Store Samples Dogwood

I am teaching a colored pencil technique on fabric for these small panels. This one is a very simple design but I did some micro stippling around it to give it a look of trapunto. The design is quilted first, then colored, then quilted again, in this case heavily and borders were added. I also finished up another one with pomegranites and I will post later. The photo is not showing true colors, the border isn't so bright, matching the dogwoog much nicer. My class at Cozy Cottage in Brea, CA on June 7th, will offer this elegant block to paint, along with other blocks and a table runner.

Some mans trash is another mans ... artwork?

The joke in my house is that nothing is safe from either my pencils or paints. Everything and everyone is fair game! I was getting excited about my keys and decided to draw everyones keys when I happened upon a pile of peanut shells, wow, how interesting. Although many tried to throw them away as trash I managed to keep this pile until the drawing was finished!

Garden Tours

This last weekend we went on a garden tour of 6 houses in Riverside. The theme of this years tour seemed to be water conservation and drought tolerant plants. I can appreciate these gardens but I was hoping for more of a variety of gardens. Each home was wonderful and we got lots of pictures for painting later. It turned out to be a full day of running or slowly walking with mom. We all enjoyed it so much, I look forward to doing it next year. These were quick watercolor sketches of two of the homes.

Oh these chains that bind us!

My mom has been here since October, trying to get better. I have been caring for her along with Jennifer. When she was the sickest and I was trying to get her back and forth to the hospital she always grabbed her purse, complaining it was so heavy and she need to get a smaller purse. We always tease her because she is always working and usually carries hammers, levels, wrenches in her purse but she swore she didn't have any tools in there. I would throw her purse on my shoulder that also carried my leather purse, another two ton bag as I wheeled her into the hospital. One day, after many tiring hours of hauling the purses, my mom, and myself all over the hospital to different doctor appt's I decided to look inside her purse and see what she could possibly be carrying. To my amazement I pulled out a huge ring of keys and said, oh my gosh, are you moonlighting as a janitor? Which she replied I have another set just as large. What could you possibly have this many keys too? She opened the offices where she still works, she has most of her furniture and possessions in storage units which all have keys. She has containers on her property that also contain her treasures, with locks, and then there are the house keys, car keys and gate keys. Wow, it was amazing. All this time I had been hauling a bag of metal! I am trying to get her to take off her car key with my house key and use a smaller key chain, she isn't going for it though! There is some deeper meaning to all the keys we carry around. I know I have a drawer that has a plastic cup full of old keys I am too afraid to throw away, just in case someday I remember what they go to and need to open it! LOL Here is my drawing this morning, as I drank my coffee and thought about how hard it will be to go through those keys in an emergency to try and find something! I did eliminate some since I didn't have time to draw that many keys.

Sumi's Quilt is finished

Well I amazed myself at how quickly I finished this project, since I am the queen of procrastination. I like how it turned out although the picture shows the border fabric a bit darker than it is. I like the contrast and I ended up beading the one side of her shoulder and sleeve to make it look like the light was reflecting off of the dress. Click on the picture to see a close up. Finished size is 25 1/2" x 26". One of my smaller quilts. On to another now, I'm on a roll!

Happy Earth Day!

It's Earth Day today, and in an effort to do my part in preserving our gift I am sharing the things I am currently involved with. My garden is a huge part of my earthday celebration. We have always grown our own food, and for years raised all of our meat and had milk goats. I usually can and freeze for use later as crops seem to produce a bounty of goods at one time. I also have dried zucchini and ground it up to make zucchini flour to use in my zucchini bread. There are so many wonderful ways to creatively be a good steward of our planet. I now only garden a small area, in a raised bed. I use drip irrigation and mulch to conserve water and I compost. This year I bought some tomatoes in peat pots which are directly planted in the ground so there is no waste or trash from plastic containers.

I think one of my biggest weaknesses is Costco, which I feel is not the best at being an earth friendly company. They over package things, package some perishable foods in over sized packaging which you can never eat fast enough. But for some reason I love to shop at Costco. They carry some very cool things. Last week while I was shopping I saw that they had a composter for sale, Oh wow, an easier, smaller way to compost. It was only 99$ so I bought it. Today, my husband is setting it up for me, an appropriate way to ring in Earth Day. I keep a plastic milk jug with its top cut off in my sink and as I chop or peel I just add the pieces to the jug and I can easily carry it out to the composter to empty. I have always had the giant pile of stuff that had to be covered and turned and watered. This is all self contained and has a handle to turn it weekly! Yippie, I can't wait.

