city love affair again

This one took a while.... too many distractions.. too many new experiments... but I still loved it, so I finally finished it.

Presenting City Love Affair 4. My grandmothers vintage linen towel, a lot of vintage lace from oh so many sources, a TAP transfer, machine stitching and hand stitching. A portrait of a beautiful building belonging to a school I never went to, but might have if I had stayed in Russia.

sky and roof

not so little round window

lampwork

details details

City Love Affair 4 © Natalya Aikens 2016

So different from the rest of the work I am doing right now, but yet such a part of me still.

fire escapes, bridges and water towers

I thought it's about time that I shared full images of all the new pieces I have created in the past few months. Now that I have premiered them at the Armonk Outdoor Art Show, it is time to see them on the blog. So without further a do here they are: 

Iron Spine 1xs (6"x6") © Natalya Aikens 2016

Iron Spine 2xs (6"x6") © Natalya Aikens 2016

Iron Spine 3xs (6"x6") © Natalya Aikens 2016

Iron Spine 4xs (6"x6") © Natalya Aikens 2016

Iron Spine 5xs (6"x6") © Natalya Aikens 2016

Water Tower 1xs (6"x6") © Natalya Aikens 2016

Water Tower 2xs (6"x6") © Natalya Aikens 2016

Water Tower 3xs (6"x6") © Natalya Aikens 2016

Water Tower 4xs (6"x6") © Natalya Aikens 2016

Water Tower 5xs (6"x6") © Natalya Aikens 2016

MNHB span (12"x12") © Natalya Aikens 2016

TRIboro span (12"x12") © Natalya Aikens 2016

TZB span (8"x8") © Natalya Aikens 2016

WHTstone span (8"x8") © Natalya Aikens 2016

GWB span (8"x8") © Natalya Aikens 2016

Soon I will have these up on my website with juicy detail images. Stay tuned! And thanks for stopping by!

planning

The last two days have been spent planning. Planning what? Art of course!

I am delighted to share that I have been juried into the Armonk Outdoor Art Show in Armonk, NY. It has been around for 55 years! One of the most prestigious shows in my neck of the woods. Can you tell I'm excited? It'll take place on September 24th and 25th, so I have plenty of time to get ready.

I have several large pieces that I already know that I'll be exhibiting. They are the ones I was juried in with. But I would like to have a variety of smaller pieces on hand also and that's what I've been planning. It'll be a busy summer in the studio!

I started the planning part with organizing my inspiration photos. Usually when I upload my photos from the camera or phone I immediately put them into albums for easy reference later. Well.... I am ashamed to admit that I have really slacked off on that task.... So today I organized them into albums.

I did a bit of editing and narrowed my choices down to about 20 that speak to me right now.

Then I narrowed my choices even more and opened them up in Photoshop for a closer look. My first two mini-series of works will based on fire escapes and water towers.

Now I'll play with them in Photoshop - cropping and figuring out the composition. Once I have that decided on, I'll dig into my materials and start making some serious choices. Right now I think that they will all be on backgrounds created from re-purposed plastics and the images will be hand-stitched with various threads. Stay tuned!

cathedral in the sky

That's not what this cathedral is called, but that how I came to think of it as I worked on its portrait. I took the photo that I used as my guide against the bluest brightest of skies. You'd think that would make for a great picture. It does. Because not only is the sky blue, but the cathedral is blue too. With white trim and golden domes...

The cathedral that I'm referring to is St. Nicholas Cathedral in St. Petersburg Russia. Otherwise known as the Nikolsky Cathedral in Russian and also as the Sailor's Cathedral as it was the official cathedral of the naval regiments of the Russian navy who were stationed near. It also has a personal significance to me, my dad was baptized there. He was born in 1941 during the blockade of Leningrad and this cathedral was one of the few that functioned during that time.

Starting with some details, here's my portrait of Nikolsky Cathedral:

one golden dome

a golden edge

an entrance detail

another golden dome

Nikolsky Cathedral © Natalya Aikens 2014

Did you read my birthday newsletter yet? If you haven't yet decided which of my pieces is your favorite, do add this one to the list. And tell me about it so I can enter you in the drawing for my gift to you on my birthday, December 17th! Thanks for playing!

friday in the studio

Yesterday I did a bit of organizing in the old studio, and if you follow my artist page on Facebook, you might have seen this shocking post: Somehow I have seven (7!!!) artworks in different stages of completion... usually it's not more than 2 or 3. Guess I'd better get to work!

OK, so the "shocking" part is tongue firmly planted in cheek. But I am a bit overwhelmed by the seven. The problem is that I like all of them enough to continue working on them. How do I prioritize??? Aaack!

