The Many Colors of. Balboa Park

It's always inspirational to visit a location that is not your own. I've been to Balboa Park many times and one of the first places we always visit is The Spanish Art Village. We have friends visiting and I knew my friend would enjoy just strolling the park.  I love to look around at the art work and talk to the artist but the thing that keeps me coming back is the color.
















- You might get the idea that I also like doors, windows and flowers.











I've loved the time we have spent in CA this Winter and an hoping that all this beauty will inspire a piece or two of artwork.
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Sample for workshop

I am still on vacation but I brought a few things with me to work on should I have the time. This week I pulled out my fabric and pattern and set to work to make a sample for my Mini Fabricating Class that I will be teaching at the NCQS in May and The Blue Ridge Quilt Festival in July.






One of the patterns that will be available for my students is titled "Mates". I brought four different background fabrics with me that I felt had potential. The birds aren't finished and there will be berries added to the branches as well as snow. However, I wanted to show how a piece changed with the background.






My friend Bonnie Ouellette is dying fabric for me and making kits to go with the pattern for this class. This is the background that will come with the kit and it works quite well. One of the subjects that I cover extensively in my longer Fabricating Nature class is the best selection for your background.






By placing the birds and branch on four different backgrounds you achieve a very different look with each background.






All four of these piece work quite well, that is a phenomena that doesn't alway happen. I think this is happening in this case because it is a scene and each background offers the viewer almost a different composition. Often when we are creating a flower that is not the case. The background must play much less prominence but still present big Wow power and compliment the flower as in the piece below.






I posted the four photos of "Mates" on my Facebook page this week and received a lot of comments. While I will be using #2 for the kits I hope to demonstrate the importance of a well selected background. If you have any preference let me know.

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Mini Mini SAQA Meeting

The Internet is a wonderful thing. Without it I would not have met many of my fiber art connections. My husband and I are spending this month in Encinitas CA. Our daughter, Lisa is visiting this week.

A while ago I saw a post about Paula Chung's art work using MRI images as her inspiration.You can see Paula's work here, www.paulachung.com  Paula and Karen Rips use the same image as their guideline with Paula going representational while Karen's work is abstract. you can see Karen's work here www.karenrips.com  I knew Lisa, who is a MRI tech, would be interested is seeing their art work so I sent her a link. Lisa in turn sent Paula an email telling her how much she enjoyed her work. One thing lead to another and Lisa is now supplying Paula with some interesting MRI images. When Lisa told Paula that she was coming out here Paula proposed that we should get together. That happened this week.




Paula on the left, Lisa in center and Judy Rys on the right.  You can see Judy"s work here www.judyrys.blogspot.com/ Where does Judy fit in you might ask? I met Judy at the SAQA booth in Houston this past Nov. We chatted a little and continued to email occasionally. Judy and I also talked of connecting during our visit to CA. Well it happens that Judy knows Karen, who by the way had an accident and couldn't make the trip, so Judy and Paula got together and come to Encinitas. The art work on the table is Judy's. Judy incorporated photos, embellished fabric and commercial fabric in this piece she shared with us.





It's difficult to see the intricate work on the table. Paula has drawn out an MRI of the head and is thread painting using four different threads.





This piece shows up a bit better. This is a whole body image. You can see the spine here. Paula draws the very intricate image on Solve and then uses four different colors of thread to paint the image.



A close up of the whole body image.



Another close up of the base if the head.

It was extremely interesting to meet with these two artist and share information, to ask questions and have ideas thrown around. I felt that I had know both of them forever and could have spend many more hours,if not days, just talking about our art and the process. This meeting would not have taken place without the internet nor my daughters interest in art. So I thank both the inventors of the internet and my daughter for a pleasurable Mini Mini
SAQA meeting.
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Beautiful

I haven't gotten a lot of creating done this week, at least, in finished product. However the beauty that surrounds me is both inspiring and restful.



This is the sunrise view from our condo. It's hard not to bask in the beauty of the world in which we are privileged to live. This beauty is often what my art work is about.



I've been walking every day with my camera as my companion.



It's hard for me to pass this beauty without thinking of my art work. Not long ago I had become a little burnt out on creating my large flower pieces. I felt that I needed to move along to develop something new for my vision. I have done so and am happy with my new creations but, I am still feeling the need to create the beauty that surrounds me.



So I've decided that I will continue working with "Fabricating Nature" and it's beauty while I work to develop new techniques. My passion will always be the beauty of our world.www.ninamariesayre.blogspot.com

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