Month: March 2012

Copyright© 2009 All images and text in all categories are copyright of Mary A. Ritter (aka M'Unique) and may not be reproduced without express permission. · Fiber Arts

Elements of Art

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I mentioned a while back that I am taking a monthly class from Lyric Kinard on the Elements of Art.  So far, we have covered texture and space.  Between classes, I work on drawing and applying the element of the month.  Last week, I worked on drawing a still life using a frame around it to help me with the spacial relationships between the pieces of the still life.  Here is a picture of that process.  I’m going to draw another still life today, just for practice. Hint:  Lyric still has room in her Thermofax Class.  Come join our Elements class in her home studio!

My proportions are not quite right, but the practice gives me confidence.
Fiber Arts

Creative Wisdom from Pixar’s John Lasseter…

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PIXAR Perspective: Lasseter’s 7 Points
These seven guidelines were written by John Lasseter of Pixar and published by Marc Lougee.  Lyric Kinard shared them on her blog and wrote commentary to accompany them. The series is well worth reading on either blog.   I paste them here as a reminder to myself, and so I can find them for reference easily.  Click on either link to read the original article and Lyric’s commentary.
Copyright© 2009 All images and text in all categories are copyright of Mary A. Ritter (aka M'Unique) and may not be reproduced without express permission. · Fiber Arts

Another tuffet completed!

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Thunderstorms and weather warnings are the order of the day today…. so no progress on the house.   Oh well!  We need the rain too, and the carpenters probably need a couple of days of rest after what they accomplished yesterday.  Scroll down to see the progress made yesterday.

In the last two days, I recovered a little tuffet for Andrea’s sun room.  It’s a cutey!

This picture was taken in her sun room – the walls and the colors in the tuffet turned out to be a good match.  Someday soon, after we remove the furniture we are storing there, she has plans to continue the redecoration of this room.  Then we can show you more, but the painting is done, with white woodwork and white duette shades to finish it off.
Copyright© 2009 All images and text in all categories are copyright of Mary A. Ritter (aka M'Unique) and may not be reproduced without express permission. · Fiber Arts

Elements of Art – Work Group

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Four of us that comprise the Elements of Art Work Group have met with our teacher, Lyric Kinard for the second time.  The culmination of our first month of work was to create a small piece of art work that demonstrated a variety of uses of texture.  The art work could just be a sample piece of textures, but I had drawn my kitchen chicken as one of the exercises, so I wanted to create my piece with the chicken as a focal point.  Notice all of the different textures: a grid of stitches for the background, beading, couched yarn, free motion stitches and more.  It is called Chicken Wild Rice Soup because that is the recipe that is printed in the background and which adds more texture.

Copyright© 2009 All images and text in all categories are copyright of Mary A. Ritter (aka M'Unique) and may not be reproduced without express permission. · Fiber Arts

Texture

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The first session of  a new series of classes called Elements of Art and taught by Lyric Kinard has begun.  During the first session, we discussed and created textures ~ the first of the art elements that quilters and fiber artists encounter.  The banner across the top of my blog has the element of texture.  Visual texture is apparent in the bright colors and actual texture is created by the stitching and beading.  Before the next session at the end of March, I hope to create textures through drawing and fiber applications to share here.

I am adding the picture because I discovered that if you read this blog by email, you would not know what the picture in the banner was.  So here ’tis.

Copyright© 2009 All images and text in all categories are copyright of Mary A. Ritter (aka M'Unique) and may not be reproduced without express permission. · Durham Orange Quilters · Fiber Arts

Mid Atlantic Quilt Festival

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Saturday, February 25 was a very long day.  We boarded the bus outside of Thimble Pleasures in Chapel Hill at 6AM and were on our way to Hampton, Virginia for the MAQF.  This was my first trip to the MAQF, so I mostly wanted to see what was there and enjoy the company of 60 members of the Durham Orange Quilters on the 4 hour ride each way.  I had a wonderful seat mate who contributed interesting conversation for part of the trip, when we weren’t reading or sleeping.  The show was all and more than I expected.  The quilts were beautiful and plentiful, and the vendors had all the interesting products covered. Here are a couple of quilts that I especially enjoyed (pictures taken by Jean F – thanks, Jean, for letting me share them here.)

“Morning Has Broken” won as Best Wall Quilt by Donna Clauer Stufft of Temperanceville, VA.  It demonstrated a new technique called Russian Needle Punching which I hope to explore further.  The needle punching gives the work a 3-dimensional quality.

This large star is all hand pieced and quilted.  It is made from 12,000 hexagons, each smaller than a square inch.  On the back, a quarter inch needle turned applique strip covers all of the quilting lines.
I think that requires as much dedication as there could possibly be available.  That ends it for today.