Gifts

It was an unproductive week as far as concrete artistic accomplishments go, but I had a great week nonetheless. I was home for a day after visiting my daughter, and then I was away at a work related conference. I had a good time and learned some things too. I always come home inspired, so they are worth the effort.
I didn't even take my sketchbook with me as I knew it would be a busy schedule. The drive down was gorgeous though with the fall colors, and I spent time observing and imagining what I might create with the views (trying to stay on the road of course). If I had even 1 picture for every hundred I composed in my head, I'd be a prolific artist. Oh well, it's fun to dream and imagine.
Tuesday, the day I left was my birthday, so I'd like to share some of my gifts with you. My husband really surprised me this year with a painting. It is from an 'emerging' New Brunswick artist named Cynthia Decoste whose paintings I admire. She had a recent show and I had picked out a couple that I liked in hopes of maybe getting one for Christmas. It really is quite an extravagant gift for us. I do love it!
The very first photo in this post is of a pillow cover that my friend Anne did in Sashiko style. It is in my favorite color, and I think you can see the dragonflies on it. Isn't it beautiful?
While In Fredericton I purchased a screen printing kit, and finally today I got it out and read the directions and started to think about what I might like to do with it. I did a drawing of some winter trees on tracing paper so that I can transfer it to a freezer paper resist, and I also drew a tree on linocut material to carve.
My final pictures are of some seasonal changes I am making in the house. I purchased a curtain panel to try in my dining area for the winter. It is the one on the left. The gold colored ones on the right are sheer, and I thought I'd like something a little more opaque for the winter. I think I'd like to add some bright buttons or trim of some sort, and I plan to change the wall color to a chocolate brown. The color is a little off in the photo-- it is actually more of a burgundy.
The final photo is of my bed where I put my winter duvet and changed the quilt. I had made this quilt for my tent trailer, and now that camping is over I thought I'd live with it on my bed for a while.