Historical Family and Travel Picture Postcards

Various recent Strathmore 4x6 watercolor postcards painted at the request of (and for) sister Susan:

Top to Bottom Left to Right:
The Autrey Sisters
Jean Anne, around 1945 in Delong, Indiana
Laura Jo on bicycle in Appleton, Wisconsin in 1949
Elsa sitting on the stone wall in the front yard of the El Sueno house in Santa Barbara, in the early 1960s
Little Lucy at the beach in Santa Barbara, 1953
Susan in Paradise, 1955

Misc Photo Pictures
Trees in PoliPoli State Park on Maui in December 2012
Cousin Earl on pig in Macy, Indiana in the 1920s
Santa Ynez September 2012

The Taylors in Seattle at the beach in December 2013
Matt playing soccer with son Cole
Amber and Wilson on the beach
Trees and view
Amber and Cole near the brick building

Two New Small Quilts

Top:  Aspen Poppies 8"x10"
Bottom:  SF Bay Birds 24" x 20"

Note to self:  Maybe best to stay away from stripped bindings!

Creating Great Art With Grandsons Cole and Wilson Taylor

Art projects done this past weekend in Seattle with twins Cole and Wilson, age 4 years and 5 months
Top to Bottom:
First:  Wilson's original drawing of his stuffed bunny.  After making a few pictures, he folded them up and put them in his backpack.  "I can take them out and look at them later and they will make me happy,"  Wilson explained.  And, at the farmer's market, he did just that!
Second:  A pencil drawing I did of the stuffed bunny for Cole to color.  This version was rejected when the colored pencil made a slight hole in the paper.  Another, completed version, stayed in Seattle.
Third:  A picture Cole drew of himself with his Grandma Lucy.
Fourth:  A sketch I drew of Cole
Fifth:  A sketch I drew of Cole's blue eye
Sixth:  A sketch I drew of Wilson eating his cereal.  He might look like this in another 6 years.

Crows Flying at Sunset

Loon Button Garden

Version B with layered feather pattern.  Just playing with Photoshop.

1+5+7 = New Fiber Arts Projects

Above top to bottom:
1.  Two Women - 7x10 Quilt Sampler
2.  5 New Grocery Bags:  Bird of Paradise, Crow with Yellow Hearts,a Geranium Bricks, Red Crow and Yellow-faced Bee.
3.  Detail of Red Crow on quilted grocery bag panel
4.  7 new hot pads:  Roosters and Chickens, Bees, Bark and Honeysuckle.

Hearts and Birds

More pattern making, with the help from a few good books:  A Field Guide to Fabric Design by Kimberly Kight, published by C&T Publishing, Inc. over in Lafayette, CA, and Mastering the Art of Fabric Printing and Design by Laurie Wisbrun, published by Chronicle Books in SF.

Playing with Fish in Software

Bought new Textile Symmetry and Pattern Design software from Artlandia then combined it with some pen & ink drawings that were turned into glass objects using Alien Skin software and Photoshop.  Ridiculous amount of fun.

Crafty Monday

Top:  The first four of a new line of Lucy Autrey Wilson original art grommet hot pads
Bottom:  Bee Bag, quilted panel on Simple Ecology canvas shopping tote

Bee World

Six new fabric designs:  1) A little Yellow-faced independent bee flying through the blue sky, and 2) a honey bee in honeycomb.  The bees are surrounded by bee food and habitat, including:  3) Sunflowers in a vase, 4) a close up of a sunflower, 5) a geranium growing out of bricks, and 6) some plant bark.  Add to this the attraction of some Yucca flowers about to be dive bombed by a bee fly.  A recent Time magazine article on Rene Magritte was the inspiration for the presentation - using Magritte's 1937 painting "On the Threshold of Liberty," as a model.  My recent obsession with fabric art was the impetus for the designs.

Marcia Meyers' Pool

New, digitally enhanced, pen & ink and watercolor painting 7x10

T Shirt Made With Original Ear,Eye,Nose,Mouth Fabric

Another T shirt, this one made with my original Ear, Eye, Nose, Mouth designed fabric, available at Spoonflower.com

T Shirt Made with Original Reptiles Fabric

Not much is as fun as designing your own fabric and making T shirts out of it!  Reptiles fabric is available at Spoonflower.com, featuring various or my reptile drawings. Many of those same reptiles are also available on a Lizards and Geckos print at Art.com.

