Butterfly Beginnings

I decided from the beginning that I wanted to do something 3-D for my BJP this time. Immediately the thought of a butterfly came to mind & I have been mulling over how to achieve this every since.

Of course, the perfectionist in me wouldn't let me start until I had all the kinks worked out but that wont happen until I try one, so that is what I did today. Here is the inner workings of the butterfly. I will be using this stiff interfacing (Stitch & Shape by Floriani). This is stiff but a needle will go through it easily. This will give me the shape of the wings and will give me strength for when I finish the butterflies. All of the butterflies will be displayed on a small quilt of some sort - at least that is the plan at the moment.
I have been doing an on-line Color Theory class with Judy Perez. I love colour but I have never really studied colour. Judy's class was the perfect opportunity to start that study. There are 12 colours on the colour wheel and 12 months in the year so the goal is to do a butterfly a month in one colour on the colour wheel, beginning with red (my favourite colour!).

I have decided to use batiks, well, just because I like them! I already have all of my colours chosen and they are very exciting! I will try to mirror image the beading and will start with red fabric, red beads but we will see how that goes!

Here is my practice piece that showed me that my idea would work. These wing pieces together are just shy of 3" long. Now, to go find beads!!!

August

OK, I finally got my August BJP piece photographed. When I changed computers, turns out the new computer doesn't have a card reader so until I obtained one, I have not been able to upload photos. This was a photo that my daughter took of the baby pandas when she was working at Ocean Park in Hong Kong. They had only just arrived and she was there on a summer internship. She had such a wonderful view of the pandas. What a fantastic experience for a college student! She is now in vet school and I like to think that her working with pandas helped her get there.

Photoshop & Tablet laptops

My daughter was required to have a tablet laptop for vet school. I loved it so much that I decided it was time to replace my old laptop with one. I'm getting ready to head to Hong Kong and with my husband retiring at the end of the year, I will be doing a lot more travel. My old laptop wouldn't close. Well, actually, it would close but if you closed it, you couldn't get it open again!

But I absolutely LOVE my new laptop. Now this picture is nothing spectacular but it was my first try at using Photoshop with the pen! Wow, what a way to draw in the computer! You literally draw on the computer screen! It was so easy to do (much better than Illustrator). A whole new world of experiment has just opened up!