You Must Read This

Here is a great post about Desire and Determination that is a must read. This is from a great blog that was recommended to me by a friend. I am back home from India. Have a great Thanksgiving!

A Little Shopping

Last night I finally did a little shopping. I went to a local market (no tourist trap) and bought some cotton fabrics. I ended up with 14 half meters so I really showed some restraint. These were priced at 95 Rupees per meter or around $2. I love all of them and of course have no idea how they will be used.

I also bought some shawls that were also very reasonably priced and a silver and amethyst pendant and earrings for my daughter. Picked up a few little things for my GD but want to get her something more. It started to rain when I was out so I took a motorized rickshaw back to the hotel. Here is a view of what it looks like from riding in the back.

The hotel had a Chinese buffet for dinner……. It basically tasted like Indian food with 5 spice power added.

Saturday I am invited to someone’s house for dinner and I am really looking forward to this. This colleague has been bringing enough lunch from home to share with me each day and this has been a real treat.

Love this picture of two little boys having what looks like a very serious conversation.

How about some ice cream?

New Collage

I finally have a new collage to post. I have been really tired at the end of the work days and have not accomplished much. This one is all about the people. I painted the background and then collaged over it with images torn from the newspaper and a city guide.

Just Pictures

Masala Dosa for breakfast... a whole 25 rupees or about 50 cents

Woman carrying rice.

I love this picture of a beautiful young woman drinking fresh coconut milk. See the vendor with his knife to her right ready for more business.

Motorized rickshaw.

First day in India

Well the worst part of the trip is over...the flights here. I got to the hotel at around 3am local time and then had a good sleep. You can see my room at the right. It is really very nice.

The next picture was taken from my window looking at a vacant lot next to the hotel. A cement truck was dumping wet cement onto the tin and then the women were passing it to men that were
sending it down a slide in the bottom of a large hole creating a foundation. Think I will keep my day job. This is my third trip to
India and I am still amazed at the difference between the classes.

I do love the food and had a great Indian lunch. Had a light dinner and had to laugh at the entertainment. A 'one man band' was playing in the restaurant and I heard everything from 'A Kind a Hush' by Hermens Hermits, to Achy Breaky Heart by Billy Ray Cyrus.


This last picture is my first collage about the trip. This was a little difficult for me since when it comes to art I can do nothing in a hurry. I guess that is part of the challenge. I used my flight ticket stubs and a couple of pages from the airline magazine. The other materials came for a shopping guide I picked up here. Time for bed....tomorrow is a work day.

Here's what's packed

Here is what I finally decided to take to India for my altered b00k project. The thing I always find scary when I start to look for items for a new project is that I had all of this stuff in my stash.

I love to shop the clearance tables and can't resist any sort of paint product. This photo shows 3 Delta Dabbers that I got for $1 each at Big Lots. 4 Liquid Appliques that I got at Joannes for 50 cents each. The multicolor glitter pack was $1.99 at Tuesday Morning. All of the Golden products were free from a product demo. For the watercolor crayons and colored pencils, I used 40% off coupons at Joannes. Hmmm, would you call me thrifty, a great shopper or just cheap????

I will also take some brushes, scissors and a Styrofoam tray for a pallet. I totally decided to nix the magazines and fabric scrapes based on suggestions from the previous post and try to use local objects that I find there.

Here are a couple of pages I painted to test out what I am taking. These are just backgrounds and I will collage on top of them. I will try to post my progress over the next couple of weeks so stop back to see the results.

Truthfully I am not looking forward to this trip but in this economy it is
hard to turn down the work. It will take 22 hours or get there and I will be gone for 12 days. Hopefully this project will keep me busy all of those nights in the hotel.

Suggestions please - what should I take????

Tuesday I will be leaving for India and will be gone for 12 days. I will be teaching a couple of project management classes but I want to take something to work on from a creative standpoint. I thought I would try an altered book and take stuff to work on so I could collage the pages in my hotel room at night.

You can see my book drying in the picture. It is the first sewing book I bought about 35 years ago so I though it was time to give it a new life. I glued 4 pages together and then cut out 5 pages. That left 9 (or 18 if you count the backs) pages to work on.

I have never done this before so I really need some advice on what materials to take keeping in mind that space is at a premium.

Here are a few things I though I would pack:

• a couple of old magazines
• small bag of fabric scrapes
• watercolor crayons
• glue
• markers
• a few paints and brushes
• what else?

Please help me add to my list. Thanks.

Fiberactions - a new challenge

I am really excited to announce a new challenge that I have joined along with 12 other fiber artists. Every 2 months a theme will be selected by one of the members. We will each have 2 months to create a 16''x20'' art quilt with our interpretation of the theme.

The first theme will be announced on 11/15 and since we are going in alphabetical order I am the lucky one that gets to go first. The results will be revealed on 1/15. We will continue this cycle every 2 months until all artist have had an opportunity to choose the theme. You can signup to follow our progress on our new 'Fiberactions' blog. There you will also see a list of the participating artist.

This challenge was inspired by the Twelve by Twelve group project. If you are not familiar with this group you can read about it and see their results here.

I am really excited about this and can't wait to get started!