Studio Tour 2016

It's time again for the Great Falls Studios 2016 Art Tour. You're invited to come along on this family-friendly self guided free wander through the back roads and byways of Great Falls to meet the artist members of Great Falls Studios. Join in the adventure beginning Friday, October 14 from 10am to 5pm and continuing on Saturday 15th and Sunday 16th at the same hours.

 58 members have been busy creating lots of art and now we are ready to meet you, show you our artwork, and talk with you about what we create and what inspires us. In some studios you can watch a demonstration or even try creating something yourself gently guided by the resident artist.

You can go visit our website http://www.greatfallsstudios.com/studiotour
There you will find the map along with the list of artists and much more information. 

Look for me in a couple of places:

I will be at the Great Falls Public Library, dubbed Tour Headquarters for this event, in the large meeting room. Hanging on the walls and exhibited in the display case are sample artworks from many of the participating artists. 

In the center of the room you will find a small selection of my quilts, including "Uluru: Star of the Outback" shown above, along with a selection from my new media, photography. As a special preview for my blog readers, "Signs of the Season" is shown below.

 

Drive along Georgetown Pike just a short distance from the library to The Old Brogue, our renowned Irish pub (street address for your GPS is 760 Walker Road) and pop in for a coffee or lunch/dinner. In Katie's Coffee House (which becomes "the Snuggery" in the evenings) you can also see my exhibition "My New Zealand", which is on display there for the entire month of October.

"Agapanthus - A Summer Staple" shown above.

So far the crowd favorite at Katie's seems to be my canvas print "The Woolly Majority" 

I will have a smaller version, printed, framed and matted in the traditional style with me at the library.

It will be such a pleasure to see you this weekend so don't be shy, come meet me and let's chat.

September Foraging

Remember last September when I went on a quick trip to Manitoba Canada to attend the Finding Stillness event hosted by http://kimklassen.com/about/

Fast forward to September 2016 and no, I did not go again but I did begin a year of adventure in the Studio 2.0 course. Each month we get a prompt with an idea of what to focus on with our cameras. Maybe you'd like to see some of the results.

First up was the suggestion to go outside and forage for material to put together some Still Life shots. For many of us that meant looking in the early autumn landscape.

In the first week or so I was still able to find pretty flowers in my garden to carry inside to photograph...

 Or I could choose to pose them closer to where they were growing outside in the garden.

 For this one I foraged inside where I found this dried rose. Actually, this photo had another purpose. We were tasked with setting up in just one location and photographing it at different hours of the day to watch how the light changed. I thought this room would be too dark to take photos using natural light only but I was incorrect.

 This old window frame had been carried home as a treasure sometime last year then put in the garage and forgotten. Brought out and used as a backdrop with a couple of old aqua colored glass bottles it kept me entertained for several hours. This was while the autumn clematis was still in full bloom.

One morning the newly risen sun illuminated this spider web and I challenged myself to try and get a good image. It was a challenge but once I got this one I decided I might be done.

 The echinacea are looking pretty ragged by season's end but they still have a beauty to them.

 A neighbor has several large and spectacular hydrangea shrubs so I made a quick phonecall to ask if I could come clip some to use as subjects for my foraging photos. Using those lovely blooms occupied me for days!

This critter was also doing some foraging. You might notice a black walnut in the lower left of the photo. We have a tree that obligingly drops many of these and the squirrels keep busy for several weeks collecting them and hiding them all over the garden. Sometimes they sit on the driveway and crack them open and I come outside to find a mess of black shell to be cleaned up.

I'll save more foraging photos for another day.