As my garden grows, and my fruit trees start to set fruit I will be thinking of all the good uses I will have for my new crop of "black earth".

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These are my latest twin grandbabies and yesterday I got to spend the day with them, what a joy!

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Originally uploaded by ddhabicht

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Originally uploaded by ddhabicht

Easter/Spring fun!

I love to decorate, both my house and for all the holidays. I also love to have family and friends over and set a formal table, serve a huge meal and fellowship. This year I made this little quiltlette (as termed by Jane LaFazio) for this little wire hanger I found at Gingers Quilt shoppe. I painted the fabric with many different methods, using paints, inks, glue, tape, stamps LOL and anything else I could grab. I think it turned out great! If I do say so myself. I can only say that because it was just a miracle it turned out at all. I hated it at the beginning. Originally I used glue as a resist, not realizing that I would have to soak it for hours to remove it. I have since learned what kind of glue washes out easier. So in my frustration I decided to leave it, as I painted over it I loved the way the paint seemed to light up as I painted over it. I then decided to bead it, ok that didn't work out very well. Just incase you don't know, a needle will NOT go through dried glue. So I embellished with beads around the glue, in areas that I could and the glue wouldn't effect the overall design. This is one of my samples for my "Fabric Playday" class I teach. I am happy with it and used it for Easter with my bunnies. LOL

Sumi, Another test for a quilt idea I had

I saw a picture of a friends mom and was just called to paint it. I want to paint her for in watercolor but I thought she would make a great art quilt. I decided to use Acrylic Inks on really wet fabric, this kept it loose and challenging to retain the shapes while the inks bled all over the fabric. I really like how it turned out. I did manage to figure it out and gain some control as I continued on. I will now quilt and finish. I love these inks and plan to do some other things with them. What was interesting was that the dark brown I used for her hair bled the red that looks like a glow around her head. When the inks are diluted with water things begin to happen! Sumi is 80 years old and she has been playing the violin since she was twelve, she plays with the Palo Alto philharmonics. I thinks she is just so beautiful! Another woman with an incredible story!

New art supplies!

I just love buying new art supplies, it doesn't even matter what it is, I love them. I happened to be teaching an art quilting class all about different mediums on fabric. One of my students said she found these cool pens that didn't seem to bleed on fabric and the colors were great. I decided that I needed to go get some and play. Many of you have probably already used them but I haven't so they are new and fun to me! They are called Faber-Castell Artist Brush Pens. I think they use them for coloring comic book drawings or illustrations, I guess. I opened them the other night just to peek at them and decided to try them on paper first. They are just small markers but they are waterproof and have good color that doesn't bleed when you draw over it with another marker. For instance, I did all the black lines first then colored over them with the yellow marker, nothing bled and my yellow marker is still yellow. We are trying them on fabrics to, once I wash it I will let you know how it goes! Here is my quick practice sketch of Lemons that Marta brought me from her tree.

Diana's Companion

This week on Different Strokes for different folks our challenge was to sketch the statue of Diana. This is my quick sketch, not great, cut off her feet, but my sketch non the less. I took so many pictures of statues at the Getty to draw as value studies and never did! I need to get my photos out, it is really a great exercise.

Happy Resurrection Day!!

The most holiest of days, this day when Jesus rose from the grave, he became the sacrifical lamb for you and I.

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Originally uploaded by ddhabicht

Another birthday lunch!

Easter is on its way!

Well I organized another Easter card exchange with one of my watercolor groups! What fun it is to get an original watercolor card from someone who's art you admire! I sent mine to Germany, it had to travel fairly far and took about two weeks to arrive. Sherry got my hen trying to hatch her eggs. The inside read" Here's hoping in Miracles".

Another Muskateer birthday

It was Dawn's birthday weekend, Mike planned this wonderful getaway at a Winery and spa. He called a bunch of her friends and asked us to come down and surprise her, we did! What fun we had. We started in the wine tasting room where we all purchased some wine. Mike made his way to their little suite where he set out all the wonderful food he had smuggled down for the occasion. Dawn was so surprised and we had a wonderful time laughing, tasting wine, eating and meeting new friends. What a great way to spend a birthday... hint, hint.

