Week 21 of 365 Days of Art Challenge

Another week done!! I can hardly believe how fast the year is going - it's almost half over! Where has the time gone??

Once I returned from the retreat, I was busy helping my daughter-in-law with 3 sick children and a newborn, helping another friend who is closing her quilt store after almost 14 years, and giving 3 demo's on Zentangles for a local quilt guild.  Rather than sketching this week, I decided to play with some of the photos I have taken recently. I have an a photo-editing app called Pixlr Express on my tablet that I enjoy using to edit photos. It doesn't do everything that Photoshop Elements does, but I find it much easier to use.

My first photo is a collage I created of my 2-year old grandson. He was playing a small electric piano and just having fun singing and dancing when he didn't think he was being observed - three of the photos in the collage reflect this. The other two photos are from two weeks ago, when his baby brother was born.

2-year old grandson playing the piano and taking a photo of his new baby brother. He has such cute expressions! Now if I can figure out how to blur the edges of the photos and make it look seamless... That's for another day!

These next photos are flowers and succulents I took on the Vina de Lestonnac grounds at the quilt retreat.

Combined two yellow flowers into one. I placed the center of the flowers close
to each other and highlighted the dark center surrounding the daisy-like flower. 

These are the two flowers that I combined into one photo. One is a daisy-like bloom on ground cover plants. The other is a yellow lily. 

Combined two succulents, one green and one red, aligning their similar centers. 

These are the original photos of the two succulents. I love the texture that appears when combined into one photo. I want to play more with this and see what else I can do.

I also took the photo of the red succulent and added doodles with the app to make it look like a Zentangle. It didn't turn out as well as I would have liked, as my stylus battery died, so I had to use my finger to draw. I saved it anyway and had planned to post it along with these photos. When I re-opened it to copy it to my computer, the doodling wasn't saved as I had drawn it - it was all over the place with half of the doodles missing! I was disappointed with this. Not sure if I did something wrong or it's a glitch in the app.  I will try again when I can use my stylus.

Thanks for stopping by.

More Photos of Vina de Lestonnac, Temecula, CA

More photos from Vina De Lestonnac, Temecula, CA that I would like to share with you. I know you would like to see some of the art quilts being painted. However, since the work is not mine, I don't feel that I can post others' work on my blog. I did not take many photos of Patt Blair's work, as I took so many last year. Her work can be seen on her website here. Thank you for understanding.

Not sure what type of tree this is, but the blossoms are beautiful.  Spiky red
stamens with beautiful pink-tinged petals that remind me of cowrie sea shells.

Another local denizen. These little hares can be seen in abundance. However, they
don't usually sit still long enough to get a good photo. This little guy posed for awhile for us.

Small barrel cactus with tiny pink blossoms. 

A fountain in the center of a rock garden is a favorite for the birds, especially the goldfinches. They enjoyed bathing in the fountain, splashing merrily. They flew away quickly whenever I tried to snap a shot!

These budding trees were just beginning to bloom . They will be beautiful once they are in full bloom. 

I can't remember what bush had these clusters of tiny blossoms. The flowers are only about an inch in size. 

Thank you for allowing me to share my nature photos from the quilt retreat.

Week 20 of 365 Days of Art Challenge

This week went by so quickly! Started with having a new grandson! Then I went to CA for 5 days for a quilting retreat with Patt Blair, where we painted wholecloth quilts using Tsukineko inks. The retreat is held at Vina de Lestonnac, a quiet retirement center for nuns and a few priests, in Temecula - beautiful southern California wine country.

Dragon head - created by Lynnita Knoch
for art quilt for Patt Blair workshop.

I continued to work on my dragon head that I started at last year's retreat (see previous post here). I hadn't had a chance to work on it since then - it's a large piece  (approx 35" x 50") and I don't really have a place at home to set it up.  I'm not posting any photos of the quilt yet. I don't want to unveil it until I've finished it.  I've changed the colors a bit, from what I painted on my drawing (shown here) - it is fresher and I don't need to do as much mixing to get the colors I want. I'm very pleased with how it's turning out.  I'm a little more than halfway done. I realized that when I paint, it usually takes me several months to complete a work this large, so I shouldn't be frustrated that this is taking me so long.

At any rate, I didn't get any sketching done for this week's art challenge - between the newborn and the quilting retreat. But I took many photos around the retreat center, so I'm posting some of those as my "sketching" for this week's art challenge.

Windmills in CA from I-10 highway. The mountains still have some snow.

Overlooking the Danzai winery from  Vina de Lestonnac retreat center.

Several hot air balloons over wine country early Friday morning.

Vina de Lestonnac has lovely grounds with a wide variety of plants. This purple prickly pear had its first blooms while we were there. We just need to look to Mother Nature for our color palettes.  The purple and yellows are just stunning!

One of the local denizens! He was soaking up the sun. He posed for me, allowing me to take several shots before he decided to move on. He has a lovely purple throat and belly to show off to the ladies, which he displayed for me. He has attitude and I would like to paint him for a small art quilt. 

Several rose bushes were still blooming, although many were past their peak by the time we were there. The colors are awesome on this lovely striped rose. 

Red rose still drenched in dewdrops. 

 I hope I didn't overwhelm you with photos. Vina de Lestonnac is such a relaxing, quiet place for a retreat, with beautiful scenery everywhere you look.

The only problem we had this year was the fires north of San Diego. We were between 40-60 miles from them. You could see the black smoke clouds in the distance and occasionally smell smoke. One evening, we actually had to drive from the classroom to the dining room, as the wind blew smoke from the Camp Pendleton fire into the area, making it very difficult to breathe. I pray for all those affected by these fires, especially the firemen and the people who have lost their homes.