My auction piece for the quilt retreat that I am going to miss again!

I will be in Houston during the weekend the quilt group is having their retreat. It is a great group of women who have been meeting together for over 20 years. Through lots of laughing and crying, the group is stitched together pretty tightly. One of the fun things we do, just to mention one, is an auction. You can bring things to be auctioned off on Saturday, the only rule is that you have to have made it. Every year during the retreat we pick the theme for the following camp. This falls theme was "Going Green", here is my wall art quilt for the auction. It is done with collage, tissue paper, paint, glue, and lots of quilting.

Fall Card Exchange

On Painting Friends we do a few card exchanges during the year. Often during Easter, Christmas and fall/halloween. This year we sent cards a little early and they are now starting to arrive. Everyone who wants to participate signs up, then I go through and randomly assign names to everyone, that is their exchange person. They will paint an original piece of art for their person and send it. The person on the receiving side doesn't know who is sending to them until they recieve their card. Lots of fun and we end up with little masterpieces from other artists. The card I sent to Regina arrived today, she loved it so now I can post it. It is a Rubeckia called Cherokee sunset, watercolor, 4x5".

Pears and shadows

Cindi in our watercolor group "Painting Friends" challenged us to do shadows. I decided to paint tonight and this seemed perfect. She had posted two pictures, one of a statue and pears, I "picked" pears! I think I was too tired to paint as I felt like I was struggling from the start. Somedays you just know instinctively, don't paint! Well, I decided to keep going, I mean, its just a practice piece, right? well soon I was getting mud. Mud is never good in watercolor painting, so I told myself, pretend your an oil painter. So now I was going for mud, colorful mud. I ended up with this, I do like it, it was fun. I want to get dark darks that still have color. That arent dead blacks or browns. So these practice pieces are great, thanks Cindi!

"Pears" watercolor 5x7

One of my new patterns

This is called "Fabulous Folded bags" it is one of my new patterns to be released at Houston. They are so fun and easy to make, plus there is a folding process that takes them from a square to a bag, but is a secret. Hope you like them!

Postcrossing

Jennifer and I decided to do a postcard exchange with people from all over the world. Since traveling for us if challenging we thought it would be fun to explore the world through the eyes of those who live in it! Its a great idea for teachers, moms, etc. Its called Postcrossings and we recieved our first postcard today! Yippie, it came from Finland. We have sent several to Russia, The Netherlands, Belgium, China, Japan, South Korea. The website keeps track of them for you on a map so you can see where you have sent and where you have received cards from. We are going to travel a bit through our postcard exchange!

Mushrooms

We have had mushrooms growing in our lawn, even with all this heat! It either means we are over watering or we have some pretty tough mushrooms! Randy got our camera and took some close up shots of these little beauties. They are so wonderful and unique. They come up in a day and are gone almost as quickly. I think they are a challenge to paint since they are so overly simple and not very colorful. The challenge here is to make them interesting. I had a piece of left over primed watercolor paper. Although it only had a green wash on it I found it hard to capture any good light areas because of the green. I will paint these again but here is my quick watercolor painting of Mushrooms.

Fractured Quilt by Sub Q Art Quilters

cropped quilt
Originally uploaded by ddhabicht

Our Sub Q Art Quilters group did this fractured quilt. The participants received a piece of a photo and was asked to blow it up 400% and recreate it in an art quilt. They could use any techniques they wanted to use in recreating their section of the photo. Oh I forgot to mention that I gave them their section in black and white, so they had to add back in the missing color. It was a study on value and I love the results! There were so many different techniques from applique, to paints, inks, piecing, even paper towel collage.

Follow up post: I asked everyone to send me the techniques they used to do each of their pieces. I have that information and wanted to share with everyone. The first piece was done by Nancy Mastroianni, she used
paper piecing, beads, crystals and colored pencil. Piece #2 was done by Kay Davis, she used hand/machine applique, art pencils, ink and thread play. Piece #3 was done by Phyllis Campbell, she used tsukineko inks, fabric pens,oil pastels, pigma pens and thread painting. Piece #4 was done by yours truly, Desiree and I applied used painted paper towels, tissue paper, papers, and fabrics to create a collage. I then used paints to add more color. Piece #5 was done by Ann Turley, she used machine applique and paints. Piece #6 was done by Carol Colbert, she used hand applique, paint, colored pencils. Thanks to these amazing women and there efforts in completing this quilt.

