Happiness Runs...

  

"I paint on fabric while singing  a song

 and I can't go wrong.....

'cause if  you can't recall the words,

 make up some new ones 

as you hum along! "

Sonja   sept 17, 2013

 with music as theme for ATC this month in

heARTisttradngcards,

I  thought about a song I  have loved for a long time
 by Donovan

called Happiness Runs.

You may have heard it in commercials with breakfast cereal a while back

with kids in colorful inner tubes floating about in what appeared to be milk.

  Recently I heard it in a cat food commercial with a big red tabby like Morris.

It is one that gets in your head and plays there. again.

 Recently while conducting a painting class I looked up to see a boat on the water

 with red sails, Again.

I  am apt to say  "paint what you see " to myself as well as folks
 with paint and brushes and fabric before them.

and that is not the first year that boat has appeared  during class time.

we saw this a year or two back as well,
 those same deep reddish sails on a little boat
 upon the blue Pacific!

 the words from Donovan are here if you aren't familiar with them .

the short version goes;

"Happiness runs in a circular motion

Thought is like a little boat upon the sea

Everybody is a part of everything anyway

you can have everything if you let yourself be

Happiness runs  happiness runs. "
 If you have interest, 
Read more: Donovan - Happiness Runs Lyrics | MetroLyrics

if you are my age or older, you might also enjoy singing

" Red sails in the Sunset "!

 Bing Crosby (1935) was first to record it I think,
 and many artists  have covered this song, many !
So what is on your hit parade?
   

Happiness Runs!

here's Ruby enjoying boxes of fabric

zentangle ATC exchange

 

 

 

 My  first two attempts to make Zentangle ATC's

 went by the wayside, into the ditch,

off the road...
I filled the backs of  envelopes with  black lines but nothing surfaced .
my doodles ended up needing to be quilted and after starting out with a piece o plain muslin, the  black thread I used  kept breaking . I switched over to a variegated blue called de Nile by Superior of the king tut line that I got a cone of because I like it so much, then  the quilting /doodling went much smoother. free motion quilting is so like the doodle marks we made in margins of our note books as students in  class or on the phone with a pen or pencil. The this case the fabric is the paper and the needle is the pen only reversed because the thread is stationary and I move the blank fabric beneath the needle. the foot peddle got hot . I quilt barefooted.

 

When the quilting and cutting into sections was complete  I was thirsty for color so I painted the cards colors in  magenta, sky  and golden yellow and colors they make combined . I sprayed water and let the colors run outside the lines

 and the next morning..

 they had  dried and curled up like so many chips in the sunshine!
 that is not a problem with a hot iron on hand. I  fused some of the art paper made from those  painted coffee filters, again, on the backs and placed a weight on finished cards to flatten them for the mail, overnight. 
 

the finished ATC's

all ready to mail out.

 

 

and now

 that age old question

egg or chicken?

 

Sky according to Lucy

"the Sky", said Lucy "is full o diamonds...."

Sky is the February theme for the atc trade.that is a broad topic of color

 to choose from!

how about all o them.

i must have a zillion sunset colored photos and dozens of painted one in postcards form. so where did my art part brain wander to this time?

 

 

To a song. again.

once again a piece of music, a song with the word Sky in it caught my attention.

pick me pick me  it said ,so the designing began.

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds was my inspiration.

 

i painted on a webbed recycled cloth with inks and used it to mono print
 the cotton fabric.

you can see it in the upper left corner of photo above.
 

here is close up of the first print. i added more inks as needed

for the ones that followed.

 

 

once again i quilted free-motion with a metallic thread in a pale gold.

the above photo shows front and back quilted in the sun and spirals of my imagination.

much to my delight the threads never broke on making 9 cards and i did not even change to a metallic needle. i just used my old dull one that had recently sewn on paper. i close up the  envelopes i make  or old calendar pages with a nice zig-zag stitch

 in colorful threads.

perhaps my singing of  "tangerine trees and marmalade skies"  made for

 good vibrations!

just in case you may have forgotten the words, this song is on the

 Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album by the Beatles.

 

i hand stitched some diamond colored tiny glass beads all around the edges, usually one at a time using a quilitng needle. i know i know, this takes up a bit of time but i enjoy taking some hand work out on the deck where i can enjoy

 the clouds loafing along in the sky.

i call this trade             Sky according to Lucy.

(once upon a time long ago i had a mare by the name of Sky.)

 

the little twirled painted coffee filters above will dry into a sort of tie dye pattern.

when they are dry i iron them flat again and wrap my art cards in them to

help protect the art in transit.

