colours...

and a close-up of four of them...



I really like this system and find it makes it so much easier to start working on pieces having everything broken into the 24 colours. She also discusses the five basic plans for picking a colour scheme and has information on the back of each card concerning (1)monochromatic, (2) complementary, (3)analogous, (4)split-complementary and (5)triadic and how it applies to that particular colour. This is a wonderful tool I can highly recommend to any type of artist.

four days of the CALGARY FOLK FESTIVAL

Today marks the start of the 29th annual Calgary Folk Festival. Our neighborhood uses this event as a social outing and over 20 families come out to help "run the tarps" each morning in order to secure prime seating for the maximum viewing pleasure.

This photo shows the line-up (waving their regulation sized blue tarps) ready for the gates to open when the mob descends onto the grassy lawn before the main stage used over the four evenings. I am actually in the green striped shirt on the right hand side laden down with chairs, coolers, and backpacks of all the runners. This is fun! We start lining up at 7 am each morning, in preparation for the gates to open at 3:30 pm. This applies to Thursday and Friday mornings, but on Saturday and Sunday we actually have volunteers who sleep on the grounds overnight to save our place in line.

This year I am looking forward to hearing the acts: Andrew Bird, Torngat, Consonant C, Jesse Winchester, Woodpigeon, Les Tireux d'Roches, Basia Bulat, Kobo Town, Eliana Cuevas, Beija Flor...
and, best of all, discovering new ones in the process.

And a quick thanks...

to Nancy and Adele for joining up and subscribing to my posts on my blog.

This is a new feature I have recently added where you can sign up to be notified whenever new posts are added by me to my site. What I am working on... where I have travelled to... upcoming shows and exhibitions... anything I think pertains to the arts in general and my work in specific.

Berries, berries everywhere!

Here is another piece, one that I have been very happy with. I was trying to convey the richness and juiciness of a generic berry and by using a hand dyed velvet as the background, I have densely stitched with my sewing machine to make the shapes pop out of the velvet. I used over ten different colours and thickness of threads for the background and the colour blending was very successful. The piece is very textural and lush with its depth of colours.

This first photo is the starting point with the background showing the synthetic velvet which has been dyed using iron-on DEKA paints; the colour wheel which helped decide upon the range of analogous colours to be pulled out; and the selection of threads to be used in hand and machine stitching.

Fruits...

So what have I been working on all summer?

Here are shots of some of my pieces (still in progress - I like to work on many pieces at once so that each gets a chance to hang and be looked at before deciding when enough is enough.)

First are the lemons that I showed you a picture of a couple of days ago. This is a shot of all the fabrics and threads I gather at the start of the process. If you look carefully, you can also see a blown up photograph of a lemon slice used for inspiration hiding under the threads.

Then blueberries... When finished I will have a couple of pieces based upon this particular fruit. This one is done in the same process as the lemon above, where I start with a hand dyed background; collage scraps of fabric bits in the shapes and colours to represent the fruit and its surroundings; then hand and machine stitch over it all to blend everything together. I have done the first two steps here and will now start the stitching.


Apples and pomegranates - this piece is totally different - as is more common among my art - usually each piece is done using a different technique. This is more of a 'whole cloth' piece in which the design was silk screened using a range of paints from yellow to purple onto the hand dyed fabric. A second layer of silk screening was done over top. The stitch done over that is Italian Cording where rows of stitches are laid down and then stuffed with wool (you can see the ends of the wool still hanging over one end.) This piece is one waiting for the final decision of how to hang it and finish the edges.

More to come...

Books, Movies, and Music

I have added a new feature on the right hand side of this page sharing some of the books that I read (usually 60 a year), the movies I go to (during my birthday month I try to go to one a day! and most often they are of the art house variety), and music I listen to (very eclectic and varied in itself) hoping to expose you to new artists and their offerings. The world is so full of people making beautiful art, in whatever their chosen medium!

The Fruits of Summer at Nectar Desserts

Executive chef Rebekah Pearse of NECTAR DESSERTS takes the freshest of whatever fruits are in season and creates culinary treasures served up for your pleasure. She has invited us back for another textile show for the month of August, 2008 which we have themed featuring the fruits and flowers she uses in her baking of tarts, cakes, desserts, and ice creams.

Lesley Turner and I will provide the fibre creations and we have asked our friend Nancy Dormer to join us this year with her acrylic paintings.

The space is described as an eclectic loft area - it is very comfortable with exposed brick walls and a mishmash of over sized armchairs mixed among modern tables and chairs. It is one of Calgary's few evening destinations for dates or group gatherings which doesn't involve alcohol as the main attraction - although she does offer dessert wines and offers to educate your palate upon pairings with her desserts.

My work, which has kept me tied to my studio for the dog days of summer, is based upon the closeups of five fruits: the strawberry, the lemon, blueberries, apples, and raspberries. I continue to work in only (so far) a slight panic with the hanging on July 31st!




Nectar Dessert - located upstairs at 1216 - 9 Avenue SE, Calgary

Hours:
Monday to Thursday, 10am - 11pm
Friday to Saturday, 10am – 1am
Sunday, closed

Leaving via Barcelona - Dali Museum in Figueres

From the Cote d'Azur we headed west along the coast via Cassis, the Camargue, and the Pyrenees, back to Barcelona for a flight back to Canada. We managed a stop in Figueres, Spain (the closest town to the French border just south of the Pyrenees) and a visit to the Dalí Theatre-Museum. Salvador Dali (1904-1989) was born and died in Figueres, and he designed his own museum which opened in 1974.

After passing through phases of Cubism, Futurism and Metaphysical painting, he joined the Surrealists in 1929 and his talent for self-publicity rapidly made him the most famous representative of the movement.

