We have been very busy, very productive. Last week I was not able to blog because I was working all out, day in and day out to prepare two full-color two-sided brochures for the now annual
Artists of The Oak Art Trail the last Saturday of August. This is the third year that our artist group has organized and held our own Art Trail event.
The first two years we worked with a local arts organization but this year we have struck out on our own. My husband and I are the Art Trail organizers, and I felt strongly that our ability to organize has exceeded the ability of the arts organization to serve the needs of our community. Their attention is more focused on our neighboring county because a) the arts organization is located there, and b) the other county has a larger population than ours.
In past years when the art trail was orchestrated only by the arts organization there were only a small (microscopically small) handful of visitors to the trail. When my husband and I got involved and added the Artists of The Oak "loop" to their trail and pressed them to move the date from mid-autumn to late-summer the number of attendees dramatically increased (up from half a dozen literally to 80 the first year; up from 80 to 175 the second year).
Anyway, this year we broke off from the arts organization and are creating our own Art Trail. We raised money from local businesses to sponsor the map for the trail and then raised money from the artists in our group to pay for the Artists brochure.
I had an opportunity to get 5,000 of the map brochures and 5,000 of the Artists brochures with free shipping if I got everything done way ahead of schedule and submitted my artwork by this past Friday.
It was hard, focused work but I made the target and now we will have 10,000 promo pieces to distribute far and wide -- which is four times as many as we had to work with last year.
If you are interested in our event this year, you can
download the map here. Of course, the event is not until late summer, so you will have plenty of time to plan your trip!
Meanwhile, both my son and I have been busy creating. I love these new
"Minimalist" prints he has created for various cities.
I admire his ability to keep things very clean and simple in his designs; these new posters are a great example of his taste in that regard. He has also added several new cities to his collection of Subway Signs and Bus Scroll Prints. So far these cities are represented:
- Dallas
- Washington D.C.
- Portland
- Atlanic City
- Seattle
- Boston
- Chicago
- New York
- San Francisco
- Los Angeles
- Paris
- London
As for me, I have been combining two of my favorite fiber arts: knitting and needle felting. I have had so much fun creating this doll ... and she has been enjoying two of my favorite activities: knitting and drinking coffee. I gave her a tote bag much like one of my favorite totes, and filled it with little balls of yarn rolled up from left overs of some of my favorite yarns.
Last fall I started knitting a pair of knuckle gloves for myself that I was really looking forward to wearing this past winter. However, I was not enjoying the knitting project and never got past mid-way on the first glove. I had intended to complete my gloves and then release a pattern for my readers, but I am not willing to publish a knitting pattern for a project that is no fun to knit, so I never completed the knucks and of course never released a pattern.
When I was working on the doll I had an idea to knit a hat for her, but then I came across the incomplete knuckle glove and realized it would make a great hat for her.
So I unraveled it back to a good length for the hat and voila, an adorable little hat to keep my doll's head warm. I used some of the curly, unraveled yarn to make tassels for the corner points on the hat which just added to the cuteness quite a bit. I also used a little bit more of the same yarn to knit her a tiny ribbed scarf to make sure she stays plenty warm and cozy.
What I am doing with the needle felting is developing some more of my own techniques and characters so that I will have all kinds of cool stuff to teach in the needle felting classes I will be writing up and selling via my Etsy shop. I love the idea of combining knitting with needle felting because knitters will have an additional way to use their talents. But, for non-knitters I will be sure to include instructions for making accessories without knitting.
Please continue to be patient with me because it is a long process to develop the techniques and characters, then to remake items photographing each step, write up all of the instructions, and get it all published. For me, it is especially painstaking because I put quite a lot of care into breaking down my instructions into very easy to understand and follow directions. The thing is, this is a very fun and wonderful artistic medium and when I pass along some instructions on it I want to make sure others will experience great joy in what they are doing.
That will be it for today, but next time I blog I have a wonderful recipe to share that my son passed along to me for Asian Lettuce Wraps ... I haven't had a chance to make them yet, but he has and he loves them so he shared the recipe with me so I could share it with you fine folks.
I'll write more in a few days.
Hope you have a beautiful week!
~firefly
