Weather....

....as in "Under the weather...."

Lucky me! I woke this morning feeling odder than usual (yeah, that's a stretch!), found I was hoarse and nose running. Well, I can almost schedule these things. I avoided the Holidays with it but, you know, when you really need to WORK....these bugs seem to be waiting outside your door, ready to pounce. If I take a few days off from here it will be due to bugs.....unwanted, and uninvited!

So today, I'll post something I did as a fiber sketch last year. This is small, less than 8" x 10" and was quickly put together while I was trying out oil pastels on cotton. I believe it was a PFD scrap, but it might well have been regular bleached muslin. As I recall---since I never keep notes---I drew the pears, ironed them to set the pastel, probably added highlights because I remember adding outlines with quilting and the foot was covered with the pastel, then either quilted the b.g. and did fluid acrylics, or did the first wash of fluids and then quilted. At any rate, while the fluids acted like watercolor and TOTALLY avoided the oil pastel, I found the background too bright for the pears and then took craft acrylic and did a bit of dry brush over the quilting, producing a softer background area at the top and a bit of highlight in the foreground.

These are cheap oil pastels. Actually, the only expensive item was the Golden fluid acrylics. But they are so highly pigmented that it takes little; in the long run, they are worth every cent. I have become addicted to them and in my mixed media work, they are Numero Uno!!! I use less expensive acrylics for a base coat, then do the glazes and additions with the fluids. Or build up fantastic, translucent depth.

Another product I cannot live without is Demco Gesso. The artist quality one, not the student grade. It is exceptional. But that is another post---or book!---in itself!

And so dear readers, enjoy the pears.

That may be all the visual nourishment this blog has to offer for a few days..... <:(

To quote the Ramones:

"I wanna be well......"

P.S. Somehow, I managed to forget that this was my dad's birthday. He and mom both passed in the summer of 1990, 17 days apart. They constantly bickered over who was going to die first, and he did. I have no doubt that when mom walked the tunnel of light, he was at the other end laughing and saying, "I told you I'd get here FIRST!!!"

The photo is of him when he was young, in WW II, and I believe it was taken in Australia.

Happy Birthday Dad!