"Thought Sketches" For An Art Quilt

What have I been doing since that amazing natural dyeing class? Playing of course! It's been difficult to top the joy that Michelle Wipplinger and the class brought my way but the days keep spinning onward at an utterly unreasonably fast pace! I have a large set of ATC's due in a week or so and some class notes to get ready for our next local ATC  gathering/class. The work of these incredibly talented members of our little local ATC group will be highlighted in a post soon. I'm finding 'teaching' (this group seems to teach itself though!) is so much fun! Discovering how naturally gifted these new ATC devotees are is a gift!

So - what I've been up to is planning an art quilt in honor of one of my favorite early women's rights advocates and the first acknowledged French female, Court blessed, writer,  Christine dePizan (1363 – c. 1430). I've found that trying out some of my ideas on paper helps me to decide if an idea has potential or not. This is one of my early 'thought sketches'. All of the techniques that I have used here will work on cloth.... the concept is decent but I'll be using some additional, or possibly different, imagery. The border on the face is too wide & is a bit overpowering I think, although I like the light use of gold leaf. I'll see where it goes and am having a lot of fun making a series of these preliminary 'sketches'.!

I'm sure there will be more 'sketched thoughts' to share before long. I hope that you're all enjoying the pleasures and blessings of this early summer season! In my neck of the world we went from a very warm, dry, summer like, streak of weather back to cool rainy days. I even brought out a bulky sweater to wear to work today! The hummingbirds are so hungry that the 5 quart sized feeders now have to be refilled twice a day. I have a feeling that even if we had ten quart feeders out they would find a way to drain them all in a few hours! Yes, that's been where some of my time has gone to!