Some Summer crafts

    Time to post! I have made a few things this summer to share..


         I got nostalgic this big birthday year and upgraded my baby book. The black pages were fraying, so I cut out all the photos and put them on new black pages in a new book. I moved quickly with scissors and Aleen's original Tacky Glue. I preserved Mother's white ink and just LOVE it. Some of the photos were so small that I enlarged them to add toward the end. I will fix Joe's next!

          Summer is a time of trips and crafts, so I got out my old books with essays about Winston Churchill's taking up painting.  I even tried to paint David (not easy) with my alkyds (oils with a fast drying resin). I only spent a couple of hours, a few evenings, and there is more to go. "If you don't use a talent, you lose it" I am finding is true. But I will keep trying. So glad to paint again. In that spirit, I mailed to traveling Trilla, A Traveler's Guide to Painting in Watercolors since it is fun to sketch or paint to remember more. Connie says she sketches stick figures rather than takes photos because it makes indelible the moments. I agree. For me, a .05 permanent black marker, water soluble colored pencils and a watercolor brush with a water holder in the handle fill the bill. I scribble and color while Joe drives.

         The girls were playing with gimp but never braiding the old fashioned lanyards I made at camp. Rather than explain, I got more hooks and gimp spools at Ben Franklin. I found I could secure the strings of gimp under the top of a clipboard, keep it in my lap at first and as the lanyard got longer, move the board to a drawer. It was not easy, since the specific long lanyard pattern was not on-line, but I made one and attached a flashlight to it. I improved immensely on Erika's pink and white one...but no photo! There are patterns for gimp keychains, square and diamond patterns on line. Patience is required: a two hour job, I think.

     

           One more thought: Before going to the beach the next time, check out all the tricks for clever and detailed sand sculpture on line at YouTube. I love YouTube and Google! So much to learn, so little time.

4th Birthday Portrait Quilt

   Traditionally, I make a small quilt birthday card for my grandchildren to go with their gifts. Since David's birthday is near Christmas, I use materials I find on hand since time is crowded.

    I found a sketch I had made of David using a marker. It looks as if I may have traced over a photograph which I had enlarged. I made two copies on my copy machine and scanned them to fit a size 8 1/2' x 11" sheet of paper. Of course I used a printable fabric, not paper, of that size to print the line drawing.

     Next, I ironed Wonder Under to the back so I could laminate the fabric with the drawing onto a background. Mistake #1. I had wanted to embroider the lines with black thread but this is not easy to do once fabric has been laminated. I learned that other people use invisible ink for their embroidery lines. Mistake #2. I had used up the Cars fabric, our theme this year. In a hurry I settled for Batman and numbers. Later I found Cars fragments which I laminated, cut out and stitched around. Mistake #3. You can see through the white fabric, but it shows how colorful David is. Mistake #4. It was late. I forgot to change the thread for the binding. It looked messy so I further messed it up more with puff paints. I was distracted listening to Tom Wolfe's new book Back to Blood. But I think the card is lively and cute. I dried it on the radiator and added a cupcake.

      I love it when David says, "For me, LinLin?" I say, "Yes:" and he adds, "Oh thank you, LinLin! My quilt," and hugs it. Most of the time, to get done all I want to do, I can't worry about "perfect."

Painting in the studio: Landscape memories

     On my 50th birthday, this former English and history teacher went to art school for her 7th life. I painted dawn to dusk daily. Many of my paintings are at my website LindaHicksweb.com. Lately, however, I have been quilting and working in a variety of crafts encouraged by involvement with grandchildren.

     Down in my basement studio, I pulled out some little 4" x 4" canvases and my Winsor Newton Griffin fast-drying alkyd paints. In about 1 1/2 hours I painted three little vignettes from our recent trip to Maine.

      It may look like it, but I just sloshed around the oils with a little turpentine and bits of medium. I then painted skies, trees and grounds while thinking of Maine and some sketches of sites I had seen while on the road. I want to do several more memories until I run out of compositions or moods and then I can quilt them for handwork on road trips.

    Joe wanted me to do a small portrait of grandson. I felt I had just begun; but he told me to stop...it was finished. Hope David doesn't mind looking jaundiced! I am loving being back in the studio while I read The Man with a Blue Scarf: On Sitting for a Portrait by Lucien Freud