books

Process VS. Product: How do you learn Best?

| ellenanneeddy

I tend to learn about things when I’m neck-deep in a mess trying to rescue something that has just gone pear-shaped. It becomes a puzzle to solve. Sometimes I get a great solution that I use after that for that issue. Sometimes it’s more of a bandaid and it becomes something I regularly work on remedying, hoping for the right answer. Often there are many answers that vary their results enough to be used periodically.

But it isn’t like I did the piece just to learn something, usually. I get an idea. I create my creature, and then I build his or her world around them. It’s like dancing to a different tune each time. The answers aren’t always the same. But they push you further.

But classroom is different. Classes get divided into process classes and project classes. Most people like a project class. They get to see a lot of techniques, and they get to incorporate them into their piece.

But that’s a lot of pressure to put on one day. Most of my work involves hundreds of processes in one small piece. I am happy to show them all in class. Sometimes that’s what students want. Sometimes they want to create something to take home. Sometimes, sadly, they don’t get as far along as they would like with their project.

So I developed my Stitch Vocabulary Book class. It started with the stitch vocabulary I did in most classes. I’d have students doodle, draw, work with zigzag, stipple, do garnet stitch and sign their name on a 9″ square of cotton. That really includes almost all the techniques I do. After that, they could use that square or another one to practice or try something else.

Straight Stitch

Bobbin Work

The Stitch Vocabulary Book class is 5 squares. It includes Straight Stitch, Zigzag Stitch, Bobbin Work, Soft Edge Applique, Hard Edge Applique, Couching, Beading, and Globbing. Because it’s all small squares of fabric, it can be bound together with bias tape into a reference book for your studio. And you can write your notes on the stabilizer on the back.

Soft Edge Applique

I will be teaching the Stitch Vocabulary Book Class for Gems of the Prairie, May 4th, in Peoria, IL. To honor that, I’m putting together a little classroom booklet on the class to go with it. It will be available in early May for sale.

Classroom booklets are another part of process-learning. Rather than being galleries of work, they are crammed with information, directions, and advice. I much prefer them to handouts, because they’re pretty, they’re concise and they aren’t just white paper.

So if you learn best from learning processes or if you’re more satisfied with a product this booklet should open some amazing new doors for you, for you to explore in your own work.

I will be previewing some of the work on the book on my website. If you’re taking my class in Peoria, it will be a fun sneak peek. But if you’re just hungry to learn new free-motion skills, it’s an easy no-risk way to explore what is possible. I’ll add new sections as I get them done, and some extra resource bits to help.

Check my Thread Magic Stitch Vocabulary Book page to see the latest chapter. I’ll show you how it progresses over the next several weeks.

The Dark: A Look at the Scary

| ellenanneeddy

A Strange Smell in the Sewer

Why do we need the dark? What part of us craves the shivery story, the one that wakes you up and says, “It could be true. Did you check under the bed?” What calls us from the dark?

It sounds like pathology. Something wrong in us. That we would look at those negative images, bad self tapes, dark personal moments. There’s a part of me, even in thinking that wants to run away into the sun and pretend there is no dark.

There’s a dark that really is evil. It does want our destruction. It feeds self hate and self loathing. Sometimes it comes in the form of voices from the past. or part of the culture. Sometimes it’s a voice out of nowhere.

There’s a dark that’s just plain reporting. We’ve seen this stuff. And we need to say what we’ve seen, just as a reality check.

Where does that take us as artists? Do we run from the dark? Paint rainbows and unicorns and refuse the scary? There are artists who seem to have done that. Although the comment about unicorns is unfair. It’s as if they stared into the dark and then turned around and stared into the light.

These are pictures by Odilon Redon. He was a symbolist at the turn of the twentieth century. He went from some rather disturbing images to luminous paintings of what could be either saints or gods.

I haven’t found any research that says why. I can guess.

There was a country that tried to stop grandmothers from reading fairy tales to children. The children suffered all kinds of disturbances, mostly about fear and and loss.

We need to look at the dark, sometimes. Not as our only focus, but so we can really look at the light in comparison. Because the dark is real. As we tell tales about it, we are transforming ourselves in the story. We are creating a people that can go from dark to light.

Do I think everyone’s dark is the same? Heaven’s, no. I know that for everyone there are insurmountable problems we have to surmount, journeys into nowhere that need a destination. We win over those things by transforming ourselves. By  changing the story.

The World in Reflection,  the third book of Sight Unseen series, is a journey from dark towards the light. It’s not a tidy story. Life is too messy for tidy stories. But I think you’ll find it intriguing. Perhaps even transformational.

If you are willing to help me with a review on this book, I will send you a free ecopy in the format of your choice. I ask you read at least three stories, and write a short review. Naturally I probably won’t use your review if you give me a negative three stars and a string of four letter words. But I am asking for honest opinions.

If you are willing to help, email me at ellenanneeddy@gmail.com and I will send you a book to read.  Perhaps it will help you transform something for yourself.

And Thank You!

The Pushme Pullyou: Stopped by Outside Influences

| ellenanneeddy

Dr. Doolittle talked about the Pushmepullyou as an animal that could go any direction once it got a mind as to what it wanted to do. Loved it as a child. Still love it. Sometimes you need the pushmepullyou. Sometimes you need to be the pushmepullyou.

It was almost a year ago when I stopped writing. Not entirely, but close. I had a book almost done and I showed it to a person who told me it was a road to hell.

