Heart Art No. 20

Heart Art No. 20 - As you can see, I'm still stitching.  It's just that it's so much fun to do on these cold, grey days...curling up under a quilt, whitefurrydog at my feet, a cuppacuppa and a little nibble, some jazz or classical music playing - makes.me.happy.

I cut my shapes free-hand...in previous pieces I drew a pattern - also free-hand - then traced it onto my fabric.  But, since my shapes are so simple, that just seemed like too much work.  Plus, I just like the sort of imperfection of the whole thing, including the wonky letters and words.  Makes it seem old and comfy to me.  The background is a piece of aqua-colored linen.  Oh, how I love, love, LOVE stitching on linen.  It may have ruined me for anything else.  Although, this weekend I have an idea for some tea towels, so I'm going to stitch onto a flour sack towel.  (See: quilt, furrydog, cuppacuppa above.)

I like this one so much, I think I might need to paint-collage it, also.  

In other news, my "Bloom" painting made it onto an Etsy Treasury.  I'm thrilled, delighted, and tickled pink!   It's a very fun treasury, and you can see it over here. 

Snow is threatening here in Portland, starting tonight.   We've had pretty mild weather this winter, and with all the tomfoolery weather-wise in other parts of the country, I am not complaining one bitty bit.  (See: quilt, furrydog, cuppacuppa above.)  Stay warm and cozy, friends. 

Heart Art Nos. 17-19

Heart Art No. 17 - More stitch-y, vintage-y, heart-y goodness.  And sunshine.  Yay sunshine!

A wider angle.  And more sunshine.  Making.Me.Happy.Today.

Heart Art No. 18 - When you come to the edge of all the light you have, and must take a step into the darkness of the unknown, believe that one of two things will happen to you: either there will be something solid for you to stand on, or, you will be taught how to fly.  Patrick Overton

 Heart Art No. 19 - When nothing is sure, everything is possible.  Margaret Drabble



Heart Art No. 16

Heart Art No. 16 - I've been stitching.  A.Lot.  I sort of can't stop stitching.  I stitch in the morning before I go to the gallery.  I stitch as soon as I get home.  I stitch all night long.  Hi, my name is Tammy and I stitch.

This is a bit of stitchy goodness on linen.  Yummy yummy linen.  My favorite thing to stitch upon, really.  See the wrinkles?  I'm not pressing them out.  I like them there.  Makes it all wrinkle-y and feel-y.  The blue lace is from my grandmother's stash.  Love the color.  Love it.  The heart is a bit of felted pink wool.  Love that, too.  I am loving mixing up textures and fibers...linen and cotton and wool, oh my!  Even a bit of brocade under the mother-of-pearl buckle-y thing.  Gives the piece some fun places for the eye to go, and some wonderful spots for the fingers to linger.  Very tactile, indeed.

I took a little break from hearts to stitch this.  Believe it or not, I saw my first cherry trees in bloom the other day.  Just two, and barely blooming, but still.  It counts, right?  Spring is comint, is it not?  Eventually?  Anyway, in homage to those early bloomers, I stitched this.  Pretty.Pink.Bloomers.  'Nuf said.

Hope you're finding little miracles in your day that are announcing the coming of spring.  And if you're still stuck under a snow drift, I hope you've got lots of cocoa in the pantry.  xo

Heart Art No. 15

Heart Art No. 15 - You may remember this painting..."remain open"...an awesome reminder for me, which inspired the painting.  Well, now I'm thrilled to tell you that this sweet little birdie was featured by The Brave Girls Club in a recent email - "A Little Bird Told Me...Your Daily Truth from the Brave Girls Club".  I'm tickled pink!  Subscribing to their "daily truth" emails is easy, and each one is a ray of sunshine in your inbox.  You can see the email which featured my art here.  And for your own daily reminder to remain open, I have this painting available as fine art prints and notecards, over here.  Thanks again Brave Girls, Wendy and Kathy.  What fun!

Heart Art No. 14 - a two-fer

Heart Art No. 14a - This is just a silly little painting I did for My Valentine.  Because - you're no bunny 'til some bunny loves you.

I know.  Sorry.  Couldn't stop myself.

Heart Art No. 14b - A felt pillow.  I think "be mine" is my favorite Valentine's Day sentiment.  How about it - will you be mine today?

