An Arty day

Despite waking at 4:45AM this morning with running sinuses and taking Benedryl and tea back to bed with me, which then made me groggy for half the day, it turned out to be a satisfying day.
When I finally dragged myself out into the rain, I made my way to a friend's house for an art show.

It was positively magical!

One artist and designer, Karla Branch drove the 9 hours here from Montreal for the show! I took the natural dyeing workshop from her last fall when she was staying with her dad here in Bathurst.
She now has a little shop in Montreal where she paints canvases and repurposes and natural dyes vintage silk and wool clothing.
I purchased this beautiful silk blouse that I've had on since I got home.

The show was at recycling artist Nicole Boudreau's home. Her husband also contributes his driftwood framed mirrors and fish sculptures one of which is hanging on the wall in the above picture.
Sarah Branch also had her very unique pottery.

By the time I finally made it home and I'd had a quick snack, (they even served tea and homemade cookies), I was so tired that I stretched out on my sofa with a couple of magazines and my hand sewing. It wasn't long before I had nodded off. Both my husband and I were napping when his brother arrived and convinced him to go golfing. By this time the rain had stopped. It is still cloudy and damp and I'm quite sure their feet will be wet. I was invited but wet days on the course are not for me.
Truth be told--and we won't tell-- I was content to let my husband go. I dragged out my sketchbook and colored pencils, put on some music and did a quick study of some allium that I picked from my garden this week.

That's not my paint water by the way, it's my glass of milk. Sometimes I have to be careful not to dip my brush into my drink.
I used colored pencils as this is one of those cheap paper sketchbooks. I like them to quickly sketch out ideas for fiber art.

I wondered how it might look with a bit of background design screened on with acrylic paint, so I took it to my paint table and scraped a bit on around the flowers. By this time it is getting a bit dark outside and the I Pad has really picked up the yellow.

It's not as bright a yellow as it seems but that would be ok anyway-- it's an experiment.--and once translated into fabric, would likely be quite different. The final step was to add some blue watercolor over top.
What I do is to let all these ideas rest in my sketchbook and one day I'll be leafing through it for fiber art ideas and something will light a spark.
I've done the allium before but in the vertical position and thought it would be interesting to do them horizontally.

I shall gave to clean this up a bit before hubby comes home. Truthfully, he is very tolerant of my artistic messes that seem to end up in every room in the house. At least he has his 'man cave' to himself.

I've managed to cover the whole coffee table!

Tomorrow once I've made a Father's Day breakfast for hubby and decided on supper, I'm hoping to get into my sewing studio to finish up a couple of things. The weather forecast is not good so that's where I'll likely be.