Karen Stiehl Osborn posted the photo above on Facebook yesterday. I asked her if I could interpret it in a painting. She gave me her blessing.
So last night I picked up pastels for the first time in - like forever. I've never done an abstract with pastels. I'm not even sure how I feel about this painting but I do know that I liked visiting this medium again. All that layering and rubbing (or adult finger painting as someone I know calls it) really speaks to me.

Messed around with gelatin plate printing on this snowy Saturday morning. I'm pretty satisfied with the results and find that Golden fluid acrylics work really well on the gelly plate. I have some other art plans for this weekend....that involve a photo taken by Karen Stiehl Osborn. Karen is an incredible multi-media artist. More later....
This arrived on Saturday in the mail from a great textile/collage artist, Karen Stiehl Osborn http://www.karenstiehlosborn.com/ . We agreed to trade 4x6'ers and I think it was a WIN for me! Isn't this small piece of art marvelous? Lots of texture and depth. A really great addition to my growing collection. Thank you so much Karen!
I'm a Painter Wanna-Be so on Saturday I tried my hand at interpreting that squash photo I posted earlier in the week.
An artist's group I belong to was discussing Garden of Eden motifs....one painter had us in stitches (ha! only figuratively as I'm the only textile person in this group) over her thoughts on an image of an Angelina Jolie/Mother Theresa/Evil Snake image. Anyway, this discussion lead me to start this piece that will end up being at least 12x12" (double digits all around - yea). It uses all my hand dyed fabric and is hand appliqued. It's about ready for some free motion quilting and then the embellishments will start. It looks kind of cool in my mind's eye.