A 'Normal Day' during Covid Social Isolation

Painting on location last week was the first time life felt normal in weeks. The social isolation due to Covid 19 has perhaps been easier on us creative sorts than others but still I find there is a feeling of unease and I've been finding it hard to settle to my normal amount of painting. However that day, sitting in a farmers field with 3 other artists, spaced well apart, getting lost in painting, life felt normal.

 

What else has been happening? I had been looking for a small comfortable chair for my studio for many months. I was able to purchase this beauty a few months ago off our local Buy and Sell.

Wanting to be a part of redoing the chair, I chose the fabric and I refinished the wooden parts. Bill from Treasure Upholstery here in Creston, BC, a master craftsman, upholstered the chair for me. He also took the squeak out of it! I could not be happier with it. Thank  you Bill!

Other things this week: A fair bit of time was devoted to sewing masks for people I know that might be needing them. I settled on this 3 fold pattern with a nonwoven interfacing inside for additional filtering. Fortunately I had some of the tightly woven batik fabrics in my 'stash' I liked the casing on the side as it allows the elastic to be adjusted by the wearer. My biggest challenge was finding the right flexibility of wire for fitting over the nose. 

Let's try an enjoy what we are doing during this time of social distancing but let's not put too much pressure on ourselves productive.

Two days in an Artist's Life

Two days in an artist's world. Yesterday I was location sketching from the car as it was much too cold to be outside. Today I interpreted two of the tree sketches onto my hand-dye painted fabric using thread sketching. 

I was looking at the tree sketch on the upper right. When I was sewing, I kept moving the sketch right-side up to upside-down depending on which way I was stitching.

 This sketch was done very near where I live. It is one of two remining apricot trees from a very old orchard. There is an apricot tree in one yard and one in the next yard. They are very much appreciated in our neighbourhood as they are beautiful for their shape, blossom and apricot coloured fruit.

Fruit trees are pruned to have a spreading nature. The straight up new growth on top could use a little pruning. The size of the trunk gives us an idea as to it's age. I know some pear trees I painted in the same area were a century old. Looking forward to the blossoms next month!