TGIT Thank God It's Tuesday--A Finished Project

Again I've discovered that when I'm without my computer I tend to be so much more productive. During my computer down time I've found time to not only get some sewing done but to get some painting done too.

I've been wanting to create something using the same colors that are in my quilt. My quilt has an old fashioned kind of elegance but when I started to paint I wanted to keep it simple so I went back to basics. I remembered some of the thumbnail drawings we had to do in my last art class. We had to come up with a number of compositions using different sized spheres and show how light and shadow affected them.

The three paintings all have a look of planets in outer space and I am very happy with the way they turned out.

TGIW??? Thank God It's Wednesday???

I am having computer problems again, so I am once again cut off from the world. I'm using someone else's computer today to catch up on some work I needed to get done. I don't have access to my files and photos so this is a very boring post.

I have put it off long enough. It's time to get another computer. I could take mine in and get it serviced again but it would be the third time. I've been saving money so that I could take a small vacation in September but now I'm thinking, I'd rather have a new computer. I've been dreaming of getting away from Sacramento and getting somewhere close to the ocean or taking a train trip across country to take photos. But I use my computer everyday for so many things. It's like my key to the outside world. Big decision, big decision.

For now, I will be on limited access to my sites and other computer stuff for awhile until I get mine fixed or replaced. Will miss you all.

TGIT Thank God It's Tuesday!

Another week is over. I can't believe that half the year is almost gone. This has been one of the most unusual years for weather in California that I've ever been through. It's June 27th, a week away from the 4th of July and it's cold and raining. They are expecting snow fall in the mountains today too. The ski resorts are having a great year, they will be open this year for 4th of July snow skiing.
This time a week ago it was 101 degrees outside and we were all trying to get out of the heat. We had tornado warnings an thunder storms all spring up until three weeks ago. One of my favorite things to do is to watch the sky and the changing weather patterns. These are some of the pictures I took this morning before it started to rain.

I had the opportunity to talk to an astronomy/geology specialist in Starbuck's several weeks ago. She explained that our unusual weather patterns are affecting the whole country as well as the planet in general. She said that this is a permanent change because our planet is now tilted. I know that I must have looked at her in disbelief because I had not heard that before. Later, my son Googled "tilted planet" and found articles on two of the more devastating earthquakes we've had in the last several months in Japan and Chile. The whole Japanese Continent shifted 8 feet in different direction after the earthquake which literally tilted the axis of the earth.

My son jokingly said that maybe now we are getting Washington state's weather. That's something to think about.

TGIT Thank God It's Tuesday

I'm so glad to be posting again. Last week I had computer problems again. I'm so in need of something new. I'm working on it.

This week I'm back to being a doll maker. I am going to try staggering my craft project types instead of trying to do multiple project types in a week. Sometimes my creative spirit is all over the place. I get so many ideas at the same time and I want to start them immediately. I've decided to treat myself as though I am a team. I have 10 minute morning meetings with myself where I do project planning for the day and for the week. I take notes and everything. I'm going to try to "curb my enthusiasm" and focus on completing projects. New ideas will be written in my craft journal in detail and will be started with other similar and compatible projects in their designated week.

Let's see if I get more accomplished with this plan.

This week my "plan" is to finish some of my poor naked, bald headed dolls that I started weeks and weeks ago. The two 'ladies' above are Charlotte and Samantha. They are so excited to finally be designed, styled and dressed. I'm kind of excited too, I'm looking forward to getting the girls ready for the world.

Thank God It's Tuesday!

Another week ends, another week begins. I didn't have a chance to take pictures for this post. Last week was moving week for my retail space. It took about 2-1/2 days to break down my booth, move it and set it up again. Like housecleaning it gave me a chance to 'purge' and eliminate some of the things I've been trying to sell for almost a year. Some of my artwork is a little edgy and now that my dolls are the 'stars' of my space I made the decision to re-design my 'image' and give it a softer, friendlier look.

This coming weekend, The Market Place in Rancho Cordova California where I work is hosting an Arts and Crafts Faire in our parking lot and The Second Saturday Art Walk inside of our store. I'm working on some new pieces of my own to get ready to display and sell. The key word for me this week is "focus, focus, focus". I have five new items finished already, they were in earlier reveals on this blog site and my goal is to finish five to seven more pieces by Friday. I promise to share them here with you, lots of pictures coming soon plus pictures of my booth. It's almost 9:15 am here, so I'm off and running.

TGIT Thank God It's Tuesday!

Well, another week has gone by and another weekend for me begins. Work is still slow but my employer's business is still hanging in there. We sponsored an outdoor arts and crafts fair this past Saturday for the Salvation Army to raise money for the tornado victims in the South. We had a lot of great crafters but the foot traffic was slow. We were competing with unseasonably cold temperatures for us in May. We had some rain and we are usually in the 80's this time of year but we never got above 68. We were also competing with the Jazz Festival downtown and the Sacramento County Fair.

I committed to finishing three projects last week and wasn't able to complete them. Going out of town to see my granddaughter's preschool graduation and having a horrible toothache slowed me down considerably. I did finish my textile art piece as shown in my last post. I got my male doll almost completely done. He now has hair, shoes, jeans, a T-shirt and one arm. I attempted hands with fingers this time, so, the second arm has slowed me down a little but he's almost done and ready to be photographed.