Now, go forth and shower the ones you love with love.  Get mushy-gushy.  Sign all your emails with x's and o's.  Eat heart-shaped sugar cookies.  Sit down and get cozy with yummy chocolates in a big red velvet heart box.  Greet your Valentine at the door with a flute of champagne, wearing nothing but your knickers (hopefully they're frilly with little hearts all over them).  Fill a vase with red tulips.  Cut out hearts from vintage text pages and hang them all over your windows.  All you need is love.  xoxoxo

Heart Art No. 13

Heart Art No.13 - I made this sweet little heart from a vintage doll's quilt that was very raggedy and well-loved.  It was falling apart when I bought it at one of my favorite antique malls.  But I loved the colors and the wonderful feedsack cloth patches so much, that I brought it home and re-purposed it into a bunch of little hearts that I've long since sold.  This is the last one.  I hope I'll stumble upon a little quilt again soon when I'm out treasure-hunting.

I finished a couple of paintings yesterday.  Cheery cheers to you.  I love the vintage feel of this one - NEWS FLASH:  we interrupt this program to pause and enjoy the sunshine pouring into the window...aaaaahhhh bliss.  Okay...I'm back.  Anyway, I had this chipboard stencil of the word "cheers".  I got it at The Bullseye Boutique a hundred years ago.  I've had it sitting on my shelf, just by itself in all its cheery goodness.  Meanwhile, I've been struggling with how to use this long skinny canvas.  Remember these commercials: "Hey!  You got chocolate in my peanut butter!"  "Hey!  You got peanut butter on my chocolate!"  And voila, Reese's peanut butter cups (must get to The Boutique and get some spring-color-foil-wrapped peanutty-chocolatey goodness as soon as I'm finished posting).  Same thing happened here.  I set canvas on previously-mentioned shelf, next to "cheers" and said, "Hey!  Cheers, you fit onto that canvas!  Jump on over here!"  The canvas was already painted a lovely cherry red.  I added polka dots and a vintage paper moasic-ed border.  Then I traced "cheers" onto black and white gingham fabric, and affixed that to my canvas.  I think it needs to go into my dining room.

This is the second painting I finished.  I'm playing around with different textures and media to try to get a rusty painted metal feeling in my focal points, in this case the flower.  I want it to look like these:

I've got a little work to do...not quite there yet.  But I am LOVING the background of my painting.  It's all fade-y and weathered-y, like the side of an old building.  And that's exactly what I was hoping for.  I'm so in love with it, that I've started three more backgrounds on canvas.  With that, I'm off like a prom dress!   Those canvas (canvases?  canvi?)  are ready for the next layer.

Heart Art No.12

Heart Art No. 13 - Oh, how I love a little stitched heart.  Swoon.  The heart is vintage bark cloth.  This is in one of my art journals.  I think I might need to re-create this into a little dood-dad for a sweet little pillow or cheery door hanger.  Wouldn't that be cute?!

Hurrah, lots getting done in the studio!  Had a full day yesterday, which was awesome!  Thought you might like to see what's going on over here...I got out the paints and brushes and papers and glue.  Played with some ideas that have been swirling around in my pea-brain for awhile.  One of the canvases that I'm finishing up is on about its sixth generation of paint layers.  I've had a lot of false starts lately, which has been frustrating.  But yesterday was a good day with the paints and brushes.  I think some good stuff is going on.  Do you get stuck like that, too?  Man, it can be tough to crank through that!

This is one of the pieces I'm working on.  I'm playing with texture and backgrounds.  I'm trying to achieve sort of an aged concrete-y, stucco effect, and giving it a simple focus point.  A little different from the cacophony of color and shapes that I was doing last fall.  Same palette, same feel I think, but a little different.  Does that make sense?

I tried a new gesso that I'm having to get used to.  It's a little slicker (I guess the technical term would be "glossy", but it's slick, there's no getting around it) - anyway, it's slicker after it has dried than the one I was using before, which gave me more of a matte finish.  I think I like the matte finish a little better, but I can make this slick stuff work (I guess I had better, since I have a whole tub of it!  Who knew gesso wasn't gesso wasn't gesso, right?)

I've been so creatively befuddled lately, but something shifted yesterday, and it felt really good to be painting.  I think I sort of let go of the outcome, and just enjoyed the process.  Which is always the right thing to do, but sometimes I forget.  Things get forced.  And then painted over.  In the end, though, I think I'm going to wind up with some pieces I really like.

In other news, I've been invited to be a vendor at Retreat Vintage Market on Camano Island on June 25th.  Super fun!  Super excited!  I've started working on my list of vintage-y, crafty goodness that I want to create, I've sketched out my booth already (must get to Goodwill for some sheer white cotton, tab-top curtain panels), and am really jazzed about this show.  It's orchestrated by the Diva herself, Deb Kennedy and her husband, Bob.  Love them!  I'm excited to show you what I'm planning for the show, as things begin to come together.  Until then...back to the paint brushes.  Have a great Saturday, y'all!

