Juicy observes

How would you like to turn around in the studio and find this looking over your shoulder?

Juicy is Jake's cat and is just starting to fit in instead of spending every moment in hiding.

Although he is fierce and intimidating to look at, he's a big scaredy cat and bolts the minute anyone but Jake approaches him. Sweetie is quite put off by this incursion and has been walking around with her back fur all up in disgust.

it's Friday!!

 I spent most of my day off yesterday in bed trying to ward off a cold/the cold and working on this piece which is becoming quite compulsive.

Things going are are being revealed to me as I go.  Can you tell that I watched "Elizabeth: The Golden Age" and was quite spellbound with the costumes and wigs, not to mention the intrigues and sea battles.

In a little while I have to report to the office for work evaluation and spend the day there interacting with live humans that I am not related to. I wonder if I  remember how.

found money art

Alexander Hamilton never looked so good. Melly, do you recognize this guy?

Taken By the Night continued

Elizabeth Barton's recent post about avoiding cliches made me focus on why I have not been doing any hand work for a while now. She actually had me sketching faces on paper last night!

The word "twee" kept coming to mind (and gagging me) as I tried one small composition after the next, each time with some literal objective in mind. Finally, I went back to my established way of composing - gathering small bits of cloth that work well together, color and textures, and then stirring the two dimensional pot until a  design emerges.
When something recognizable emerges, like figures, then I start to smell trouble. What is the story? How much to show? How much to leave in the wind? How far into cartoon do I want to dive.

At this point I have to rely on my admittedly limited stitch repertoire to define and refine. Faces are particularly deadly as they usually say too much. I prefer faces to be incongruous, contrary even, to what seems to be going on.
I don't want to to spell it out for the viewer.

Sometimes there are elements that have to be weeded out or brought into focus in an unexpected manner.

This piece continues to compel me.

sunday stitchin

Sweetie was annoyed that I abandoned our afternoon nap in favor of other things like bothering her with the camera and stitching in the afternoon sun for the scant hour and change that it  comes through the bedroom slider on the back of the house. If I'm ready early enough I can catch the morning sun in the studio now that the leaves are mostly off the trees in the front of the house.