what did you do on your summer vacation ....

This was the title of a newsletter this morning ....

and I'm totally stealing it for this blogpost!

It's been a full of fun summer and since I live in Florida, 

hard to decide

when summer actually started.

Family, Art, Friends, a get a way, more art ...

I've created a lot of art both on paper and on canvas.

The theme was spring flowers, if I recall for a spring
4 Square Makers pop up show with
Lakeland Art Guild.
The Lily of the Valley was the star of this show!

SeaWorld ... I'd not been since I was a teenager.
The penguins were a riot to watch.
I'm sure you don't want to see the dozens of
pictures I took of them.

Orlando hosted a Spring Market
for the needlework industry.
I've known many of these smiling faces for
many many years but I'd not seen them
in far too long.

This was a locally hosted show titled
Pink Moon.
My piece called
"Blossom'
was accepted for this show.
They had an amazing turn out of all ages.
Fabulous ART of all different media.
Food and live Music too!
Full Pink Moon in attendance as well.

We have two lovely gardenia bushes.
This year as I went to cut blooms for the house,
poof, in my face a mama bird.
Thankfully we have two and the other was
not a home to any babies.
So we were all happy to coexist.

June was another
4 Square Maker show, hosted by
Hillcrest Coffee.
These birds flew away to new homes
very quickly.

I submitted two of my pieces to the
Lakeland Art Guild
for their big spring show at
The Melvin Art Gallery.
AND they accepted both!
The larger named Trio
 is in another show opening this Friday at
The Marc Gallery
here in Lakeland, Florida.
I'm very honored.

May ... Mothers Day!
and here in Lakeland we host a huge art festival
Mayfaire by the Lake.
My friend Lynore, who is my longest friend from when we were little,
came for the weekend. We had a blast, didn't know I could cram
that much into one weekend! She was also there for
my opening at the Melvin Gallery. What a treasure she is.

I doodle, a lot .... this one took on several more
versions of itself. The wall hanging was shown
in a collective show of many local artists at
Mitchell's Coffee House.
The lower picture is a tease, you'll just have to
wait and see more of it down the road.

Grandbabies!!  and my amazing daugther!!
What a joy, I dreamed my grands would love
my studio space as much as I had loved my
Gramps workshop as a child.
They did, we had sooooo much fun.
We also went to Disney to see some
Princesses, oh my!
Our first character siting was appropriately
Mickey!

After their visit, it was time for me to buckle down and get busy.
I was once again honored to be a part of
Fine Art at the Magnolia.
 This time I was determined to have nine new pieces to show.
Each with some super rebellious stitching using anything and
everything to make them amazing pieces of
mixed multi meda fiber art!
Show here are Center [sold], Focus [sold]
and Dewdrop.

I pumped out those pieces as I knew I was going away
for a trip to my home in Pennsylvania.
I landed in Philly, did the requisite visit to the
Liberty Bell and Constitution Hall.
I grew up in this state, so of course, I'd never
seen either of these!
Now I can say I have and all were
very inspiring.
None of which did I take pictures of ...
I guess I was all into the history and reading and listening to
our tour guides that I just did not think about it.
I have crazy pictures of buildings and architecture I took.
No bell!
August is Fireman Carnival time, so many of my
classmates were in town. Perfect time to visit.
One day was spent in my friend Michelle's studio
playing with fluid acrylics and alcohol inks,
oh my gosh, crazy. This was a planned
activity she came up with to help me loosen up
with my art. It sort of worked but I still found
ways to control bits.

This one was a blast and took me
down some different paths than I'd
originally planned.  For one, it was supposed
to be all creams and whites.
'Sea'
[sold]
did what it wanted to and I'm so glad.

As I talked to people about my work at the show,
I heard myself telling them ...
'this isn't any one type of stitching, there is
stump work, gold work, embroidery,
couching, open and pulled work ...
it's like
needlepoint on steroids' ...
which made them and
myself laugh.

Back home and I was in full on art mode.
I'd started the nine new designs by drawing them as
black ink line drawings. Now it was time to keep going, get
the last six painted and stitched.
Above is 'Bloom', I loved how this one painted
up so freely after the lesson back home of letting
go of my control ... I had a hard time stitching over it!

From upper left
'Wish'
'Brilliance'
'Lichen'
Can you tell I was having such a great time
creating each of these pieces.

Last but not least, this one was not from one
of my drawings. Down to just days before the
show was to open and there I sat at my desk ...
what to do.
I've collected several pieces of my friend
John Kellum's Raku Pottery.
My paintbrush water pot is a test piece
of his to see how long a special coating he put
on it will last. I think it's been a year,
still water tight!
So there I sat and there sat this sweet little vase.
The colors in his raku are amazing and so ...
I decided I was going to paint a canvas based
on this little vase.  Ha! I pulled paint tubes and
went a little nuts trying to capture all that color.
He told me later that his Mom was a watercolorist,
she'd tried to do the same and was shaking her head as well.
So I was in good company at least.
In the end, I was very happy with the results.

Tada!
We all made it, sanity somewhat in tact!
This was not all of us, some had other
plans for after set up ... like maybe a nap!

My Summer wrapped up with a hurricane
that saw me at my brothers place in Tampa for a few days.
We are all very grateful that we did not
have a direct visit from Dorian as did
the devastated Bahamas.

Here's to fall and more adventures.
I have a solo show at
Mitchell's Coffee House
this November.

Later in November
I'll be in Houston at
Chandail's
teaching my 'Marbles' design
to a full class.

See my blog titled 'Classes'
for up coming dates.
I've hopefully more to post
in that list soon.