I Can’t Draw

I can’t draw! That’s what I’ve told myself ever since I was a little girl, and I still say it to myself today. Especially when I go to try and draw something that I see so clearly in my mind, and it comes out stupid and simplistic when I put it down on paper.

I have switched to rug hooking mode, and one of the things I need to do is to decide on a rug for the retreat I am going to at the end of January. I had the idea to do something using all the many duller, “primitive” wools that I have gathered, along with some of the brights that I love. I also wanted it to be fairly simple to stitch. The “cross” rug that I am working on is very fussy, and sometimes painfully slow to stitch. I wanted to go fast!

So I started drawing a geometric. Come on. Shouldn’t somebody with that big box of colored pencils be able to do better than that?

The other idea I had was a more organic “layered” look. I was influenced by the quilt on the right, and then I realized that that was because of some of the photos I had taken at Crystal Cove when we were on this retreat last winter (Picture on left.)

Aaargh. Not what I was seeing in my mind. I talked to my best friend, and she confirmed what I kind of already knew in my mind. I just need to practice drawing consistently. She quoted a well-known quilt artist, who said that she just spent 15 minutes a day drawing bad art.

 

Then I went back to working on the cross rug. I was debating putting a lion in there, and so I found a picture of a lion (love google images) and I drew it on there. And then I remembered that I had drawn all of the animals and plants on this rug.

I guess I can draw. I just need to practice a little more consistently.

Here are some great links to artists that I have enjoyed in the past few weeks. Laura Gaskin, was featured on The Quilt Show, and I was fascinated by her work. Beautiful! And Mary Fons, yes, daughter of the famous Fons of Fons and Porter, is just plain funny. And a good writer. Its a plus that she also speaks quilting.

Entering a Quilt Show

When last I wrote I was working on finishing a couple of quilts, in hopes of entering them in the Modern Quilt Guild’s QuiltCon show. Oh, I just checked, and I didn’t mention that I was planning on entering them. I seldom enter quilt shows, for several reasons. First and foremost is because I am not organized enough to plan ahead for deadlines. Secondly, they are expensive to enter! And third, I don’t actually agree with how some quilt shows seem to be judged. Rather than looking at the quilt as a whole artistic piece, the quilts are sometimes eliminated for technical details, like a less-than-perfect binding. (don’t kill me for this statement–its commonly written about by judges and entrants alike.) I used to show dogs, and sometimes the same thing would happen. Dogs were eliminated for certain small faults, and so in the end sometimes a common-looking dog would win, and the most beautiful outstanding dogs would be dismissed from the ring. So, the fourth reason I don’t enter is because I know that my quilts have some of these common technical “faults,” and I am unwilling or unable to change those things.

Back to the Modern Quilt Guild. It is having Quilt Con here in my state next February. I was quite excited about this, and joined so that I could have a chance to get into some of the classes, and I decided to splurge and plan to spend all four days at the show. So then I thought about trying to enter a few of my quilts. I’m not sure if they are modern, but I know that they are different, and I would like to share them with other people.

The deadline was November 30, and right on time, there I was on November 30, filling out the online entry forms, and taking pictures of my quilts with the right amount of pixels per side. In the end I entered six quilts. I told my BF that it was my version of playing the lottery. Maybe if I entered more, one would make it? Most of me knows that there is very little chance that they will make it into the show. The other part of me actually enjoys my own work and knows that it is worth being seen by other people.

Here are the last two that I showed you almost finished, and that I entered. The other four you have already seen elsewhere on the blog.

His Kingdom Will Never End

And close-ups:

A Closer Look

And close-ups:

(Both of these quilts were made with Cherrywood fabrics. All I had was their bags of 8X10 pieces, I think they call them Grab Bags for Crazies.)

One thing I do enjoy doing is exhibiting my quilts at various churches. My hope is that people will see words of Scripture in a new and different way and that that will make them stop and think about the meaning. Lately I have been displaying some of my quilts at my own church. Here’s a view of that:

After getting all those quilts entered on November 30, I followed my plan to “switch gears,” and I have been working on my rug hooking since then. I’ll write about that later in the week.