DSDF Weekly challenge

This is my quick watercolor done from the photo she puts up as a reference. I love these challenges, she doesn't want a carbon copy of the photo, she wants our artists vision for it. I am working on getting better about choosing what to paint and what to leave out. What colors to use, what ones to avoid. I did this fairly quickly, added some pastels. I think it would have been much more powerful if it was vertical not horizontal, plus the guy looking off is a no-no, that is the compostition that should have been changed. I did eliminate lots of people in the background. Its funny, I knew I should move him to either make him a part of their conversation or give him something to look at but......

Surprised again

I happened to be looking at the SAQA blog and was looking at some of the Call for entries. I went to Visions which is an art quilt gallery in San Diego and they are using my quilt as part of their advertising. I am very honored and surprised to see it when I opened up the website. Here is the link for anyone interested in it. http://www.quiltvisions.org/members-show/index.html One of lifes little surprises, thank God for those!

Glass Beach

I had to remove my post since I was told that we were not allowed to post any pictures of the accepted quilts until after the show. That is the normal rule, but we were given permission to post ours. This quilt is called Glass Beach, it is done with paints, inks, discharging techniques, photo transfer and fusible.

The challenge was to create a quilt with the theme of Edges, and whatever that means to us. My quilt is about a place I visited this last summer called Glass Beach. At glass beach years ago, they used to throw the old glass bottles into the ocean. Tons and tons of old, broken bottles went into the sea. The ocean stirred them around a bit and then one day decided to start spitting them out onto shore. In this one small area of beach the sand is mostly comprised of polished glass. The ocean had taken our trash and turned it into a treasure. People come from all over to sit and collect the glass. They make jewelry etc with it and sell it now. When we received the challenge I remembered my jar of glass from glass beach.

The message of my quilt is that tragic events start as pieces of sharp glass that can cut us and cause us to bleed. Time, like the ocean, takes them and tosses them and polishes them until the sharp edges are gone. They can no longer hurt us or make us bleed, we then can store them in a special place in our hearts.

The quilt was accepted to hang at the Long Beach IQA Show this July. It will be with the special display called "Edges". Hope to see you there.

Dearl or No Deal

Last night we went out to dinner with Rick and Rose to celebrate Randy's birthday. We had such a great time catching up with all the excitiment at their house. Their kids are still young so they are in the throws of soccer, grades, college selections, pee wee league, oh those busy, busy days. I remember and thank God everyday that I am not doing that anymore! LOL Its true that we love the season in our life but are glad for a change.

We got home and I was not really tired, actually I couldn't sleep at all. I ended up turning on the TV and "Deal or No Deal" was on, it was a special speed show where they picked all their cases at once and only had 20 seconds to decide. It made for fast and furious tv, but it did change the people up much faster than normal. I grabbed my little sketchbook by the bed and started to sketch the contestants. Trying to capture their look and personality quickly since they would only flash to them when they were considering the bankers offer. It made for a great, quick challenge and study of faces. I might have to do this more often.

Another UFO captured and defeated!!

I finished this little quilt up a few weeks ago. It is about 24"x 24" , I hand painted it with dyes , it was inspired by a photo I took of an Agave Succulent. I know it looks abstract but I like that about it. It is bright and cheery, I embellished the background with crystals and I did alot of thread painting. It was a great smaller project, in a new medium for me. I like the bright, bold colors of dyes, don't know if I like the fuss.

Footprints

I lost a friend the other day. Suddenly, without warning and she was gone. Its these times when we are forced to ponder more deeply than normal. To think about the harder questions that we avoid on most normal days. The plans, the trips, the group photo we promised to take at our next meeting will not be. Its another reminder that our days are limited and few. I believe in something more than this, a bigger purpose. My hope is not in myself but in the the blood of a savior. But it still stops us in our tracks, where ever we are, and makes us think.

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Originally uploaded by ddhabicht

No matter how fleeting our encounter, how brief or long our journey together, we all leave footprints. It reminded me of the day a Gromans Chinese theater, looking at the impressions of the famous actors hands and feet prints. These are like the impressions we leave on the hearts of those we love and touch. I am sad, and I will miss you, you reminded me to be an encourager and a motivator always. And although we didn't agree on everything we had a passion for our gift and we shared it. You touched my life.