He hadn’t read it. He just made a judgement.

It stopped me. Cold. I could be told I’d written a bad book or a silly book, or a boring book. All of those things would have sent me skittering back to my computer to do better. This stopped me cold.

Mind you, it didn’t have a sex scene in it. The morally reprehensible in the book learn from their mistakes or don’t but it’s address.

I really do expect to piss off everyone before they’ve finished because it’s a true story of how I’ve come to believe what I believe, even though most of it is fictional. A truth story doesn’t necessarily need to be true.

But I figure people who are pissed off are at least engaged. And it’s written in short story/ novella size chunks where you can pick and choose what you like.

I’ve sat frozen on an iceberg of disapproval and guilt until someone said the magic words. “You mean this person didn’t think like you.”

Well duh. Thank you.

I’m back finishing up stories and polishing them into volume three of the series, The World in Reflection. I’m almost there.

But I do need your help. I have several stories I’m deciding whether to include or not.  Would you look at this one and let me know what you think? It’s called the Rocking Chair. It’s a bit odd, even by my standards, but gentle. My question is, is it too dull? Help me here.

You’ll find Rocking Chair at https://sightunseen2016.wordpress.com/home/stories/the-rocking-chair/

First Reviews: Private Moments Gone Public

| ellenanneeddy
one more once upon a time print final8-16_Page_01

I just got my first review on One More Once Upon a Time!

one more once upon a time print final8-16_Page_26It’s always a scary moment. I woke up to Don saying, “You’ve got a review today.” And in my head, my mind is going, “Did they like it? Did they? Did they?”
Books have a life of their own. From the moment they’re published they will do things you can’t and go places you can’t. As an author, you just have to get over that.
Books are so private in their making and so public in their lives. You make them mostly in the silence of your study or studio. Then you put them out to do anything they will do in the world. And all of a sudden, people who don’t know you from Adam, know all kinds of things about you. I have, in the past, forgotten what I wrote and been deeply unnerved by what they knew about me.
one more once upon a time print final8-16_Page_34But that’s the wonder of books. We are broader, wider, more public, more real for having written and for reading. Our world is more deeply connected. 
Doing art is similar. You do it because it’s important, vital, to you. The miracle occurs when it matters to someone else as well. Art changes what we think, and how we perceive. It changes what we perceive. What could be more important than that?
But in the end, it was just you fuddling around in the studio. Private becomes public. But maybe, in a small corner, in a small way, we change the world.
So nothing matters quite so much as whether people get it. Did they like it? Did they?
With One more Once Upon a Time, I wanted to showcase the universality of some great older illustrators. And I had a party with the Photoshop toolbox. It’s unabashed eye candy. But who doesn’t have a hungry eye? A huge part of my happiness is when I find something that makes my eyes feel like they’re there for a reason, to see something of delight.
I also had a personal triumph. I figured out how to publish a color book in Kindle. I’m very pleased to be able to share things in another format.
So this is the very nice thing someone called Pedalpoint said about my book.

 

Not your run-of-the-mill picture book, Eddy has used her well-known creative eye and flair for color to create a whole new book experience. This collection of digitally created artwork is based on traditional illustrations used in a very nontraditional way. Be prepared for the unexpected. Some images will bring a smile, others will bring a pause to ponder. Each image is titled, then a short sentence follows to guide your thoughts…or not. And that is precisely what I suspect Eddy is encouraging each of us to do: to think, to visualize, to personalize, and look beyond the obvious. The book has few words, but is large in vision.

Thanks! From my point of view, she got it. Pretty much that’s what I had in mind. That and a party plan with eye candy in a candy bowl.one more once upon a time print final8-16_Page_08

A word about reviews. Even if you don’t like a book, review it. But especially if you do like it. Your word counts! And it helps build interest! As an author I am always grateful for every review.

Check out One More Once Upon a Time. It’s on both Kindle and in print at Amazon.com.

one more once upon a time print final8-16_Page_14

Mixed Media: Changing Art Forms

| ellenanneeddy

Artists are creatures of habit. We talk about developing a style and a look, but it becomes so much deeper than that. Eventually, we develop a way of thinking artistically that is our own.

So one of the strangest things to do as an artist is to change media. Because it inevitably changes the way we think about how we create.collage

Strangely enough, changing from fiber art to Photoshop was not as bad a stretch as I thought it would be. They’re both done in layers, and what matters is the order of the layers.

Why the change?

I’ve gone through some health passages lately. Last year I spent around 5 months in bed with leg and foot troubles. Wailing around with fabric was hopeless. Getting into the studio was hopeless too. I started working with art that could be in my bed with me.

Matisse paper cut-out

I’m certainly not the first. Matisse was bedridden for a while and did the most amazing art cut-outs of paper painted with gouache. The art doesn’t stop because you’re ill or unable. It’s like water flowing. It finds it’s own way.

 

 

Will I go back to fiber art? I hope so. But the collage has filled a fascinating place for me, and I’m still compelled by it. And dragging large quilts through the machine is physically tough.

one more once upon a time print final8-16_Page_01So in celebration of having made a lot of eye candy, I’ve made a little book of these things. One More Once Upon a Time is a collection of collages made from illustrations of Kay Nielsen, Tenniel, Denslow, Neill, and Grandville. This is a small gallery book of these that I hope you enjoy as much as I do. Available on Amazon and in my Etsy store ( should you want a signed copy.)

You can see more collages on my web page for that.