Haliburton School of Art + Design 2018

It's a long summer weekend here in many provinces of Canada. We call it Civic Holiday in Ontario. My sister has been visiting for the past week and just returned home today, so I am getting to the blog post about my time in Haliburton (to take a class and to teach a class at Haliburton School of Art + Design). The last three weeks have not afforded much time for blogging. While I was away I stayed in the woods near a lake, and the wifi connection was spotty. It was often difficult to upload photos.

I took this photo four years ago, when I stayed at the little blue cabin that I stayed at again in the first week of my time in Haliburton. It's the view of the lake out the cabin windows.

The cabin is close to the home of the owners who live down a one km gravel lane way through the woods. It's a beautiful place far off the beaten track. For exercise, when it wasn't too hot, I walked out the lane and back. The big problem was mosquitoes and other buzzy beings. There would often be a halo of them around my head while I walked.

The view was always best first thing in the morning IMHO. Now you have to understand that I am seldom up at this hour of the morning. If you look closely, you can see the mist burning off the lake.

My first week was spent taking a class called "Travelling with a Sketchbook" with Nancy Newman. What a warm and fantastic instructor she is! I did not create any masterpieces at all in this class. I am often not a good student. The whole idea of a travel sketchbook is to do very quick studies and sketches on location that you can build on or develop when you get home. Taking a photo helps with that. You may remember that I have done some pen and ink drawing in the past. Nancy's class was more about quick drawings on location and using watercolour. I have not formally studied watercolour before, so I learned a lot.

Contour drawing, the idea to never lift your pen.

An exercise in two point perspective so our structures will look more convincing.

And then we actually did a small painting using two point perspective.

We learned an interesting method for doing rocks, that involved a white crayon resist at the top. Mine look a little like frosty cupcakes ;-)  These things take practice like most skills one learns in life.

We enjoyed the good weather on several field trips for sketching and painting.

On the first farm we sketched and painted at, we had the pleasure of this charming garden shed

with a well-dressed scarecrow.

Nancy urged us to push the colour envelope, which apparently I did on this one.

 

Later in the afternoon many of us did a rendition of these birch trees.

This is Nancy Newman doing one of her oh so helpful demos.

On another day we sketched at a different farm. This ruined shed attracted many of us.

My sketch/painting.

I started a second sketch because, of course, this red canoe drew my attention. I did not have time to add the watercolour though, and my canoe looks like an unidentified mysterious object.

This kitty came to check out what I was doing and demanded a few pets.

This mosaic method was a lot of fun.

Week 2 came quickly! At our instructors lunch on Day 1 we all posed for a photograph. It was a booming week at Haliburton School of Art + Design! Registrations were up, and I don't think I've ever seen a larger group of instructors in any previous year (this was my ninth).

I enjoyed more views of mist burning off the lake at the start of the week, but the weather grew rather inclement later in the week. It was very hot and humid with frequent rain storms, and once a power outage of 4-5 hours.

Teaching my Flowers & Foliage class (with the addition of Trees this year) caused me to pull out this work that I started two years ago. I thought I might demo with it, and I had high expectations that I might even finish it in the evenings while there.

I didn't want another red and yellow flower because it is too close to the colour of my poppies, so I adjusted it to push the red closer to purple. I had thought I might publish this as a pattern.

Two years later I was not happy with the numbering and lettering of my pattern so I redid it and also added a couple of colour and value changes to it that I had not picked up on before. It was a challenge choosing the fabrics, but I was determined to use some of the beautiful purple/red multi-coloured fabrics I dyed a few weeks ago. And then I used some multi-coloured yellow/orange/pink fabric. I stopped there. I realize that when I publish this pattern people are going to want kits, and I have made it far too difficult to produce kits by including complex multi-coloured fabrics. When I use these fabrics in my work, I cherry-pick the areas I want. To sell a kit I have to very closely be able to reproduce fabrics again and again or I will drive myself crazy. So if, and when, I finish this tulip, I will have to make it again in fabrics that can be reproduced easily. And it may just not be as interesting then.

Here is my class with their work on the last day. They were really keen and worked very hard all week. Thank you Kathy, Carole, Anne, Carole, Ila, Judy, Anne and Cheryl for joining me and inspiring me with your work. Now I realize I did not get a photo of Anne's hosta leaves, probably because the photo she planned to work from had some challenges, so she decided to work with one of my patterns. But she is there in the back row, third from left.

Here are some photos of the works a bit closer up. Not all of them are finished in these photos and most of them still need to be placed on a background.

Kathy

Carole

Cheryl

Carole

Anne

Judy

Ila
If this piece looks a bit familiar, it is because Ila used one of my photographs as her inspiration (one that I have used for inspiration in the past). However, Ila made her own pattern and interpreted it in her own way.

So after the last three weeks (the most recent a visit from my sister, wherein I had the opportunity to be a tourist in my own region) I now need to get back to work. In my next blog post I will share some exciting things coming up.

Enjoy your long weekend, and keep cool! We are in a heat wave again, so I am staying in air-conditioned comfort.