Deadlines

I have been cramming to finish an art quilt before the deadline. I got it done and thought I would share it here, with only my closest friends. Whats so unique about this quilt is that it is done all in pencils, different kinds of pencils, watercolor, colored pencils etc. So basically I colored the quilt. This one I did in a faux marbling technique to mimic a marble floor. I am sure I will get some raised eyebrows from the traditional quilters. LOL

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Originally uploaded by ddhabicht

Marta and I had a wonderful day together at the Norton Simon Museum

More from Nature,

I am working on some things in my studio, I have been collecting many wonderfully beautiful pods on my nature walks. I also had a wonderful friend who collected some things for me on her walks. I have started to put some sketches and paintings together. I just started working on these pods from a physifolia, which is a eucalyptus that blooms red. It is done in colored pencil and not yet finished.

Our Nature walks

I love walking with Kylie and Randy. It brings things into a new light, and reminds me how beautiful life is. When I am in the car racing by I never notice the small things like flowers, and who is late mowing their lawns and which trees are blooming and which are sick. It puts me back into contact with my surroundings which is always a good thing. It reminds me of our last home. It was a modest California ranch style house on 1 1/4 acres. We remodeled it and landscaped the whole yard. We worked long hard hours out in our yard most days and all weekend. I loved it, our vegetable gardens , the rose gardens, the knot garden. Although we worked so hard we always did a walk at dusk through the whole yard. Before the sun set, in that warm glow of the last hint of sun we would walk the garden and inspect the plants. It kept us in touch with what needed to be done and which plants were sick or diseased. It was a nightly inspectionsI guess, making sure everything was well cared for before we went to bed. I loved it, I loved the time together with Randy, discussing things. If the sunlight held we would lay in the hammock and wait for it to set. So much dreaming, so much living was done in those walks. We are doing it again, differently, but its still good. This is a seed pod I found which had falled from a magnolia tree, beautiful to say the least.

Sam and Amber, this weeks challenge

This week we had a wonderful selection of pictures and although I started two I only finished this one so far. Sam and Amber.

I got spam comments so had to repost this one, why do people try to ruin the simpliest things?

Fabric Line

I have been working away on my fabric line, I am very excited about it. I have so much stuff already I will be glad when they feel I have enough and can start thinking of something else. I am already working on my next line. I love when you are in the zone and the ideas start flowing. I find I am not good company during those times, I become consumed with my task at hand. I did this little painting to go with all the fabric I have done so far. It is a childrens line, a western line, I hope it does well for me and for the fabric company. The brown horse seems so blotchy in this picture, its not? I don't get it.

Todays painting

I painted this goose, quickly, maybe 10 minutes. He is standing in a field of snow, next to and icy stream, looking off into the distance. Sometimes that reflects how we all feel and how I felt today. Alone, cold, looking out over a monotoned landscape. Unable to find any color, unable to see the beauty of things. Again, we had a hearing about Jennifer's benefits. Medi-cal terminates her health care monthly and we have been fighting to keep it. It a long story, and I wont burden you with details but I feel bad for the many people who,like Jennifer, are unable to fight their own battles and lose. They don't have an advocate and so, in their weakened state fall victim to the constant abuse, threats and finally termination by the government of their benefits. You always hear about the people who abuse the system and rip off the government and take money that isn't owed to them. I think this sets the stage for the way they deal with the rest of us, who are doing it the honest and right way. I thought this was all settled in 2005! I am just now seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. It does change a person, how could it not. It makes you cynical, critical, mad, frustrated and the constant stress takes its toll on our health and well being. I guess I will fight for her until I can fight no more and then pray someone will step up to the plate and take my place. Today I had a voice, I got to share my concerns with a judge, on record with the case workers present. I don't know if it will do any good, I don't know if it will make a difference, I have to wait and see. For now the fight continues.

Sidenote: In todays news there was a report of a 93 year old man who froze to death because the electric company turned off his power. They found him wrapped up in blankets wearing 4 sweaters. It was reported that there were icycles in his sinks. How can they do that in the middle of winter. Another story of no one to fight for the weak and sick, its just so sad.

Another day, another challenge

I love this blog called "Different strokes for different folks", its a group of artists that paint a challenge every other Wednesday. I just joined but was so impressed by the work being done, alot of oil painters. I did my first challenge, something I wouldn't choose on my own, a victorian house in San Fransisco. I did it but think its just mediocure and average but I like being a part of this group. I work well with deadlines, and since I have been avoiding doing the fabric line, I have welcomed the distraction. I have to focus again this week and get it moving again. Things can start out so good and hopeful and end up so messy!