Pixies

New Shopping Bags

Top to Bottom
Simple Ecology organic cotton grocery bag with quilted animal pattern and buttons
Simple Ecology shopping tote with yellow flower, blue sky oil painting applique
Simple Ecology shopping tote with yellow and blue flowers applique

Oil Painted Tote Bag Panel

Trying something new in the shopping bag category.  In addition to my original art printed fabric quilted panels, I'm adding original oil paint, ink, and brass grommets on unstretched gessoed canvas.  This one is titled "Yellow and Blue Flowers," size 11" h x 10," w to be appliqued onto a Simple Ecology organic cotton shopping tote.

One of my quilted panel grocery bags and some smaller gift bags are now posted in the Crafts section of my new website Redcrowartworks.com.  The original oil painted panel bags will retail for between $60 and $115 once I get them finished.

Better Bears

Juggling bears, bears who play games, bears bearing balloons - these are all better bears than the ones in Miley Cyrus's cringe-worthy X rated dance at the 2013 MTV-VMAs.  The last image of the bear with balloons and the capital letter B is from the fabulous book The Taylor Twins in Alphabet World available on Blurb here:  http://www.blurb.com/b/2981021-the-taylor-twins-in-alphabet-world

Longbow Camping Art

I spent more time swimming in the ice cold river at Longbow Camp in Oregon than I did doing art, but a few things were accomplished:
Top:  Landscape view of the river 10x14 done with pen & ink and watercolor and glitter
Second:  Some leaves drawn with various pencils
Third:  A postcard-sized pencil sketch of a good Oregon wine bottle and label
Last:  A googly eye portrait done with Wilson Taylor

E.A. Autrey Quilted Grocery Bag

Now that 93 year old E.A. Autrey cannot drive his van anymore, I made him a deluxe two-sided canvas grocery bag with one of his self portraits on one side and a favorite bucket oil painting on the other.  Going to the store on the bus with this bag should be lots of fun!

Camping Collecting Stencil Cut-outs

What's cooler to find than a collection of original stencil cut-outs?  Well, maybe bird feathers, interesting leaves and a few beautiful rocks.  Hopefully the little Longbow campers will find all of these treasures to collect in their new treasure bags when they go camping next week!   See prior post for the treasure bags here:  http://autreyart.blogspot.com/2013/08/fun-with-fabric.html

Fun With Fabric

A gift bag, five treasure bags and a grocery bag with a quilted art panel.  Having fun sewing with printed art on fabric, laminated fabrics, and grommets!

Tooth Fairy Pillows

My imperfect sewing technique shows, but at least these tooth fairy pillows (based on a concept imagined by Amber Taylor) are original!   The two pillows above feature original art by twins Wilson Taylor (pillow on the left) and Cole Taylor (pillow on the right) printed on 100% cotton fabric.  The paintings were done when the twins were 3 years old.  The pillow backs feature a little snap pocket to hold a tooth and a financial reward from the tooth fairy in exchange for said tooth.  The pillow backs feature two different tooth fairy stencils painted on fabric and snaps by yours truly.

Fraternal Twin Art by Cole and Wilson Taylor

Recent artworks by twins Cole and Wilson Taylor and me (Grandma Lucy to my two 4-year old grandsons).
From top to bottom:
1.  Mountain by Wilson and Bobo Fett by Cole:  Using new birthday present watercolors.  Unlike identical twins, who seem to paint in the same style, or together (see more on famous twin painters below), Wilson and Cole have distinct painting styles.
2.  Lion by Wilson and Rhino by Cole:  More watercolors and mixed media.  The objective was to paint in and around pencil drawings I did of a lion and a rhino but the original sketches were pretty much obliterated with paint.
3.  The Big W (untitled) by Wilson:  Grandma Lucy added the W to Wilson's mixed media painting using fingerpaints and pen & ink
4.  Alien Thomas by Lucy:  With help from Cole, and named by Cole and Wilson, using mixed media and fingerpaints.

I'm always struck by how different Cole and Wilson's painting styles are.  Wilson likes to fill the page with color (often preferring black) and Cole likes to leave spaces between his dots of color.  I was curious how fraternal twin art differs from identical twin art and found the following of interest:


Brazilian identical twins Otavio and Gustavo Pandolfo
http://diattaart.wordpress.com/tag/identical-twins/

American identical twins Doug and Mike Starn
http://www.starnstudio.com/

See also Wikipedia Twins in Art
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_twins#Twins_in_art