What's Up? What's Coming Up?

I cleaned up my studio, cleared the decks, and got back to work quilting the pieces I made this past winter!

But then I learned that my website had been hacked! What ensued was a frustrating week of fumbling in unfamiliar territory, a lot of calls to my web hosting company, and learning things I never hoped or expected to learn. The end result is that the problem seems finally to be resolved.

I've also been experimenting with brown dyes. My favorite Chino brown dye colour from G&S Dye has changed so much that I had to go shopping for something that might be similar. I ordered 6 different browns from Dharma, expecting that Brazil Nut would be just the ticket (stack on left), but it turns out that Bronze is very close to my old Chino. You can see it in the fabrics in centre and on right. I'm a happy camper to find such a good likeness of Chino on only my second try.

My main reason for writing today is to share details of some workshops I have coming up this fall.

I will be giving a lecture and workshop to the Region of York Quilters' Guild in Newmarket, Ontario  on October 25 and 26.

In addition, I'll be teaching two workshops for The Quilt Store in Newmarket, Ontario:

On October 31 I'll be teaching Liberated Radial Piecing. You will learn how to create a radial design similar to mine while using improv cutting and piecing methods.

On November I will be teaching an Introduction to Fabric Dyeing. In this class you will learn about colour by dyeing a 12 step colourwheel using only three dye colours. You will have a choice between a bright colourwheel

or an earthy colourwheel.

In addition, you will learn how I dye my multi-coloured fabrics.

If you've always wanted to learn how to dye fabric, or if you are curious about how I obtain my saturated colours, this is a great opportunity for those of you who live in or near the Greater Toronto Area.

On the weekend of December 1- 3 I will be teaching my "In Full Bloom" class in a retreat format at Inspired Getaways in Arnprior, Ontario. You will have a choice of either my peony pattern or my poppy pattern. You can bring your own fabric or purchase a kit of hand-dyed fabrics from me. Treat yourself to a fun and productive weekend with all meals provided.

Kits available for the peony in pink.

Kits available for the poppy in either red or blue.

If designing your own botanical art quilt appeals to you, I'll be offering my "Inspired by Nature, Designed by You" class in a retreat format the weekend of May 10-13, 2018. Check out some of the amazing quilts some of my students have created in previous classes here or here.

Christine Earl designed this lovely trillium quilt in the class I taught in London, Ontario.

Lethbridge, Part 1

I am home once again from my trip to Southern Alberta. The weather was warm and sunny, and I could not have asked for better! The City of Lethbridge is a small city of just over 100,000 people. I'm told the population is comprised mainly of young students (there is a university and a college there) and seniors. It's a pretty and funky little city with interesting restaurants, cafes and shops. The landscape within and surrounding the city is beautiful. In the photo below you can see the coulees that Lethbridge is known for. The City of Lethbridge web site defines coulees as "steep-sided, v-shaped valleys found along the river throughout Lethbridge. In Southern Alberta coulees were formed when the last glaciers retreated from the area. Since that time, the coulees have been eroded by water and wind. Coulees are a santuary for wildlife and home to hundreds of native plant species."

On the day after I arrived I gave a talk at the Galt Museum. The large windows of the Museum look out on coulees.

This Museum was once a hospital in its early days, so there are many exhibits throughout that commemorate that fact.

My talk took place in a large room with windows surrounding it, and my quilts were  hung in two rows, one on each side as you entered. 

I taught a three day class (Inspired by Nature, Designed by You) for the Lethbridge Centennial Quilters Guild. Nineteen students registered. Here we are! I'm wearing the turquoise/aqua sweater. This was before it got really, really warm!

I'm sharing a good number of works here, and the state of completion they were in by the end of the class. 

Kathy

Here are the fabrics and photo that Kathy was working with.The flowers featured in her quilt above are prairie crocuses. A bit different from the kind of crocuses we see in our gardens here in Ontario.

I was lucky enough to actually see a wild prairie crocus during my trip. Unfortunately, I couldn't get very close though because it was on the other side of a fence that was preventing tourists from falling down a steep hillside.

Rose-Marie

Judy

Roxanne

Mauie

Jill

Roxanne

Jackie made great headway in class and then spent a few days after class completing this piece. She sent me a photo when I got home, along with the advice to "be fearless". I couldn't agree more. She also offered some tips she found helpful in organizing her project.

Effie

Connie was working on sunkissed tomatoes. A topic I've thought about myself!

Here's Connie enlarging her pattern with an overhead. Most students chose to visit the local copyshop/printer to have their enlargements made.

 Marilyn

Rochelle

 Donna was working a bit more free-form, and plans to add dragonflies to this piece.

Pat

Mary

Michelle

Kim

 Colleen 

Thank you to the organizers and everyone in the class for your warm welcome and friendship during my visit. Thanks for taking such good care of me!

In my next post I'll be sharing a little excursion I took before teaching my next class, as well as photos of the dyeing class I taught in a most amazing arts centre!