The Dalí Theatre-Museum has to be seen as a whole, as the great work of Dalí, for everything in it was conceived and designed by the artist in order to offer visitors a real experience of getting inside his captivating and unique world.

for more information about Dali, his life and his art, check this web site:

http://www.salvador-dali.org/en_index.html

In the garden, the sculpture "Rainy Taxi". As described in Rick Steves guide book: 'You know how you can never get a cab when it's raining? Pop a coin into Dalí's personal 1941 Cadillac, and it rains inside the car. Look above, atop the tire tower: That's the boat enjoyed by Dalí and his soulmate, Gala — his emotional life-preserver, who kept him from going overboard. When she died...so did he (for his last seven years). Below the boat drip blue tears made of condoms.'

The original painting is one of his most famous called "The Persistence of Memories" but also know as "Soft Watches" or "Melting Clocks." This is actually a woven tapestry above his bed.
Surrealistic, avant-garde - this museum can show you all the wild craziness that art can be.

Cote d'Azur 4 - Antibes

Our home base for this part of our vacation was Antibes and it was a lovely for this purpose - the old town and harbour area would get crowded during the days but the evenings were quiet with most of the tourists gone back to the bigger centres so we had quiet streets and emptier restaurants - this suited us just fine!

Here is the beach


the daily food market (every morning) that became filled with local artists in the afternoons


the harbour, which is one of the largest on the coast so was filled with monster-size yachts (5 storeys with their own helicopter on top) by the stars attending the Cannes Film Festival



and designs, that I was collecting from everywhere we went. Some great iron railings on a church. This was actually right beside the PICASSO museum that was previously mentioned as closed for 2 years and opening the week after we left!!

Cote d'Azur 3 - Nice and Cannes

After driving through Nice a couple of times to get somewhere else, we decided "enough of the traffic!" and to take the train from Antibes to Nice to 'do' the main museums - those were MATISSE and CHAGALL.

From the train station we walked uphill (and uphill) to the Boulevard de Cimiez looking at the lovely old villas along the way. It is a pleasant walk and one can enjoy the silence compared to the bustling city left behind. Situated in a park surrounded by an olive garden, the Musee Matisse has a collection of paintings spanning the length of Henri Matisse's career. The collection of works was left by the artist (and his heirs) to the city of Nice where he lived from 1918 until 1954.

for more information on Matisse and this museum, check out the web site: http://www.musee-matisse-nice.org/anglais/index3.html

This is a photo of the exterior of the museum, note that the blue shutters are the actual windows and the rest is trompe l'oeil (French for "trick the eye"), an art technique involving extremely realistic imagery in order to create the optical illusion that the depicted objects appear in 3D instead of actually being a two-dimensional painting.

We then walked down the street to the Musée du Message Biblique Marc-Chagall (Marc Chagall Museum of Biblical Themes)and although I wasn't the biggest fan of Chagall before walking in the door, I became an instant convert to his style and art. I loved this museum.
Small, intimate, surreal...classic Chagall! This museum's modern architecture is the perfect host to Marc Chagall's large format oil painting. The Musée contains only 17 large canvases, and a few other exhibits so you do not get intimidated by an infinite number of works of art glaring at you from every wall. This is a museum with human proportions.

Twelve of the pieces depict different chapters from the Old Testament. Vibrant and colorful, each painting displays the expressive and emotional style of Chagall. But it was the texture seen in each piece, the intenseness of colour and overlaying layers of images that so entranced me. The benches encouraged you to sit and take in the art from a distance, but the piece itself pulls you closer for further examination.

for more information on Chagall and this museum, check out this web site: http://www.destination360.com/europe/france/chagall-museum.php

Then we took the train south to Cannes and arrived just in time for the first day of the 61st Festival de Cannes - wow, just to be there to experience the excitement and craziness that overtakes this small town that comes alive for the world famous film festival. As an extreme movie buff I loved being able to attend a small part of this - can't wait until September when some of the art films I heard about here finally come to Calgary for our International Film Festival.

The 12 miles of beach become a tent city, one end used by small countries inviting film makers to their part of the world for movie magic; to the other end filled with schmoozing and boozing. The themed parties come complete with bouncers, chandeliers, and some amazing interior decorated decors.



the hotel where celebrities stay and are mobbed by the fans waiting outside

the famous red carpet

a carousel decorated with past movie posters... one of which being Audrey, of course

for more information about the most famous film festival in the world, check out their web site:www.festival-cannes.fr/en/festival

and back in Antibes (where the famous PICASSO museum was closed for repairs for a year and a half and supposed to open a week after we left town!!!) I did love the bathing suit models who say it all about a day on the beach along the French Riviera...

"Coming Up Next" exhibit in Edmonton

There is still time! The show in Edmonton at the Alberta Craft Council Discovery Gallery runs until July 12th. See 'link' to gallery on right hand side of this page for address and times.

This juried exhibition is organized by the Alberta Craft Council and features the work of emerging fine craft artists who are within the first five years of their career or in the final year of their formal education. Come and enjoy contemporary fine craft with fresh new designs in clay, glass, fibre, wood, metal and other craft media.

2008 Participants are: Colin Bacsik, Andrea Blais, Kalika Bowlby, Aura Carney, Diana Un-Jin Cho, Donna Clement, Jennifer Demke, Giulia Fatica, Maggie Finlayson, David Janzen, Kimberly Johansen, Jay Kimball, Gregory Lavoie, Deanna MacAulay, Candice Ring, Kai Georg Scholefield, Carmen Schroeder, Michael Simpson, Do-Hee Sung, Bevin Tetarenko, and Keith Walker.

My piece is the large (five feet by seven feet) piece of fibre art on the front wall. It is all done in small squares of browns and golds and as there is a window opposite it shines with an amazing lustre in the gallery.




A detail of the piece: