Alice in Wonderland, a Dragon Fly and Cowboys and Indians

Hello and hope you are just enjoying the Summer or Winter, depends on where you are right this very second.   You might want to grab a cup of tea, coffee or iced tea  for this post.  I fear I am going to wander ( AKA bunny trails ) a bit.   When I start these posts to say hi  I never have an idea and "just shoot from the hip".   That is a funny expression isn't it?  When I was doing my professional photography and I would go to a competition and such, some people would come up to me and ask me how I did this or that or what setting did I have the camera on.  I would say don't know, I just create what I feel with my photography. What kind of vibes I get from my client and how we connect.  My clients would just let me play and I was so blessed with them for allowing me to just create .   One of my best friends was a photographer ( she is in Heaven and I know she just grins even now at what I do ) and she would say she "shoots from the hip" and just beam ear to ear.   They would just walk off and shake their heads.  I was not a technical person at all and did drive some of the technical photographers nuts.    I still do that with my painting and stitching.   No plans of what I am going to do and when I get up in the morning I try not to plan just play-just do.  It is less stressful that way and of course when we mow  the yard that is planned and a given.  I guess I am still  shooting from the hip. I think it is easier that way.

Now I know a lot of you wonderful people probably planned what you wanted to do when you grew up.  Me?  No way, I figure what will happen will happen.   I guess now I sound like Doris Day  in her song   Que Sera, Sera  ( be sure and let the video open to the one it wants to )   with what ever will be will be .  So now you know what makes me tick?  Maybe.  It is kind of like when we were kids playing cowboys and Indians, some days I was a cowboy and some day an Indian.   Those were such fun days in the Summer with our pretend bows and arrows and guns.  Sometimes our guns were pistols and sometimes rifles.  It all depended on what size sticks we found on the ground.   OR when we played mud pies or with our dolls and made their houses out of cinder blocks.  The boys didn't play dolls but the mud pies?  Oh sometimes those were the best mud fights ever.   No planning just doing.

Ok back to my wanderings or bunny trails.   I have been working on Alice in Wonderland  Crazy Quilting blocks.   I have them all done but just teasing you with August's block today.   I love the whole story of Alice in Wonder Land.   I can't remember if I told you what prompted me to do this project?   Hubby got a book of it when he was young, very young like in 1944ish.  I thought how fun it would be to do a CQ project with the wonderful  drawings.   So here is my August page.

I loved the spider, they are suppose to bring good luck.  I figured in the wacky world little Alice was in she might need a lot of luck.   Now the Dragon Fly are just a few dagger beads for the wings and then some smaller beads to finish him off.  I do have to tell you about our Dragon Fly's here in Lubbock Texas.   When I mow the back I always wear goggles because they come so close and sometime bonk me in the head.  I know they don't mean harm but I figure to protect my eyes while they are flitting around and following me every inch of the yard.   I mean every inch.  Remember we have an acre and that is a lot of inches.

  Gerry Kruger suggested to me to do some stitches outside of the "box" also know as the ciggie or silkie and of course that was right up my alley.   There are several versions of the drawings and I did choose the older drawings because they seem to have the most character about them.   Now on one of the blocks I did use a newer version drawing but it just called for it.

 

This was the newer version of Alice's drawings.   I added the Rabbit, of course the Cat and a close up of Alice and did what Gerry said go out of the "box" with the stitches.    It is fun to challenge myself and try different ways to do the stitches and be inspired on the stitching from Facebook and Pinterest.  Wow there is so much information out there now.  It is mind boggling . That is another subject. 

Now I have to throw in a few drawing/paintings in here also.   You just have to keep learning and doing.   One thing I did learn on this next one is when you wander around your sketch books and find something to enhance and just doodle around with.   FIRST make a copy of it on nice thick paper, watercolor paper or something that is sturdy.   Why you may ask?  Welllllllll if you could see really close this poor girl has some holes in her eyes and around the piece.  Seems like thin thin sketch paper will only take so much abuse and erasing and then it just disappears  into nothing.  Thank goodness her eyes are in the shadows isn't it?    I had forgotten about this girlie and had sketched her a long while back.  I cannot remember what the stuff coming from her neck was suppose to be so hair it became.   She is probably saying" hahahahah I got to get out of the sketch book" to the other girls.  Holes and all.   

    

 

Now this faerie is several years old and found her in a stack of paintings so she gets to come out and show her stuff.   I know she is at lease, I think I know, 2 to 3 years old.   Well in painting world that is.   You may ask, or not, why do you spell Faerie the way you do instead of Fairy?   My cousin Juanita had written it that way and it is an old way to spell it.  So I thought that I had to spell my Faeries that way.   Nothing original that I came up with.   I do remind myself that there is nothing new under the sun.   Nothing!!! It has already been done.  

 

 

Alright I am not going to wear your eyes out today but will try and try hard to write another piece in a  few days.   Thank you so much for stopping by and seeing what is going on in my world    

XOXOOX

Annette