Painting and Crazy Quilting

What a wonderfully busy day!  So I'm back to my usual pursuits of painting and quilting and those two pursuits filled my day.  As the first Tuesday of the month I had both my morning painting class which is a weekly occurrence and the once a month Tuesday crazy quilt class in the afternoon.  

After several, okay, more that several studies of the Bamboo Forest painting, today I started all over. My first run at the forest itself was no more than that - a first run.  There was no way it was worth going on with.  The second and the third were along the same line - trying new paint mixtures to get the color for the bamboo, the women's kimonos, and in the last couple of "studies", the composition was not quite right (the proportion of the paper to my subject was off).  Also, I had not been satisfied with the size of the two women; they were simply too small.  

So after doing nothing on it for a couple of weeks, I decided to start all over.  Here you see the women have a greater share in the space than in previous attempts.  Also, after chatting with Sharon I made the decision to put the barrier between walkers and the bamboo forest itself back in the painting.  While it doesn't seem as though I got very far, the decisions that we discussed took time as did the women and the new bottom edge.  It's on its way.

Then I met my best friend for lunch (always a good time).  It's the first time we've done that, and I hope it will become a habit - at least as often as we can.  Then off to the quilt shop where we have our class. The block honoring my sister has been a struggle since I started.  I feel so guilty that I didn't know her as well as I should have.  The block for my mother sailed along and so did the one for my great-grandmother who I didn't know at all.   I hope I have broken through the wall with today's work.  What you see below is only about half of the block where a finished the lower portion of the garden beneath her photo.

Once again, today I was reminded that working in a group is very helpful.  Ideas are bounced around and sometimes the mere chatter about what each person is doing is helpful to say nothing about sharing opinions on everything from materials to colors to composition.  

Let's hope it works!