Adobe Illustrator

Pinwheels pattern @Karen Thiessen, 2013

I took this week off from my Adobe Illustrator practice, so I'm sharing a pattern that I made a few weeks ago. The show opening was awesome and I am grateful for all who came out in the rain to celebrate it with me. I meant to share pics of the show this week, but man oh man am I tired! This week I gave myself time to sort through and purge clutter from my studio, to feed neglected sketchbooks, to write, to stitch, to go for long walks, and to sweep the porch and sidewalk. Yesterday I committed to a new project that I'll share with you in late fall. I'm grateful to have some space between the deadlines. This weekend is the Victoria Day long weekend here in Canada. Happy weekend to you all!

Studio Series: fun with nature

Nature smiles © Karen Thiessen, 2013

After an intense year of preparing for my solo show, it's time to play!

Insect pins

No. 5 Insect pins 

For those who are wondering how I hung my tag series, I used No. 5 stainless steel insect pins. I bought them from Indigo Instruments in Waterloo, Ontario (Canada). The service was quick and friendly. Jennifer Angus, textile artist and author extraordinaire kindly pointed me in the right direction of what size of pin would work in drywall. She prefers to use size 3 with her insects, to minimize the hole size, but size 5 works best if the wall has had several coats of paint. When my hubby and I hung the show, we used a push pin to make the hole first, and then added the insect pin.

Unit(y): textiles, collage, & pattern

This week I took time away from my Adobe Illustrator practice to take care of final details for the show and to get moving with the next show. I designed this postcard in Photoshop and Illustrator (because that is all I know so far) and I'm pleased with how it turned out.

Studio Series: Unit(y) sneak peak

Unit(y) sneak peak © Karen Thiessen, 2013

Here's a sneak peak of my Unit(y) exhibit which opens Friday. The black-and-white piece is called Composition in Black and is comprised of 20 shipping tags that I painted, stitched, and collaged. I'll show you better images of the show next week. The other pieces flanking Composition in Black are Ohne Titel 2, Ohne Titel 3, and Ohne Titel 1.

Quotes: Ira Glass

"The most important possible thing you can do is a lot of work." – Ira Glass, via brain pickings

Ira Glass is right. The more work you do, the more you make mistakes, the more you learn. I've been working flat out since September and I've made a lot of work, a lot of mistakes, and a few major discoveries. My hubby and I hung my solo show over the weekend and now I dive into making new work for a group show in July. I'm tired, excited, happy to see the work out of my studio and up, but sad that I must move onto radically different work for a time. My major discoveries came only six weeks ago, in enough time to make four modest pieces, but not soon enough to create the large-scale piece that I had envisioned. I'm planning to make the large piece this autumn and I can't wait!

Week 66: Adobe Illustrator

Quotation marks © Karen Thiessen, 2013

Spring has been playing a slow striptease with us here in Canada and I haven't minded a bit. We had a proper winter with cold and snow and now we are having a real spring, a gradual transition from cold to warm. Last year we had winter and then Bam! we had summer. I'll take a striptease over Bam! any day. The colourway of Quotation marks is a reminder that the heat of summer will soon be upon us. May you all have a restorative weekend!