Friday, June 03, 2011

Distracted

Here's the 'next post'. You totally expected me to leave you hanging, right?

So the last EDiM (Draw something Every Day in May) topic was:
Draw something round.

And I thought, OMG. Something round. Like: A sphere. A hockey puck. A roll of tape.

Cylinders and spheres. Part of the basic geometric forms. I've drawn them. Over and over and over and over, in school and in teaching demonstrations. In pencil, in markers, in chalk. Core, shadow, shade. OMG.

20071106_cylinders
(Yes, I know. These are cylinders, not spheres.)

My brain cramped up and I went, "No. No roundy things today."

I decided to draw my craft punch, which creates round things. It's kind of like drawing the negative space. Sort of. Look, it worked in my brain.
EDiM_117_Something Round

I didn't punch all these circles out. I just drew in those ellipses.

While painting in the ellipses, a lightbulb went off ('bing!') and I went "Hey...". I got my flower craft punches and went to town to execute an idea that I've had marinating for a long time (Wow. I have a lot more work that I need to post in my Creative Journal Altered Books set. Stuff to do, stuff to do.).

I've been playing around with some ideas, flipping them over in my mind, and the punched flowers and the negative spaces left when you punch out the flowers totally pushed me over the edge.

There was a flurry of cutting, ironing, painting, ironing, finding my embroidery stuff.

I've been working on a few quiltlets. Here are a few very coy photos:

quiltlet1

quiltlet2

quiltlet3

They're not done. I'll post pics of the whole quiltlets when I'm done.

So, J looked at me, as I sat on the sofa, watching listening to 'X-Men', hand sewing very intently. He's used to this whole flurry-of-activity mode and knows it's best to just stand back and let it all happen.
J: "These are really different."
Me: "Yeah, I've been thinking about them for a long time."
J: "Hm. They're elaborate."
Me: "I'm thinking of selling them."

J: "You want to get rid of them?" He looked concerned.

Me (I was surprised. You'd think he'd be glad that I'm thinking of getting some of the art clutter out of our house.): "I think if I make a whole BUNCH of them, I won't feel bad about letting some of them go. This is part of my Plan. That I was telling you about. To make Craft items and sell them. To make money."

He looked at me, then at my little unfinished quiltlets, and blinked.

And then 'X-Men' suddenly got really exciting.

That's right, people. I might sell them. OMG OMG OMG. This is part of the larger plan that's been marinating, that I've been turning around in my brain. What do you think? I have some reading up on Etsy that I need to do and business-planning I need to finish...

Stay tuned.

4 comments:

Donna said...

Isn't that the point of exercises like the EDiM? Do some of the work, get a creative idea that is an extension of the original and follow that creative thread to something even better than the original idea?

Can't wait to see the finished quiltlets.

Jane LaFazio said...

yea! quiltlets!!! lovely and a grand idea to sell them on Etsy. LOVE your pages in this post and the last...
xoxox

Hashi said...

I'm watching with interest ....

Wendee said...

Thank you Donna. I pretty much come to dread signing up for these EveryDay challenges. I see them as a prod to get out of a rut and do the things I'm supposed to do, create the habit. And then I get all bummed about myself that I can't follow through after a week. I'm going to take your perspective from now on (or just not sign up for so many of these online activities).

Jane and Hashi - thought you'd like the idea. ;-)