Randy reading

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Originally uploaded by ddhabicht

Sketched in watercolor in my sketchbook

Taking a minute to enjoy

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Originally uploaded by ddhabicht

How often do we just end up working outside in the yard and never really just stop to enjoy it. Although we love working outside its nice to just stop and really take it all in. Breathing in and filling my lungs with satisfaction. Laying in the shade and feeling the breeze as it flows over my arms and cools me. That is what we miss when we get caught up in the work of it all. Today, we had one of those special resting days. Ahhhh I love it. Randy brought out the Kindle (electronic book reader) which he has practically taken over. I had some art magazines and my sketchbook. I sketched and quickly painted one of the border dahlias and Randy reading. Its so nice out here, I think I will just take a nap.

Party

Party
Originally uploaded by ddhabicht

Chris and I trying to get a photo together with my phone

Robs 50th

Robs 50th
Originally uploaded by ddhabicht

We went to a neighbors 50th birthday party last night. It was great,
catered food, dj, hypnotist and this custom cake. It is wine barrels
and a plate of cheeses all part of this awesome cake!

Fall Gifts

Its almost midnight but I wanted to post my little watercolor sketch from my journal before going to bed. I noticed on our morning walks that the pine trees are dropping their pine cones. Some are open, many are not. These unwanted gifts are nothing but litter to some, a nuisance to the gardeners,but as the Holidays arrive they will be gathered and appreciated. They might be in a table decoration or sit on a fireplace hearth. Some will be painted with white paint and glitter to look as though they are full of snow. I think I may start to collect my gifts early this year, while the selection is prime! I think a basket full of pine cones would make a wonderful and challenging painting!

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Originally uploaded by ddhabicht

Marta was making pastel paper the last time I visited and I grabbed
one. She had based them all in different colors, so cool. Last night
at 11 I started this French waiter, what was I thinking? I am not
overly thrilled with my results. In my photo he is doing this weird
persing of his lips plus the shadows are so dark no eye details show
up which I tried to fix... Hmmm. The paper was not quite 8x10 so it
was small to do a bust. Yet I am happy since I think I got his
porportions right, captured him and I love the background.

My garden is still trying even in the heat

My garden is still trying even in the heat
Originally uploaded by ddhabicht

I uploaded this picture from my iphone today, I love my phone. We were working outside and although I was taking out my bean plants I realized that the rest of the garden was really still producing and looked pretty good. We have had such a long stretch of super heat, I am even amazed it all hasn't just shriveled up and blown away. We actually had fresh squash tonight for dinner. In my magic box garden I have potatoes, basil,onions, beets, squash, bell peppers. On the back side is a tomatoe plant. I used to have a huge garden, I spend many days putting things in the freezer or canning or pickling. But now, this box holds just the right amount for us to eat fresh veggies almost everyday.

As I pulled out my very tired bean plants I realized that fall was on its way. The heat from summer was still with us but the plants knew it is getting late in the season. My pumpkins (across the yard) are dying back and the green pumpkins are starting to turn orange. The coral tree is starting to get yellow leaves as it prepares to sleep through the winter. I love and hate this time of the year. I so love the long days, so thinking of it getting dark at 5 is depressing. But I love the color of fall, the warm pink/orange the sun turns everything it touches. The cooling nights and the approaching holidays. It is a bittersweet time.

Cupcakes the latest DSDF challenge

This biweekly challenge was a photo of cupcakes, I loved it. I actually love all the pictures she posts but my schedule hasn't allowed me any time to paint for fun ! LOL I took a few hours this afternoon and did this pastel painting of cupcakes. It is a bit blurry, I hope to get a clearer picture next time. There is just something about painting food that is so enjoyable! Especially when you re on a diet. Soft Pastel 10"x 20"

!

A Video of my quilt

At the Long Beach Quilt show the IQA did a video of our exhibit, my quilt is in this video along with many of the others in the exhibit. I hope you enjoy http://www.quilts.com/lbqf09/enVivo/

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Originally uploaded by ddhabicht

Close-up

Sneak peak

Sneak peak
Originally uploaded by ddhabicht

I have been working on some new quilt patterns for Houston. This is a
youth quilt called Just Ducky Sports. Comments are welcome