.room.

these are all photos that i've taken from countryliving.com as inspiration for my final pattern design assignment. we have to create five patterns made specifically to go into a room of our design. i'm really excited about it. country living's website has a ton of awesome house tours, you should check it out!

i have a special affinity for pie safes. my parents have one in our house and i love it. also, ceramic crocks. i covet them. actually, i love pretty much everything about this photo. the chair, the tub, the ticking on the bed, the windows... love.

the peaches and the wood beam are my main inspirers here. also, i like that tiling. i love old wood beams.

whisks are really great tools. they look awesome and they do such a good job. i love this collection of antique/vintage whisks. maybe i'll do a pattern or two of kitchen implements...

i like the chandelier, but what i really like about this image is the giant bowl on the table.

ceramic and wood together. probably my two favorite materials, besides fabric/textiles.

i take the garlands and the sink/cabinet as inspiration here. also, i like the giant watermelon in the sink. i love chippy paint!

the room i chose is the kitchen/dining room. i'm lumping them together because i want to do stuff from both rooms. that's a pretty good reason, right? anyway, my theme or inspiration or whatever you want to call it is... i guess maybe slow living. i'm emphasizing a connection to food in its plant state. also, i think the table linen patterns will be images of fruits and veggies themselves. all of the materials in the room are natural. i'm designing patterns for food storage containers that will be ceramic. all of the table linens will be just that - linen. oh, how i miss linen.

.two.

this is the second image ready for my show. i'll be printing it this week. the color balance is off. matt, what do you think i need to correct it? i'm trying to get started on a water series, too. i thought i had a breakthrough, but now i feel stuck again. geez.

my winter review is on thursday (found out about this a week ago), so i'm working on my second sky image tonight and tomorrow. hopefully i can print that out on monday or tuesday. oh, and i may print out a water one that i'm thinking about just to have it and for some feedback.

what do you think?

.writing.

tonight, i am writing a paper for my philosophy class. the topic really excites me, and i love talking/thinking about these concepts (had a great lunch with mike (check out his blog!) in order to collect our thoughts), but man is it hard. the more i think about it, the more art cannot be defined. we have to take the three philosophical theories of art and explain which is most accurate. my argument is that none of them are accurate on their own, they must have each other to fully define art. but, there is still this unknown factor, the fact that each individual recognizes art differently, no matter how much or how little they know. there is still that gut reaction.

i'm using picasso's "la guernica" as an example in one of my paragraphs. i love this painting, it reaches out on a soul level. i would love to see it in person, but sadly for me, it is in spain. i do hope to go there someday anyway!

pbs has a good description of the background of the painting and its history here. definitely worth reading.

.home.

i don't really have a lot of time, so i won't caption each photo. i think most of them are pretty self-explanatory anyway; hope you do too :) but, i wanted to make sure to tell you that my dad wasn't after the chickens, he was on his way to his tree stand to hunt deer. doesn't his hunting suit look cozy?

my mom's chickens are getting so big! the two that look bigger and different are two of the original chicks that she bought in may. the black and white one is badger, a silver laced wyandotte. the one with the crazy cheek feathers in the last photo (that was taken just before she pecked my finger! jerk!) is olga, an araucana. she'll lay blue/green eggs! the other three chickens are younger and they are isa reds, i think. badger and olga roost on the totem pole!

.nebulous.

sunday morning looked like this. you can't tell, but this is dt plymouth, on my way to work! it was beautiful, i love the fog.

.odegard ii.

i should have included this image in the last post. this is the design i painted earlier for my pattern design class. i based my odegard design on this one. it's pretty much the same one, just bigger and green/white.

.odegard.

mixing the lumadyes. i love this paint. it's liquid watercolor, so it's completely transparent.

progress...

i really like how the boundaries are transcended by the paint. it looks so soft and adds another layer of interest.

starting to add the "stitches".

this is the pattern that i painted for the odegard rug design competition. i adapted it from the embroidery pattern that i did for my class earlier this semester. i can't actually show you the final piece, though. the rules of the competition explicitly say that i can't publish my design until the winners have been announced. if i'm a winner, i can't publish it until after the award ceremony in april or may! geez, odegard, way to cramp my style.

so, here's the partially finished version. this painting was 12"x18", the biggest i've ever painted. and let me tell you, it was hard to paint this big! even though it was just lines. and the thing about painting is... you can't really fix anything. at least not in a design like this one. it's there forever. i can cringe all i want (and oh, did i cringe), but it's not going anywhere.

you should really check out the odegard link i gave you up there. it takes you to their rug design gallery. stephanie odegard, the head designer and owner, is an amazing designer. i love almost all of the designs!