My 'three' projects for this week are still the two dolls from last week, smiling Samantha and my little old lady Mildred. I am determined to finished my old doll projects before I start any new ones. My textile art piece for this week is also shown here. I used a batiking type technique to paint this kind of eerie face. It was kind of fun because I used Elmer's washable school glue as a resist instead of wax or other traditional resists. I got an interesting effect. I will turn it into a finished project this week.

The only thing that will slow me down this week is that I have to change my booth at the retail space where my artwork is located. I'm not looking forward to taking everything apart and putting it back together again. I've been using my outdoor tent as the framework for my booth. I'm hoping to come up with a better idea so that I don't have to use the tent. I haven't been able to do outdoor shows because I don't have a second tent so this is a good opportunity to make the change.

TGIT Thank God It's Tuesday!

I'm so glad it's Tuesday again which is the first day of my 'weekend'. Above is a picture of my three projects for this week. I'm still enjoying experimenting with textile art and fabric painting. I dyed and stenciled the piece above and I never like to waste fabric even experiments, so my challenge is to turn my sample into a finished item.

My second project for this week is to finish one of the dolls I started months ago. She's the blond with the big smile. Her name is Samantha and she was inspired by the character in 'Sex in the City'. My doll faces have become so much better over the last few months and she looks a little more comical to me now but I'm going to finish her anyway. I started the other three characters too, so I plan to finish them also.

My third project is my "little old grey haired lady". I've been wanting to do a "little old lady" for a long time. I'm inspired by another doll artist in one of my doll groups who did some 'grammy' dolls. Usually, my dolls don't tell me what their names are until I paint their faces. Yesterday my "little old lady" fell off my work table and when I bent over to pick her up she was very annoyed with me for letting her fall and she told me her name was Mildred. I can't wait to see what Mildred will look like by the end of the week.

I didn't get my first male doll Keannu finished by my deadline yesterday. I had some technical difficulties when I was making pants for him. I realized that when I made the pattern for his body I didn't give him enough 'bum' so his pants cave in in the back. I know this sounds strange but I just can't live with 'bumless' boy doll he just looks odd. Anyway, after I finish this post, I will give Keannu a 'bum' implant to help his pants fit better. They actually had to do that for Ralph Macchio on Dancing With The Stars last week because he didn't have enough bum of his own to do the Samba =)

Work has been so-o-o-o slo-o-o-ow this week. I work at the The Market Place in Rancho Cordova, California on the weekends. We have a great art gallery with paintings and sculptures by local Sacramento artists and we also have antiques and collectibles, custom jewelry and a book section with books by local authors. We have fountains and indoor waterfalls, so we have the relaxing sound of water all around us. It is such a creative and inspirational place to work but the economy here has still not recovered from the recession and our artists, authors and business owners are struggling.

I'm an artist and crafts person but I'm also a business manager and the term "starving artist" is very "romantic" but it doesn't pay the rent. I have friends in the art community who like myself, got ambushed when the job market dropped and had to go on unemployment. Finding a job was next to impossible especially here, we had the highest rate of unemployment in the country, so a lot of us turned to our creative backgrounds to supplement unemployment and part time incomes. Thank God for the spirit of creative people. We've added beauty to the world making it less cold while managing to survive.

For some, the recession became a blessing in disguise because out of necessity, we found out how to become independent of the corporate world, how to live with less and be happy, how to value our ingenuity and how to use our own time for our own business success. I think this discovery has changed a large segment of our population and our economy forever.

TGIT Thank God It's Tuesday!

It's the first day of my "weekend" again and I'm ready to tackle my creative projects for the week. I've made an observation about myself. In the last few weeks I haven't gotten as much done as I have in the past. I used to have a pretty good creative flow and I was able to complete a number of projects every week. But I think I've gotten caught up in the social networking thing. Between 'Tweeting', Facebooking, the website, meetups, Etsy and keeping up with reading some of the wonderful blogs I've been following I have become less productive.

This week I am going to work more and 'socialize' less. After this post my plan is to not even touch my computer until late evening just before bed. Hopefully, I'll get more done. These are four of the current projects I've been working on for a couple of weeks and I have no excuse but to 'focus' and get them finished this week.



This is the fabric painting I 'started' last week when I was experimenting with a project from the book Textile Art by Susan Stein. Last night I worked on it for a while and added some applique work of a woman seated in the foreground and gazing at the rising moon. This project will be stitched, bordered and machine quilted this week. I promise!

This is my first male doll, I'm still calling him 'Keannu' until he tells me what his name is going to be. I've added some shading to his face to give him a more masculine look. I think when I create the next male doll I will give him a squarer chin line.

He also had a little 'surgery' last week to shorten his torso and narrow his hips. His body was a little out of proportion and looked awkward. This week he will get a great 'hair cut' inspired by Keannu Reeves and an outfit.....hmmmm that's going to take some thought. I did theater costumes for many years and raised two sons, you'd think I'd be able to come up with an outfit for a guy.

My last unfinished project for the week is the doll that I dyed with fabric paint. The doll on the left is the result after she was stuffed. The color is darker and closer to a skin tone that isn't as pale as the doll on the right and yes Mary Ann, I agree the fabric did change to a firmer texture. I kind of like it though, with the fabric taking on a tougher feel it was less prone to fraying and my seams were more durable.

This week she will get a new face and I hope she will tell me who she is and what she would like to wear. I'm going to leave that decision to her.

O.K., I'm off and running, lunch first and projects next.