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Lace and Kingfishers
I've been painting and knitting a little. *laughs*
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2metaldog this shawl before I'd finished it and it's made from KnitPick's "Alpaca Cloud", which is just about as soft as you'd expect from baby alpaca. The beads are 0/8 seed beads in iris colors (green, blue, purple, and pinks and cores in those colors too), and I used size 4 needles (3.5mm). The pattern is Knitty's Aeolian Shawl, I just did the shawlette size and it was a really beautiful knit.
The charts are solid, and the pattern is interesting enough that I didn't get bored through it at all. The edging was especially fun to do, and the beads really lend weight to the whole fabric that my usual lace doesn't have. I really love the swing and heft of it, even after it got blocked.
This is pre-blocking, and it looks a bit like a butterfly right out of the chrysalis. Kind of wrinkly and soft as anything, but you can't really see the lace structures in this, as they're just bunched up. It was kind of worse *on* the needles, as usual, and difficult to see. But even like this, the weight of the beads really brought out the edge a bit more than normal. I was impressed by that.
I suspect that I should apologize for the glaringly PINK background, but it's my biggest bath blanket, and i like using a clean surface for blocking larger lace projects. It was so dry here that only two hours after I'd pinned it down it was bone dry. It is sized perfectly for casual wear. It also made it really easy to see the open structure when it was down.
The beads are actually quite beautiful in the structure with light through the back, as they shine...
As always better in person that in a picture, but it's fun to share what I've got.
The last thing was a king fisher I'd been mildly obsessing about painting for the last few months. I finally got brush to watercolor base on a composition notebook yesterday afternoon, and this was the result. I really wanted the bird very clearly defined and detailed. There are trails of white dots along head and wing, and the feathers turned out much better than I'd even hoped.
I always love bird claws against branches. *laughs* And it's fun to make the "far" background all vague to just keep the attention on the bird itself.
One thing I realized is that nearly all the paintings I've sold have been ones that I've made up off the top of my head, without referring to more traditional layouts or trying to stick to traditional rules of how things should be placed. They were just pictures that were interesting to me.
I'm finding that the same thing is probably true of my writing as well. So long as I truly love the story, the characters, the particular plot or idea, the story goes really really well and easily. When I don't it's like slogging through molasseses. Of course, when I'm just too tired, it's hard anyway.
Today was almost all church stuff, between church in the morning, talking with folks. Having someone come up to me all agog about the show in the Hospital and saying, "It's like knowing a celebrity! I know the artist of those paintings!" The secretary of my eye doctor gushed happily about having discovered my paintings there, too. That was pretty fun. Someone else that was having dry eye problems commiserated with me happily, and it was fun to have someone that even knew all the medications I was trying. *laughs* I enjoyed it. The evening function was the planning meeting for this spring's Mississippi trip, and since the work trip is during Jet's spring break we're going to have to accommodate him as well. So I might end up on a beach in Biloxi this spring instead of working, but will likely help with the meals instead as Jet's not allowed on the construction site. We have plans for NASA, maybe some road tripping toward Texas, and the weekend stay in New Orleans will be... uhm... interesting with a 10-year-old.
I also had a heck of a time trying to escort Jet and his friend back to his friend's house on our bikes. The friend had a stunt bike, and my mountain bike had a nearly flat tire. *laughs* And, yes, it was just as challenging as you might expect to follow a 10-year-old on a stunt bike. There was one harrowing instant when Jet slammed into someone's fence when he didn't make a turn that his friend made with ease, but Jet was fine, and he managed to slow just enough to not bruise or hit too hard.
Jet and I were talking about it later and he said that he figured it was easier for me because I had experience, and I agreed. I just said that yeah... experience said that there was just no way I was going to be able to make that curve at that speed. Whee...
John's also organizing his family reunion this coming summer. Folks from the East Coast and West Coast are all congregating *here* so we have to go check out the places they're going to stay while here. I'm helping him out a bit with the assessment of the places this coming week. That should be interesting.
I showed
2metaldog this shawl before I'd finished it and it's made from KnitPick's "Alpaca Cloud", which is just about as soft as you'd expect from baby alpaca. The beads are 0/8 seed beads in iris colors (green, blue, purple, and pinks and cores in those colors too), and I used size 4 needles (3.5mm). The pattern is Knitty's Aeolian Shawl, I just did the shawlette size and it was a really beautiful knit.The charts are solid, and the pattern is interesting enough that I didn't get bored through it at all. The edging was especially fun to do, and the beads really lend weight to the whole fabric that my usual lace doesn't have. I really love the swing and heft of it, even after it got blocked.
The beads are actually quite beautiful in the structure with light through the back, as they shine...
As always better in person that in a picture, but it's fun to share what I've got.
I always love bird claws against branches. *laughs* And it's fun to make the "far" background all vague to just keep the attention on the bird itself.
One thing I realized is that nearly all the paintings I've sold have been ones that I've made up off the top of my head, without referring to more traditional layouts or trying to stick to traditional rules of how things should be placed. They were just pictures that were interesting to me.
I'm finding that the same thing is probably true of my writing as well. So long as I truly love the story, the characters, the particular plot or idea, the story goes really really well and easily. When I don't it's like slogging through molasseses. Of course, when I'm just too tired, it's hard anyway.
Today was almost all church stuff, between church in the morning, talking with folks. Having someone come up to me all agog about the show in the Hospital and saying, "It's like knowing a celebrity! I know the artist of those paintings!" The secretary of my eye doctor gushed happily about having discovered my paintings there, too. That was pretty fun. Someone else that was having dry eye problems commiserated with me happily, and it was fun to have someone that even knew all the medications I was trying. *laughs* I enjoyed it. The evening function was the planning meeting for this spring's Mississippi trip, and since the work trip is during Jet's spring break we're going to have to accommodate him as well. So I might end up on a beach in Biloxi this spring instead of working, but will likely help with the meals instead as Jet's not allowed on the construction site. We have plans for NASA, maybe some road tripping toward Texas, and the weekend stay in New Orleans will be... uhm... interesting with a 10-year-old.
I also had a heck of a time trying to escort Jet and his friend back to his friend's house on our bikes. The friend had a stunt bike, and my mountain bike had a nearly flat tire. *laughs* And, yes, it was just as challenging as you might expect to follow a 10-year-old on a stunt bike. There was one harrowing instant when Jet slammed into someone's fence when he didn't make a turn that his friend made with ease, but Jet was fine, and he managed to slow just enough to not bruise or hit too hard.
Jet and I were talking about it later and he said that he figured it was easier for me because I had experience, and I agreed. I just said that yeah... experience said that there was just no way I was going to be able to make that curve at that speed. Whee...
John's also organizing his family reunion this coming summer. Folks from the East Coast and West Coast are all congregating *here* so we have to go check out the places they're going to stay while here. I'm helping him out a bit with the assessment of the places this coming week. That should be interesting.