Sedona, AZ

Traveled to Sedona, AZ to pick up donations for the Arizona Quilter's Guild annual fall meeting. Our chapter, Prickly Piecers, is hosting the meeting this year, along with the members-at-large. One of our jobs is creating raffle baskets to raise money to help pay to bring in national quilt teachers to AZ for workshops for guild members. I had an individual and a couple shops that said they had donations if they could be picked them up. My husband was game, so we made a mini-vacation out of the trip. Sedona is one of the most beautiful places in God's creation. The red rock mountains just glow in the sun. We were treated to a rain storm our first night and got some gorgeous photos with storm clouds against the red rock glowing in the sunshine!  We stayed in Cottonwood, a small town about 15 miles from Sedona. It's not as expensive as Sedona is.

Driving along the road from Cottonwood into Sedona. 

Storm clouds made a beautiful sky.

Heading into Sedona. Photo taken from the side of the road.

Pillar backlit with stormy clouds close to sunset.

Golden sunlight striking the mountains.Taken from a pull off at a trail head 

north of town.

As the sun set, the red rocks just glowed orange as they were hit by the sun.

 It was beautiful to watch  as section after section  of rock formations lit up 

and glowed. What a way to spend the evening.

Closer view of the rock pillars (from photo above), also showing the clouds from

the stormy evening.  I enjoyed the contrast of colors between the yellow, orange,

and red rocks to the dark blues, turquoises, and grays of the sky and clouds. 

Heading back to Cottonwood to our hotel. The sun hit the mountains in the

distance making them glow. 

Zentangles from Seashells

I was looking at Michele Beauchamp's tutorial on spirals for Zentangles on the Tangle Pattern website. Spirals reminded me of nautilus shells, so I started making a few sea creature zentangles. The first couple,  a nautilus and a scallop, are shown on July 2, 2013's blog. I've created a couple more sea creatures.

Fish Zentangle. 6"x6" on mixed media paper with a pencil and a Sakura 0.1 micron pen.
I used a new tangle, that I call Barscroll, on the front part of the body. Instructions
will be posted in another blog.

With the beginning of fall, I was thinking back to last year when I went to Ohio during the height of the fall colors. I brought back with me a couple of hedge apples, hoping to use them to dye fabric, after finding out that they can be used for that purpose. However, the hedge apples didn't hold up well enough in Arizona's warmer weather and had to be thrown away. But I had made some sketches of their skin, as the texture intrigued me. They were so rough, similar to an orange (another name for a hedge apple is Osage orange), but with greater dimpling. I created a tangle called HedgeApple. Following are the instructions. I apologized for the writing not being blurry. I'm not sure why the red pen isn't showing much contrast from the black one.  I'll try to get a better photo and re-post it.

HedgeApple tangle instructions. This can be made to fit any shape.

Jellyfish. 6"x6" mixed-media paper using pencil and Sakura 0.1

micron pen.  I used the HedgeApple tangle for the tentacles in the

front and several other tangles for the rest of the tentacles.

The umbrella of the jellyfish is done with the Angle Fish tangle.  

Sun Rays in the Evening

As my husband and I took a walk last evening, the sun was just beginning to set. It was such a beautiful view that I had to share.



The sun was very bright with a brilliant yellow horizon under the vivid
blue sky. Sunbeams radiated outwards. I like the trees in silhouette in
the foreground.



This view was taken with a wider angle. I didn't get the yellow horizon, as I
 wanted to capture the sunbeams radiating out into space. It was a rare sight here
 in the city. I wasn't sure they would turn out as well as they did in the photos.



I edited my photo with Pixlr Express and played around with various overlays.
 I liked this one adding a nebula to the background. It fits so well, that one could
almost believe this was the actual photograph, instead of an altered photo.

ATC Cards for Sept - Vintage School Days

The ATC groups challenge this month is Vintage School Days or Fairy Tales and Nursery Rhymes. I chose vintage school days. At my last guild meeting, I won the fat quarter exchange. The theme was "Back to School".  All the fabrics, but one, go together. The one that is mismatched is vintage school days! It was perfect to use for my ATC cards.

Vintage School Days fabric

I made up my 16 cards, with only a few duplicates, thanks to the material. I fused the fabric onto a 140lb mixed-media paper. I like the different school scenes with the children, mixed with writing from school books. After cutting the scenes out, I added some of the writing to be sure all cards had both a scene and writing. Then I used sepia watercolor paint to darken the edges to give them an aged look.

The various ATC cards created out of the fabric. (I had four duplicates that are not shown) The last photo shows the back of the ATC cards. We also had a sand dollar challenge. One of the members gave everyone one or two sand dollars at the August get together to decorate. Unfortunately, I did not get mine done, as I've been sick the last couple of weeks. I'm not even making the meeting tonight. My DH took my cards over for me. 

Zen Doodle: Tons of Tangles

Whoo-hoo!!! It's out! The book from F&W Media (North Light Books) that accepted 4 of my Zentangle designs for publication is out!!  (See post dated March 13, 2013).  I received an email from F&W Media today that the book is being listed for pre-orders.  The book can be pre-ordered at the North-Light website. It's on sale for 25% off right now. I'm not sure how long this sale will last.

Cover of the book.

I can't wait to receive my copy of the book!! They said it should be here by the end of September!! Whoo-hoo!!  (Am I allowed to toot my own horn??). 

Another AZ Sunset

You're going to get tired of sunset photos, but I love them. I love the contrast of oranges, yellows, and reds against the blues, purples, and mauves. Sometimes they are subtle and sometimes they are so bold and in your face.  You wonder why there aren't any sunrises? Well, I just can't get up early enough to catch those!! It's a personal flaw. I use to be an early bird when I was in my 20s and 30s, but as I've gotten older, with health issues, I've become a night owl! So sunsets, instead of sunrises, are more my speed!

Here's a couple more photos that I'd like to share that I took last night.

Sunset with bright yellows, reds, purples, mauves,
and  lavenders taken from the front of the house.

Sunset with bright yellow, reds, lavenders, purples,
and blues taken from the back of the house. 

Monsoon Season In AZ

Rainy Days. Created in FotoRus.

We're having a rainy monsoon season this year. It's nice to have so much rain! When we first moved here from upper state New York, I couldn't figure out why people ran to the windows or outside when it rained. It's just water! After being here for almost 25 years, I understand! Now, I'm the one running outside or to the window to watch the rain!  With an average yearly rainfall of 6", we can go months between rain and storms.

I love taking photos when it looks stormy outside.  The first photo I created from a new app that I found called FotoRus. I've been having fun playing with it. You can create magazine style pages with your photographs, collages, picture-in-pictures, as well as editing your photographs.

Bright blue sky peeking through the many storm clouds. 

I was surprised when I downloaded the photos to the computer.  I loved the drama in this shot -the bright blue contrasting sharply with the grays, yellows, and purples - the swirling motion in the upper left. This is one of my favorite pictures  I may check into getting the sky printed onto fabric.  It would work great for skies in quilting landscapes.

Stormy clouds as the sun is setting. 

 Again, I like the play of the oranges and yellows against the dark blues and purples of the sky. It almost seems surreal.