Inspiration From Nature



I don't know about you, but a lot of my inspiration comes from nature. My camera goes with me at all times, whether it's my phone camera (which  has a 41mega pixel camera), my pocket size Canon or my tablet. The pictures below were taken with the tablet.

The lilacs are just starting to bloom. Just see where the tiny maple tree decided to grow (potential art piece ???) - maybe!
These plants are in my sister-in-law's garden.

I will be presenting some nature photos over the next few days.
Have a look around your area. What might inspire you. Take photos, sketch a bit, add colour, transfer to fabric but most of all, HAVE FUN!!

Enjoy!



 

St. John's

Here's a photo I took with my phone out the aircraft window as we flew over St. John's last Thursday afternoon. My new windows phone has a 41mega pixel camera. With this phone, I really have no need for a digital camera.

 

Saving my photos to the 'cloud' allows me to share the photos with my various devices.

 

 

More photos!

I took a trip out to Petty Harbour yesterday to make a delivery to Herbie's Olde Shoppe. They have been featuring some of my work in their shop. It was a beautiful day. On the way, I stopped and took a few more photos of the downtown area. This time, I was at the top of the hill on the road leading out to Cape Spear. In the first photo, overlooking the city, you can see The Rooms and the Basilica Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. They are very prominent landmarks.

Book Review # 4

Journey to Inspired Art Quilting by Jean Wells is another book that was added to my library. This book, like her previous ones, has beautiful coloured photos and is an easy read. Jean provides the reader with more design guidelines through the exploration of line and colour as well as new exercises to try. It is strongly encouraged that we take our cameras everywhere!

My camera goes everywhere as you never know what will spark an idea!



Check out some of these Quilt Artists:

Deb Plestid
Melody Johnson
Carol Bryer Fallert
Frieda Anderson
Bonnie McCaffery
Coreen Zerr
Barbara Olson
Laurie Swim
Renske Helmuth
Sandra Meech

Enjoy!

Trees

Trees are often used in  my art work. Here are a few posts to reference: Back Garden, Ginkgo Tree, Work In Progress, and Gower Street, St. John's. As I often write, my camera is with me constantly. If I spy something of interest, I 'shoot' it. A tree or flower might just be the one to fit into a piece of art. You can crop, sketch, resize, or scan anything in your photos. I prefer to use my own photos as I know there will be no issues using them. Check out these trees from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Quebec:

Have a look:

• Trees by Marjan Kluepfel and Nancy Cook
• Google search of quilt artists trees (there's a lot to see - click on the images to go to the various web sites and blogs). 

Enjoy!

ipad

Last year, when I travelled to Endland on a textile tour, I purchased an ipad. I used it to check my hot mail account and to send email back home. It also became my photo storage device. Instead of taking multiple camera memory cards, I transferred my photos to the ipad. That worked amazingly well. It was great to check my blog and to keep up to date on other blogs (when there was time).

It doesn't work as well for me when composing blog posts. I am so used to using multiple screens when composing my posts that this little device doesn't measure up. I don't have a separate key pad and that has issues. With the touch pad on the screen, I still haven't discovered if I can copy and paste easily. I have managed to frustrate myself with it. As a result, the previous posts, since the 18th of October, were composed at home as I'm visiting Chicago at the moment. I think I have three more of those yet to post!

If time permits, and I still have internet access, I will write a few lines and post them.

Since I don't have any new links for you today, check out links on other blogs. You might be surprised to see the things that interest them. Sometimes it's related to their own work and sometimes not.

Enjoy!

Find My Fabric

Just when I was wondering what the next blog topic would be ... I get an email newsletter with an idea. This bit of inspiration comes from Superior Threads. 

hand woven Guatemalan fabric

What if you ran out of a specific fabric for a project and needed a bit more to complete it? None of your quilting buddies has any! Not only that, you don't remember the name of the manufacturer, collection or designer of the fabric. Well, now there is an innovative fabric search engine, Find My Fabric, that finds fabric and quilting supplies from online sources. Either scan your fabric or take a photo of it and upload it to the search engine (it's easy to do, just click on the camera icon and follow the directions), and if the fabric is out there, an online retailer is located for you. How easy is that?

'Sew Much To See' Quilt Show

This is my friend's birthday. We celebrated this afternoon by going to 'Sew Much To See' Quilt Show by the Ocean View Quilt Guild, CBS. Of course I took some pictures but . . . I don't know if it was me or the camera. Most of them were blurred. I should have taken the camera with image stabilization on it. That one compensates for slight arm movement. Live & learn. I think I've had a couple of those days lately! Anyway, here's a few images that are passable.

The show was very well done and the lighting was great. Well done ladies. Too bad I didn't have better photos!

Eastern Edge Quilters

Just a quick post this time. Our quilt guild, the Eastern Edge Quilters, met tonight. As part of the Show & Tell , members of the Outreach Program displayed this quilt that was just completed. It is a scrap quilt made with triangle shaped pieces. It is in memory of two members who passed away from cancer. Which charity it will go to hasn't yet been decided.
I did take a picture of the whole quilt but it was not in focus. So much for image stabilization in my camera!! And I thought I previewed the image . . . I'd better get more lessons before my next trip!