Six Deliveries in a Week

Posted on May 4, 2018 by Mama Cormier

….my neighbours must have been wondering why the UPS and Canada Post trucks were stopping in my front of my home so often in such a short space of time

No it wasn’t because it was Christmas or someone’s birthday. I’ve decided to make more purchases through Amazon because the prices are good and shipping is free. Well it’s free for both my husband and me because we took advantage of the free Prime delivery service but forgot to cancel it after one month and now we’re paying for it. So it isn’t exactly free but we need to take advantage of the service or we will be paying for nothing. One of the advantages to having Prime is that we also get Prime TV shows and we’ve seen some good series and movies.

Anyway some of things that I’ve ordered are books and art supplies. A lot of these things were ordered on the same day but the delivery dates were random. One item I received within 12 hours and some took longer because the seller couldn’t guarantee faster service but I knew this when I ordered them. Everything arrived in pristine condition and was exactly as I expected. I’m one happy customer.

Cee’s Odd Ball Photo – April 22, 2018

Posted on April 28, 2018 by Mama Cormier

….thanks Cee for hosting the Odd Ball Photo Challenge

I’m a little late this week and I could have saved these shots for tomorrow but I’m hoping I’ll have new ones by then.

WPC – Lines

Posted on April 26, 2018 by Mama Cormier

…this week’s theme for the Weekly Photo Challenge is lines

Lines in Quilt, lines left by shadows, line drawing, line for the bathroom, tape lines, lines on the road and railway lines.

Artsy Crochet – Another Art Form

Posted on April 24, 2018 by Mama Cormier

…..day 83 of 365 Days of Art

Every once in awhile I like to change things up. Recently I took a crochet class. After making numerous wash clothes and coffee cup holders I decided it was time to branch out or get more creative. One thing that I love making are hats, so I found a pattern for an Owl hat for my granddaughter. Normally I make things too large but this time it may be on the small side. If it is, I’ll hang on to it until more grandchildren come around or if someone else is having a baby.

Here is my first attempt at an owl hat for a toddler made with a crochet hook.

365 Days of Art – More One-liners Transformed

Posted on April 24, 2018 by Mama Cormier

…day 82

I keep adding more colour, collage, line detail and background marks to my one-liner birds. I also added two new characters that I borrowed from Eva Ucgatwork. I love expressions and how they appear to be in awe of these strange looking birds.

What’s a Snoopy Party?

Posted on April 22, 2018 by Mama Cormier

….day 81 of 365 Days of Art

On Friday our granddaughter requested that everyone coming over for lunch on Saturday wear a Snoopy t-shirt. Our oldest daughter was the only one who could honour that request so Oma and Papa went to work looking for Snoopy clipart. I knew I had t-shirt transfer sheets so it was just a matter of choosing the design and finding some plain t-shirts that we didn’t mind messing up if things didn’t go as plan.

The first shirt did get messed up and I had to hand draw the lower half of Snoopy with a black Sharpie. The next two worked out much better.

I asked my daughter-in-law what colour t-shirt she wanted for her Snoopy Shirt. When she said black I knew that I couldn’t use the transfer sheets that I had so I researched how to transfer designs onto to black or dark fabric. It turns out that there is a special transfer paper designed for dark colours.

I made a quick trip to Michael’s and found the special sheets that I needed and the t-shirts were on sale, buy two and get one free. I picked up three new shirts and decided on the spot that I had to make shirts for daughter #2 and her husband. I loved how easy it was to use the special paper for dark colours and was very happy with the outcome. I think everyone loved their shirts.

365 Days of Art – Part 2 of Tape n’Stuff

Posted on April 18, 2018 by Mama Cormier

…..day 79

I went back to some of the one-liner birds that I had done and decided to redraw two of them onto the taped and collaged background that I created yesterday. After I lightly drew the shape onto the collaged surface I took acrylic white paint and filled in the shape. After it dried completely I used a Koi Colouring Brush Pen in black and outlined the shape and added a few details. I then applied some water with a brush to the black marks to soften them and create shadow.

Here is the first completed piece:

365 Days of Art – Preparing Backgrounds

Posted on April 18, 2018 by Mama Cormier

…day 78

In Carla Sonheim’s on-line year-long art class we were assigned to create some backgrounds (Part 1) for the next class. These canvases were to be created with collaged paper but instead of gluing them down we were suppose to use tape in a variety of colours and patterns to hold everything together. In other words the tape is part of the design.

Last night or early this morning I started making two canvases. I was totally engrossed in the process and by 2:30 in the morning I had completed two backgrounds. Here they are:

Step two is to paint something (an object, animal, person) in white paint somewhere on these canvases. Haven’t quite decided what to do but I have a couple of ideas. Stay tuned.

A Study in Patience

Posted on April 17, 2018 by Mama Cormier

…..Day 77

I’ve included this knitting project has one of my art pieces for my 365 Days of Art. It took me hours if not days to complete this shawl. I had never done a lacy pattern before but I think it was the 361 stitches on the needle that caused me the most grief. If I dropped one stitch or miscounted the whole piece was off and trying to fix a mistake when you’ve completed a row was close to impossible to fix. I ripped out the stitches four times and one of those times I was already finished with the lacy section when I realized that I had misread the last row of the pattern and had 70 stitches too many on my needle. Arghhh!

The fifth try was the charm. By this time I truly understood how the pattern worked and the number of stitches remained constant until it was time to decrease. I have to admit that after the third failure I was ready to give up. After all, it was taking away from my time at my art table but I decided that this project was a form of art so I persisted. I made a couple of trips back to the yarn store, Spin Me a Yarn, where I was given the encouragement I needed and some helpful tips for this project.

If you’re interested this pattern is called Mesquite Shawl from Zen Yarn Garden.