My week to host the WDE for Wet Canvas

I select 16 pictures to post and then anyone who want to participate goes in and chooses one or more to paint. You have 30 minutes to select and 2 hours to paint. This is my entry so far, I posted a partially done piece at 2 hours and finished it within another hour.

Then I told them that as a challenge they should crop their painting to see if another mini masterpiece emerged. Here is my crop.

Still Life Duo #2

This is my second in the still life duo series. I decided to move the teapot forward and add another one I like. I also decided to add the element of doing each painting in a different medium. This one is done is soft pastels on a sanded board 9"x 12". I am not happy with the first teapot on this painting but I like the red one ok.

It sucks getting older... for Marta

LOL, it was Marta's birthday today. Dawn and I took her out for lunch at her favorite resturant. I worried that they wouldn't be serving since the weather didn't want to cooperate. But Marta insisted we go and we had such fun. When our desert was ordered the rain started and they moved us inside where we enjoyed chatting until the rain stopped. Dessert was wonderful! I wish we had painted it since my photo didn't turn out. I love these special times, special friends, special days. Happy Birthday to Ai and Marta today!

Inauguration Day

Yesterday we inaugurated a new president into office. It came with much hoopla and celebration. I must admit that although I didn't vote for him I am excited and I will pray for wisdom as he attempts to try and lead us out of this mess. Our last president was such a huge disappointment for all of us and I am glad to see him leave. This was the first time I have ever watched the inauguration ceremonies and felt proud to be an American and see all the people out to support him. He has a huge job ahead of him, he will need every ones support. Although I don't agree with him on many things he will need our prayers to do what he has to do. Here is a quick sketch I did yesterday of him laughing. Which he doesn't do much, he is always calm and I think shows great reserve and confidence. I know it doesn't look like him but I did it in about 10 minutes.

Reminants of the Holidays

Ok, so we have finally finished off all of the goodies that we never have any other time of the year. All the candy, cookies and cakes exchanged as gifts have been consumed. My waistline is suffering although I haven't gained more than a few pounds. Now is the challenge to overcome the cravings for all the goodies! AHHHH, withdrawls. Here is my tribute to the last of the See's candy, creams, which I don't like anyway!

Unnatural things on our nature walks

First of all, it feels unnatural to spell unnatural with two n's. Anyway, in an effort to battle the bulge and strive for a healthy lifestyle we decided to go green and walk Kylie to school. For myself, it seems the minute I make one of these commitments my mind spends the rest of the time trying to justify not following through! Every morning becomes a tug of war with my good intentions and my warm bed begging me not to leave. This will be the second week of walking, and I love it once I am up. Its brisk and a good long walk, about 3.5 miles roundtrip. If I don't make my bed before I leave it often talks me into one last catnap when I return. LOL We are bringing Jennifer's new dog along with us also. Since Randy has been off work he is walking with us and its been a nice time to talk and visit with Kylie(our granddaughter). Last week I noticed lots of discarded shiny metal objects along the way, so we started collecting, one each day. This is our weekly collection of unnatural objects from our nature walks.

A new little art quilt

I just finished up this little wall hanging. Its done with paints and I hand embroidered the panels onto the fabric, then added trim.

WC Still Life Duo Challenge #1

On Wet Canvas they are doing a challenge to set up just two objects and paint them, then remove one of the objects and add another. Paint again, then remove the oldest object and add something new, so that you always only have two objects. I think we are supposed to do a series of 6. I decided to join Marta and Casey in this challenge, I just loved what they were doing and I love a good challenge. Making just two objects come together to make a nice compostition will be a good lesson. I really need to think about the overall compostion of things as I set them up. Here is my first one, it is a teapot that my oldest daughter made in a ceramics class. I just love it although I have never heated water in it. I did this in watercolor and think that I will do the next one in Pastel.

Sketches from the sketchcrawl

Here are my sketches from today. Marta and I drove down to San Diego and met up with about 15 other artists. It was such fun catching up with Jane and making new friends. Jane shared Danny Gregory's Newest book in which he had featured many of the EDM sketchers. Congrats Jane on you spread in the book, you deserve it, you are so talented! We were warmly welcomed by the owners of the shops as we drew and painted. Then over to Guadalajara's for lunch! It was a perfect day, thank you San Diego sketchcrawlers for making us feel so welcome!

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Originally uploaded by ddhabicht

We arrived in San Diego to meet other artist friends for the 21st
worldwide sketchcrawl. We had a wonderful time!