Better Later than Never

Look what I picked up from my studio table today—a paint quilt exercise I did in 2016!

monostripes paint quilt; exercise for online Jane Davies course
October 2016

I'd uncovered it two weeks ago—in a folder in a stack of folders in a drawer—and set it on the table. When I received a postcard from my granddaughter Emmy two days ago, the exercise jumped off the table and begged to be prepped for her.

Here's what I wrote when I created this start three years ago:

In traditional pieced quilts, fabric is used from cast-off clothing that is still good enough to be repurposed. The quilts are a means of making something useful and often beautiful from leftovers. They are improvisational in the sense that the quilt maker does not buy new fabrics for the quilt.

A 'Paint Quilt' such as the one featured above is a piece made from leftover paint from another painting. No planning ahead, no squeezing out fresh paint. I was directed to use only paint leftover from the monochrome-stripes lesson I'd worked on.

As I noted at the time, I didn't 'finish' this piece in any way, and it read as unfinished when I looked at it.  My intention was to play with it further, possibly cheating by squeezing out new paint, and for sure using ink or pastels before later sending it as a postcard.

Well, sure enough, today I 'played with it further,' and made it into a postcard—three years 'later.' No new paint per se. Just paint markers, pastels, and collage. Off it goes to Emmy!

Life's Simple Pleasures
4 x 5" postcard, acrylic, pastel, and collage on card stock
abstract
2019

French Knots and Appliqué

It feels as though I go to an actual physical place when I step outside my thinking brain into wherever it is I find myself when I paint.

Using paint splatters, collage, stencils, texture sheets, oil pastels, and a plastic tool whose name I don't know, I added 'embroidery' today to the painted 9-square quilt patch I pieced together before I went to Virginia.

grid composition #2
work in progress

Another 'Quilt'

What I was not doing while I started another patchwork 'quilt' grid composition painting:

• wrapping birthday gifts for Caroline and Emmy,
• figuring out what I'll pack to wear in Virginia,
• folding the dark load of clean laundry,
• responding to business email correspondence,
• making a deposit at the bank,
• emptying overflowing wastebaskets …

grid composition #2
6x6" gessobord
work in progress