wisconsin

Hand Lettering and Illustration

| terriaw

I recently worked on a project for class where each classmate had to pick a person, place or pastime unique to Wisconsin to hand letter and illustrate on a card measuring 8″ wide x 2.125″ high. I’ve never done any hand lettering so this was a fun experiment in my sketchbook.

WI sketches 2

WI sketches 3

WI sketches

We all had to use the same 2 colors (blue and orange) since we are having our cards printed on the off-set printing press on campus, which has two ink wells. I’m excited to follow the production process in the next couple weeks as we watch the printing plates get made, the inks mixed, the press run, and then work together to do the cutting, collating, and assembly of our Wisconsin-themed book.

WI Trees Trails Lakes

Wisconsin is more than just beer and cheese. It’s more than America’s dairyland. I’ve had people around the country (adults… old enough to know better) ask me if we had trees in Wisconsin, as if it’s too cold and barren here for plants to survive. People, this isn’t the Arctic circle. It’s a beautiful state with lots of trees, trails and lakes, which is the theme I picked. I used random names of trees and lakes for a background texture on the front side of the card, and some simple facts for the back side of the card.

WI bookmark

I’m excited to see the final book with everyone’s illustrated cards all bound together. In the meantime, I printed my card at home to use as a bookmark.

I loved experimenting with hand lettering combined with illustrations so I made a list of other topics I’m hoping to work on this summer. Stay tuned…

Thanks for stopping by.

Terri

Color Palettes – Travel Inspired

| terriaw

This second day’s prompt in Brandi‘s color palette blog walk is to create travel-inspired palettes based on a favorite city, dream location, or postcard.

My most recent trip was to my parent’s cottage on Lake Michigan in northern Wisconsin, so I thought that would be good inspiration for today’s color palettes.

monarch in a coneflower garden

colors of the Sentinel Trail in Peninsula State Park

colors of a campfire on the beach at dusk

colors of sunset over Green Bay

The saturation in some these colors from nature was quite hard to match (especially using the color tool in Word, since I haven’t purchased Photoshop yet). I may not have considered putting these combinations together in one of my sewing projects, yet they work so well in nature. What a great experiment to stretch my imagination!

If you come up with your own palette, be sure to share it with other participants on Brandi’s blog. Tomorrow’s theme is inspiration colors in fashion.

Weekend Away

| terriaw

We are headed north to my parent’s cottage for the weekend. It’s a 4.5-hour drive, so I am looking forward to losing myself in my new book. Considering I read the first book in one day, I will probably finish the next one pretty quickly. But I might need to re-read the first one because I read it sooo fast.

the beach in Door County

(the view of the beach from the cottage)

I am looking forward to kayaking, biking, hiking, ice cream, and bon fires on the beach. I am bringing along a quilt that I need to sew the binding on, and my art supplies too. 

coin quilt to finish

I hope we aren’t too busy so I have time to daydream over the water. Hope you lose yourself in something wonderful this weekend!

End of Summer Weekend

| terriaw

I love three-day weekends, especially ones filled with summer weather. We started ours with a weekly trip to farmers market where I bought squash potatoes for this recipe, zucchini for this recipe, the best granola I’ve ever had, and raspberry chocolate tarts.

Because it’s the end of summer, we didn’t feel like gardening, so we lounged the afternoon away.

I fixed this sewing project with the addition of some ric-rac trim along the border and outside seam.

I made two of these with some fabric in my stash.

We spent a fabulous day on Sunday at Devils Lake State Park hiking and sightseeing.

The views from the top of West Bluff were gorgeous.

There were early Fall colors to be seen growing around these large boulders.

We saw some weird fungus growing on the rocks too!

We saw a lot of people on the trails, but it was still exhilarating to be out in nature, exercising and breathing in the fresh air. Good for my heart and soul!

The beach was crowded with friends and families, picnicking and playing in the water.

We brought a picnic and lounged on our blanket for awhile.

I made that blanket a couple years ago and this is the first time we’ve ever used it!

The ground was hard and we needed pillows, so that is my mission for Labor Day – to make small, maybe 8×12-size depending on what Joann’s has in stock, portable picnic pillows to go with our picnic blanket. I say portable because I’m thinking about either handles or straps for easy carrying.

I am already looking forward to the next three-day weekend, no matter what the season.