Sunday, November 01, 2009

Art Every Day

I have decided to join the challenge of Art Every Day Month and will post my art of the day each day in November. It seems like a good way to push myself a little and get some things done! The rules of the challenge are flexible and pretty much up to each person to figure out for themselves. I don't anticipate starting and finishing a piece of art every day. My goal is simply to work on something for some amount of time each day. It might be a drawing, or a stuffed bird or a wall piece. It might be something altogether different. In my opinion, it all counts.

Here is one project that I worked on today and finished the first phase of.


This is the mosaic I have been making to put in our front garden. It is made from broken ceramic tiles, and in this first phase I have been gluing the pieces to a mesh backing. This will be transferred to a concrete circle that Ray poured, set in thinset mortar and then grouted. It is approximately 36" across. Very interesting and challenging project. It is not unlike putting together one of my fabric works, but with a much more limited color pallette and the "fabric" is much more difficult to cut! Here is where it will go:

You can see the concrete circle, covered right now with leaves. Once the mosaic is in place, we will start setting paving stones around it to create a small round patio near that big tree. I think it will be a nice place to sit in the summer—shady and within sound distance of the creek. I hope we have enough nice days left this fall to work on it.

I also spent some time this afternoon working on my "Bird's Eye View" piece of Mt. Hood, seen from an airplane window.

Here it is all fused, untrimmed. It is ready to stitch. I am considering cropping some of the sky. If I trim it essentially as it is it will look about like this:



If I crop some of the sky, I think the more extreme horizontal and narrower sky accentuates the distance and the effect of looking down on the scene.

What do you think?

13 comments:

  1. I think I like the cropped sky a little more, but both are gorgeous. And that mosaic if fantastic!

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  2. Terry,
    I love the mosaic piece and think it will be beautiful when done.
    The Mt. Hood piece is gorgeous, and I do prefer the second crop, the more elongated view.
    I love your work!
    Judy

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  3. From a design standpoint - I am partial to the last, but I get your point about accentuating the distance, but it is not that different. I just like the less sky look!! But what do I know?

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  4. I agree with the other posters -- less sky is better. Having a larger sky only makes the mountain appear to be falling off the "page"... Beautiful, nonetheless. As always!

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  5. Anonymous8:51 PM

    Less is more! Except for chocolate...and onion rings... ;-)

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  6. Crop it, makes Mt Hood more of an emphasis.

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  7. I always enjoy your art posts (and all the others, too!) so I'm really looking forward to what you will share this month.

    Inspiration, here I come!!

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  8. what a great start to AEDM! lovely mosaic and Mt. Hood too... I am partial to the cropped sky also.

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  9. Anonymous6:34 AM

    I like the proportions in the cropped version. The colors are terrific. I also committed to AED for November via Lost Coast Post, and thanks in part to your blog---I am going to Zentangle! I think it will be the perfect way for me to reconnect with my inner artist and decompress from the workday at the same time.
    Lyn

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  10. Depending on what you are trying to achieve: The last one appears to have more depth and MT Hood looks higher while the first gives a feeling of the vastness of the Cascades.

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  11. I like the focus on Mt. Hood that the narrower sky gives.

    "For what it costs for health care these days, I expect better graphics than this." HAHAHAHHA!!!! That's FUNNY!! and fwiw, the monster hands sorta look all gory. Perhaps the sign is the result of an "outreach" attempt where they had a bunch of grade school children make signs for them and we're to think that it's endearing.

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  12. Carla's right, although I like the cropped one a bit better. And the mosaic is wonderful, in part because of the irregularity of the pieces against the regularity of the pattern.

    I'm looking forward to tomorrow.

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  13. Susan LT5:27 PM

    Cropped is cool. The mosaic is wonderful. Can't wait to see each day's work.

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