Heart Art No. 9, 10 & 11

Heart Art No.9 - Your work is to discover your work, and then will all of your heart, go give yourself to it.  Buddha

Heart Art No.10 - When friends meet, hearts warm.  proverb

Heart Art No.11 - a journal cover.  Umm...yes.  That's meant to be me.  I probably should not quit my day job.  haha

TGIF everyone!  What's on the docket for your weekend?  My Beloved is working most of the weekend...'tis the season - state swimming championships coming up...so, I think Kip and I are going to hang around the homestead all weekend.  Cook some yummy, healthy things to eat.  Go for walks.  Make some stuff.  I love weekends like this!  Don't get me wrong, I love the going-out-and-playing weekends, too - dinner with friends, shopping at places like this and this, puttering around here - but sometimes, a clean-slate-of-a-weekend, with nothing on the books, endless possibilities - sometimes that just gets me all a-wiggle with giddy-giddy-ness.

It can be a curse, though, too.  With all that un-calendared time ahead of me, it's easy to let it get away from me - a little straightening up here, run get a latte there, walk Kip to the park - before I know it, it's Sunday night and I've gotten nothing accomplished!

Fortunately, the to do list is raw-ther lengthy right now, and I've been down with a cold lately, so I'm super-motivated to get going in the studio.  I don't think I'll have any trouble filling up my hours this weekend.

What do you have going on, friend?

Heart Art No. 7 & 8

Heart Art No. 7 - from my art journal.  A happy heart. 

Heart Art No. 8 - Another art journal doodle.  Lots of heart motifs in my art journal.  I should have this disclaimer in my art journal:  "Hearts.  Not just for Valentine's Day."

A few more heARTists have joined in the heartfest - Stacy, Stephanie and Judy are heart-ing it up over on their blogs, too.  Pop over and take a lookie-loo. 

Heart Art No. 5&6

Heart Art No.5 - So, this one, as well as #6, are works-in-progress.  Which I suppose is sort of cheating.  But the good news is, you'll see the finished project later in the month.  How do you feel about that?  

Heart Art No.6 - I love this little bird.  He's fashioned after the hooked bird I did in Mary's class at Artfiberfest a few years ago.  This is a bit of painted duck cloth that is about to become a little zippered pouch to put in my handbag (because I have a gazillion little things flying around in there and can never find anything).  I'm piecing a little patch-y backside to the pouch, which I'll show you later.

Deb and Sandra are posting hearts on their blogs.  So, be sure and go see what they're up to.  If you're heart-ing it up over in your world, leave a comment here, and I'll post links to your blogs.  Fun!

Heart Art No. 3 & 4

Heart Art No.3 - This scrappy little heart is from the same piece of hodge-podge stitchery that I posted the other day.  It's all vintage silks and brocades and yummy-ness.  In fact, the heart itself is from a bit of silk that was from my grandmother's sewing room.  I'll bet I've had this bit of fabric for...hmm...a loooooooonnnng time.  Every bit of fabric she owned was pink, or had pink in it...unless it was a black and white print.  Very fun.

 Heart Art No. 4 - just playing in my art journal this morning.  Love that phrase from the song from way back when.  Love.the.one.you're.with.  And who are you with 24/7/365?  Y.O.U.  So, come one!  Let's stop what we're doing, and thrown our own arms around our own bad selves and have a great big love-myself-fest!!  And say "I *heart* me!"   Are you feelin' it?  I'm feelin' it!

Heart Art No. 2



It is only with the heart that one can see clearly.

from The Little Prince

Heart Art No. 1

How is it possible that it is already February?  Seriously.  I do love February, though, for all the things it brings with it: the possibility of spring right around the corner, days that stay light later than 5pm, chilly enough weather that I can still wear my favorite boots, and of course, Valentine's Day.  And you know my propensity for hearts.

So, I thought I'd create a piece of heart art each day from now through the end of February to share with you here.  Hey, why don't you join in the fun?  You don't have to do it daily, if that teeters on the heart-y overload for you.  And it doesn't have to be a heart you created.  It can be a heart-shaped rock, a heart lovingly "painted" into the foam of your cappucino at your corner coffee house, a Valentine you're sending to a secret love.  Whatever.  Let's just get some hearts out there and share some love.  We'll have a virtual love fest this month.  Doesn't that sound fantastic??!! 

My heart today is one I created a while back, part of a larger art quilt that's not quite finished.  It's completely hand-stitched - which is why it's not finished.  I have a tendency to get into a project like this for awhile, then get uninspired or bored and put it away for later.  But it seemed like the perfect piece to jumpstart "A Heart A Day". 

Have a lookie-loo around your corner of the world, and see where you heart is.  Then spread the love.  Can't wait to see!