 

here is some of the paper i  used in  this trade.

 

SO,what music has inspired you lately?

Oh, if you click on sunset top photo,
can you see the cat in the foreground?

 

devine verdigris

the  first trade of yet another year of glorious color in

Arts in the cards is on .

 this year we got to put in our color choice. i said puce and verdigris.

 verdigris was choice for January so i thought i would jump right in.

i love the blue/green colors of various metals left to weather.

 think of Miss Liberty statue and her lovely patina. 

I  have a lovely old lamp with such a base in that coloration.  

 

many plants and vines fall into that charming category as well.

 

i painted and over painted fabric for backs and coffee filters for fronts with all sorts o paints and glimmers i had on hand,

i fused a peltex layer between after they dried.

next day i sat at my trusty Bernina 830 record and free motion quilted away

the rainy afternoon.

 a bronze/blue edging over a zigzag stitch was the last step.

below

 i  have put them in a small tree for a photo before addressing them and sending out.

  

 

i think they would make great book marks if i re sized them to about 2"by 6".

Sunrise over Pearblossom, CA.

Sunrise over Pearblossom, CA

on the way north to the snowy mountains from the small town in southern California where i lived as a child was a place called Pearblossom. we usually arrived just about sunrise at a truck stop or ihop having left in the dark o early morning to

get a good start.

i love the name and when i read of a pear as a color trade with Artsinthecards, this is where my mind went. i painted bits of fabric the colors of fall pears. then i set up to paint some rosey sunrises also on cotton. next i cut hill shapes and layered them front of sun. simple stitch held them in place and some metallic thread made

the rays

reach out from the sun.

the circles under the cards are the used coffee filters colorful with paint from projects wiped and driped and used up on them. i use these papers to wrap up
my art cards like

a little burrito for traveling through the mail.
colorful papers to go.

Although i  admit to seeing far, far more sunsets,

i wish a happy sunrise to all!

Sonja

easy seeing green!

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Wholly Cuckamonga Batman!

                         

 the cucumber trade
with artsinthecards 

as is summer,

is almost over with my entry .

i tend to take a bit longer than usual as i have a few ideas stewing already

or i don't sign up.

all the ideas looked good in my art part brain, pretty good.

i will attempt to descirbe what i was thinking ..about the cucumber as a color prompt.

Green was top of the list.
well, it was the list.

then there is "cool as a cucumber in a bowl of hot peppers" a beasty boys lyric.

then Patty sent that frog card

and my imagination turned a corner.

My new mantra became

"Wholly Cucamonga Batman, it's easy seeing green!"

i just had a time of it getting my eye glasses the correct strength, but not too strong.

(my very first pair of prescription glasses
 came with red frames and i always loved them.)

i am seeing pretty good now with my new pairs of glasses.

while thinking just what my card might look like, i took a cucumber end slice, mixed some golden and navy ink and started stamping card stock for
 back of cards and envelopes.

(this round i used old stationary envelopes instead of a sewn up calendar pages.)

for the lens fabric i took more paint and finger painted circles on cotton then i sprinkled salt into center and let it dry.

i cut out the circles and placed them on background cloth and free motion sewed the lenses in place and doodled out the red frames.wabi sabi.

i added a bit of red paint and a bit of glitter paint to the frames and i was almost done. to get a bit of a shine to lenses, i painted a few coats of min wax over them.

i sewed backs to fronts after a little trimming to 2 1/2" by 3 1/2"
which is the standard size for ATCs artist trading cards
.

i hope you like my new cool shades of cucumber

 and the remains of your summer
.
what color are your glasses?

Acid Rain

 Rain

 was the latest word prompt for Arts in the Cards trade.

 what that word looks, feels, sounds like to you at the time is what was made visable

 and reduced to a small card and sent out to other artists.

this blue bubble photo is not one of them.

it is a eyeglass cleaner cloth borrowed from my DH from his last pair of glasses.

 and as good as any place to start as i am visual.

 also a good reminder that i get my eyes checked this week for sharper vision glasses!   

i started out with water/rain drops and the  idea that i see  colors in drops, which i do .

water running down a windsheld or window takes on shapes as did the paint i put on several pieces of cloth that i left out in the rain to make them dilute and as they dried on a slope,

the colors ran downhill.

of the 4 pieces i picked 3 that i quilted to repeat that rolling down effect  of drops.

 i used some metallic thread that broke (even with the metallic needle)  often .

 i was glad these were small pieces.

rain drops keep fallin' on my head.....

was the most sung  old song  as  worked  along  on  this challege.
what does rain inspire you in your imagination?