Of Life

Posted on April 18, 2014 by treshabarger

The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away. ~ Pablo Picasso

A bloom, shared

Moving On

Posted on April 16, 2014 by treshabarger

In my art classes, students start with The Drawing Course: Understanding the Use of Line, using vine charcoal. (That was a new term for me: vine charcoal.) Next is the Tone Course: Understanding the Use of Light and Dark, using vine and compressed charcoal.

In the middle of my last class, I finished the Tone Course. (Oh. I wasn’t expecting that.)

And started Beginning Oil Painting: Bringing Together Line and Tone using Oil Paint. (Definitely not expected when I walked in that morning.)

Alert the media.

A palette of two oil paints: titanium white and raw umber

Mixing for tones in oil paint

We begin the oil painting lessons limited to only two colors: Titanium White and Raw Umber. Good idea. All the course materials were written by the instructor, Elizabeth Locke.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Monument

Posted on April 15, 2014 by treshabarger

Three monuments on the grounds of the Texas Capitol.

Texas Capitol Vietnam Veterans Monument

Tejano Monument

Texas Peace Officers’ Memorial

Weekly Photo Challenge: Monument

Mola Butterfly

Posted on April 11, 2014 by treshabarger

This is my second Mola book cover. I created my own design for this one and used Asian fabrics.

A Mola book cover with a butterfly design

Mola Butterfly

Inside

Ready to write

I learned the Mola book cover technique in a class at Sew Much More.

Mola Book Cover

Posted on April 1, 2014 by treshabarger

I recently took a two-session Mola Book Cover class at Sew Much More, taught by the fabulously talented Edie Kemp.

First we sewed our design through seven layers of fabric. Then we cut out the designs, choosing which fabric layer to expose.

The Mola book cover design is sewed and a few sections have been cut away to show the bottom layers

Design sewn and starting to cut away the layers

More of the design cut away

Here it is, all cut out, squiggly quilted, embellished and sewn around the edges. The instructions called for it to be bound in the traditional quilting manner, but I liked the zig-zag sewing a lot, so I went around the cover’s edges three times. Then I figured out that the binding also served to attach the closure loop. Oh.

It’s always something, isn’t it? Especially for people who don’t follow the instructions. That would be me, in this case. I read the instructions; I just didn’t follow them.