Thursday, November 17, 2016




                                                          Brrrrrrrr.........Frosty!!


It's been a couple of weeks since the Artisan Show and Sale.  We had more space this year and so there were more artists in attendance,  a few of them new to the show.   One of the new artists was GK Bears - a teddy bear artist.  These are not your normal teddies - these are collector bears made from an original Steiff pattern and stuffed with Steiff-Schulte mohair.  Did I buy one?  Of course I did. He's so damned cute that I kept wandering over to their booth to look at him. Finally I just did it. He's now living in my studio. I still need a name for him though.  Any suggestions? Something German-ish I think would be appropriate.

There were new artists this year, such as Paige Mortensen with her beautiful paintings.  As well, Elizabeth Muirhead had a booth showing her superb felt work.

I sold several pieces and would like to extend a very sincere thank you to all of those who purchased my work.  The following were a few that sold:

                                                             When a Tree Falls




                                                                  Watson's Field
                                                         


                                                                    My Booth


                                                       The Path to the Lookout

I'm now madly working to get ready for Sundog, which is December 2, 3, and 4.  I'll have a space upstairs as usual beside my pal Judy Wood. This will likely be the show and sale with everything you can possibly imagine. A great venue for Christmas shopping!  I'll have my usual wall art, along with several very small pieces (3x3) that make great stocking stuffers and, with luck, some other goodies as well.   After Sundog, I'm planning on puttering away for Christmas and then spending the winter practising some new techniques and new work. I received the entry forms for Gardenscape awhile ago - don't know for sure if I'm going to do this one, but possibly.

OK - back to work.  I'm hoping to post more regularly (I know I've said that before, but.......).





Thursday, November 10, 2016

Hello Again, Finally....... 

After working like a mad woman for a very long time, I thought that I was finally going to have some free time - time to work on some new techniques, brush up on some old techniques and generally have TIME!  Wrong again! About mid-March I started experiencing very painful back problems. After several weeks of this getting worse and worse to the point where I could no longer stand, sit, lay down -  basically anything at all. I have medication that I use for this on a regular basis, but it didn't touch this level of pain. My doc suggested we try a new drug and to make a long story short, it's working!!!!!!  But this was no smooth path.  The side effects were severe, but I had been told to wait it out, that they would lessen considerably and/or disappear entirely.  I'm happy to report that they did just that and so now, I can actually sleep (lying down even!!),  walk, sit in a chair, and all those other terribly athletic moves that normal people do!  However, after basically missing the entire spring and summer, I ended up doing NO new work, learning NO new techniques, taking NO new classes...... and on and on. What a drag!  

Now that I'm back to work, Artisan is looming in the very near future, with Sundog a month after

that.  I have to work nearly around the clock to get enough new stuff for Artisan. This is my very

favourite show/sale so I like to make sure I have mostly new work for it. I hope to have a few newer

style pieces in it this year, assuming all goes well that is. 

I did manage to get a few pieces in the Art Now Exhibit with Handwave Gallery (thank you June): 


 This one is titled "The Big Round Bale" and is similar to one that was in my exhibition at Handwave Gallery last autumn.  This was different in that I used actual plant fibre in the piece.  And I've just been told that this piece, that had gone to Handwave Gallery, has SOLD. Yippee!!
















And this is "Brown-Eyed Susans".  Both of these are 8" x 8" (art size) framed to 14" x 14".  I had three other pieces in this exhibit as well, but these were the new ones.















This past spring my friend Jane Evans had an exhibit at Hue's on Lorne Ave. of her paintings. Jane switched from doing fibre art to painting and I don't think I know of anyone who has done a more smooth change over. Her fibre art was fantastic, and naturally, so are her paintings. My husband and I went to her reception with the goal of picking one for our home. The problem was deciding on which one. We finally decided on this one.  The  photo was taken in very bad light so I apologize to Jane for my poor photograph of her beautiful work. 

  

This was the year for art purchases as we also picked up a piece of Elizabeth Muirhead's at the Gardenscape Art Show.  I'm also happy to report that Elizabeth has been invited to show at Artisan this year. Her art will fit right in with this group of artists.  And again, I apologize for the bad photo. These were both pieces that were hanging on my wall and would have been difficult to get them down to photograph properly. 




That's it for right now.  I'll have another post about Artisan in the next couple of days.
Cheers.....donna


































Monday, February 29, 2016

IT'S SPRING!!!!!  

..... (well, nearly spring) ..... and it's been weeks since my last post.  January and February have been insanely busy.   On top of having surgery several weeks early, I am also the Featured Artist at Handmade House.  The theme is Dreaming of Spring and consists of a lot of florals and Saskatchewan wildflowers.  The sizes range from 14" x 14" (framed size) all the way down to little pieces that are 4" x 4". 

This is a photo of the set-up at Handmade House.  I'm grateful for the invitation to show my work through this store, which in case you don't know about it, handles art from several of the juried artists of the SK Craft Council.  The prices are reasonable and it's a great place to find gifts, especially if you're in the market for one-of-a-kind art. 










Below is I Dreamed I Was an Apple Tree.  This little tree is one that I've photographed probably more than anything else. It's in the Beaver Creek conservation area and isn't alive any longer, however I love it's shape and thought it might like to be an apple tree this time around. 
















This is The Fairy's Foxtails. To answer Gail's email  regarding this piece - No it's not done using a zig-zag stitch.  The whole piece is done using free motion embroidery with every single line done individually.  I generally don't use zig-zag for anything as I find it's too clunky looking. I prefer to stitch along the length of the line and then stitch back on the same line. I hope this is clear. If not, drop me another email and I'll try to explain it better. It's basically just a straight stitch where you stitch down and back on the same line of stitching. 

These are two of the pieces at Handmade House.  Drop in and have a look.




The above is Cala.  This is a portrait of a very special dog belonging to my friend Roger.  Unfortunately, Cala is no longer with us, but she was a beauty. It's very hard to see all the color changes in this piece. It was done entirely by using color blending techniques as I just couldn't find a thread that was an exact match otherwise, so stitching the piece took a very long time. However the final result was worth it. 

And speaking of critters, below is a photo of the latest additions to our family.  This is Bowie (right) and Maggie (left) (aka Bo & Mags).  They're SPCA cats and now that they've settled in, I think I'm going to simply give up on housework until they're older. Bo is only a year old and Mags is 2, but they act like kittens.  




Now that I'm more or less caught up, I'm going to devote the next while to developing new techniques.  There are several areas that I've wanted to look into and finally have the time to do so.  I hope to be able to post pictures as I go, but have to remember to actually take pictures, so we'll see.   

Till next time...............d