Thought I'd share a few peeks here:

1. This piece called Electric Spring debuted at my solo exhibit, but I deemed it unfinished this summer and have been adding tiny stitches ever since...

2. This is Early Spring and and the story is the same as above... adding sparkly French knots...

3. I started this Cathedrals piece back in May, progressed a bit and stopped due to general life craziness.

4. This is the beginnings to the companion piece to the above. Ahem. Subject is chosen and materials are gathered. That's it.

5. This is the fourth in the City Love Affair series. Shockingly I last reported about it in December! I have done quite a bit and probably shared more photos on Instagram, but haven't worked on it since spring. Sad I know.

6. This is a companion piece to one I finished a few weeks ago, but was too busy to share, but I promise I will soon! Both pieces are the next reincarnation of this piece.

You might have noticed only six photos. That's because I'm saving the seventh for next week.... That's right - a cliffhanger!!

oh the treasures!

I received a few treasures in the mail recently. Technically they are not for me, they are for the new home portrait commission that I just started working on. I'm calling this one Buckingham Road. And here's what I have to work with:

wedding veil, sheet music and a passport page

a piece of vintage embroidery, sentimental tweed and twigs

a few bold brights

simple yet sophisticated upholstery fabrics

clear prints, textural weaves

I'm loving the angle shot of the house

the front is great with that white picket fence

oh and the rhodies! I might be forced to embroider those!

I am playing with my layout options and planning the hand stitching. Will share the developments soon!

onward!!

I think my month long diversion into beaded fruit and eggs has been beneficial to me and my art. While doing all that bead-work (and Thanksgiving cooking, cleaning and hosting) my brain was working things out. And I'm afraid (in a good way) that it has worked out quite a bit!

My head is bursting with new ideas, old ideas refined and everything in between. I've written and sketched everything down in my sketchbook and various legal pads, sorted in order that I would like to get going on it and even have gotten down to business.

First on my list are two artworks which have been languishing due to lack of enthusiasm and/or time for a while now. One (smallish) I thought was done two years ago, then I decided it needed more, and that "more" turned out to be an enormous amount of hand stitching with thick metallic thread. I have been working on it in tiny pieces of time here and there, but now I see the light at the end of the tunnel, so I am encouraged to persevere!

asphalt in progress

The other is a much larger piece that is part of my City Love Affair series. It got stopped in its tracks when I got tired of the tedious basting that turned out to be part of the process and distracted by other more immediate and faster paced art. I am excited about it once again, as I see a newish way I want work on it (after the basting) which will lead me to the next piece in the series which is in my head entirely at the moment.

basting very carefully so I won't have to rip out too much later

The third on my list to get done before starting anything new in earnest is the current occupant of my design wall. It is the other bridge in my City Lines series. The whole "cloth" base is done and now I am dying to get collaging with plastics on it. I have shared a bit of it a few weeks ago, but it hasn't budged since then... now that my house guests are off for a while and my studio (aka passage way) is allowed to get messy again, it will get very very messy!

the sketch is under a clear plastic for guidance

So. I hope to share updates on these three throughout the months of December and January. And if I get started on any of the other ideas my brain has come up with, I will share those too! And somewhere in there I have to squeeze in three costumes for my kids Russian school play... (I am taking a break this year from making costumes for the whole production). Onward with December!!

what's been going on...

...a lot.. is the short answer. Details? Russian Orthodox Easter was celebrated a week ofter everyone else Easter, and that pretty much took over my life. There was much cooking and cleaning to do, church going, celebrating and visiting. But I have blogged about all that before (here, here and here), so I'll spare you the pictures and will instead share the tiny bit of artwork that I managed to pull off amid all the hoopla. 

I had shared some work in progress last month in this post, and now I got chance to finish it. That meant whole lot of painting! And I enjoyed it so. The "whole" cloth long and skinny quilt (not even sure if I can call it a quilt officially) that I constructed out of various recyclables got painted on both sides. Acrylic paint was chosen mainly for ease of painting straight from the tube, excellent "blendiness" and because I was counting on it to give some strength to the paper parts while retaining the elasticity. 

I think that in these photos, you'll be able to tell that I went back to my roots in choosing the theme for my totem. Russian village windows were a recurring theme in my early art-quilting days. This one is a favorite, as well as this one and this one. It just felt right to construct a totem out of windows. Perhaps the Easter season influenced my color choices, both sides turned out bright and happy.

Unfortunately I do not yet have a full shot of the finished work. My studio ceilings are not tall enough, I'll have to take some non-professional pictures outside and I will definitely take installation shots of the whole room of totems in May. Stay tuned!