Creative Chrysalis
Artwork appears as if by magic to the onlooker, but inside the studio it’s not magic at all. Through this blog, you…
Creative Chrysalis
121- Proportional Scale
Please excuse me if you are seeing a second copy of this post. I’ve been doing some website revisions, so this post…
Creative Chrysalis
120 – Passive Observer
The amusement park dark ride that I’ve been working on has a large open front where people can get into the vehicles…
Creative Chrysalis
119 – Tiny Pieces
A wheelchair is a complicated form. There won’t be an easy way to represent one in fabric. I’ll make my best go…
Creative Chrysalis
118 – Fabric Palette
Even though I buy fabric in the smallest possible amount, usually ¼ of a yard, I still manage to support the local…
Creative Chrysalis
117 – For Position Only!
What do you do when faced with a difficult step of a project? Get right in there? Or waffle around a little,…
Creative Chrysalis
116- Step Up, Look Lively!
Art mannequins – we’ve all seen them, and you’ve got to admit, they look a bit wooden. I’ve never thought they were…
Creative Chrysalis
115 – Please Wait…
…ase wait for assistance…please wait for assistance…please wa An endless digital sign implores you to wait for assistance – important signage for…
Creative Chrysalis
114 – Taking Shape
The “dark ride” building is a large structure and I need to take care that the architecture doesn’t overwhelm the purpose of…
Creative Chrysalis
113 – Big Blocks of Color
Big blocks of color are a fun change of pace from the tiny details I’ve been focusing on. As a painter might…
Creative Chrysalis
112 – Tickets, Please
I’m liking this group of people! I know my fabric collage people are working well when I think of them as characters…
Creative Chrysalis
111 – Templates and Logical Layering
Freezer paper templates serve as a way of getting the shapes and sizes mostly correct, although sometimes I vary from them as…
Creative Chrysalis
109 – Ta-Dah!
Bet you’ve been curious as to how the separate elements of my amusement park scene will look together. Pinning the pieces to…
Creative Chrysalis
108 – From The Mouth Of A Snake
A smaller snake slide is a fine idea, but now to make it real. Usually, I don’t number my templates, but it…
Creative Chrysalis
107 – Drawing Too Many Snakes!
I spent quite a bit of time drawing and revising the idea of a snake slide as a feature in my amusement…
Creative Chrysalis
106 – Steps of Instruction
My imagery of a funhouse with a rolling barrel entrance perfectly represents the inviting rabbit hole of the internet, but this amusement…
Creative Chrysalis
105 – Nailing the Roof
Does the house top seem familiar? I modeled it after “American Gothic,” an iconic painting by Grant Wood that has often been…
Creative Chrysalis
104 – Eyes Above
Above the swirling vortex/black hole/rolling barrel entrance to the funhouse of my quilt, I would like to have some eyes. This part…
Creative Chrysalis
103 – Vortex People
Excited to make my first people for this quilt. Upon starting this project, I challenged myself to improve both drawing skills and…
Creative Chrysalis
102 – Going in Circles
A swirling vortex will be inside the rolling barrel entrance to a funhouse in my quilt. At first, I thought to use…
Creative Chrysalis
101 – Imaginative Play
I love how the trap came out so far. I’ll eventually talk about the collage process in more detail, but there’s plenty…
Creative Chrysalis
100 – How Good is Your Color Memory?
My color memory is such that I can go to a fabric store and quite accurately remember the colors and patterns that…
Creative Chrysalis
99 – Putting Reference Images into Place
Now I put my collection of reference images to work. Using the magic of Photoshop Elements, I make a quick photo collage…
Creative Chrysalis
98 – Reference Images for Translation
Reference images are crucial for translating a line drawing into a realistic art quilt. With my intended plan for a 3’ high…
Creative Chrysalis
97 – Rolling Along
I have three remaining feet of drawing to trace onto muslin. I taped foam core board to the wall as a temporary…
Creative Chrysalis
96 – The Tracing Begins
A little struggle ensued between me and the 11’ long drawing, but we finally came to an agreement. The horizon line needed…
Creative Chrysalis
95 – Let Me Get This Straight…
This design wall is made of two 4’ x 8’ Styrofoam panels covered with flannel. I won’t be able to work on…
Creative Chrysalis
94 – I Spy a Camera in the Window
My studio overhead camera set-up is not set back far enough to capture the width of quilt area that I’ll be working…
Creative Chrysalis
93 – Moving Along
My thoughtful husband put an overhead camera set-up on my studio ceiling. My work takes a long time to go together, so…
Creative Chrysalis
92 – The Next Stage Begins!
I ordered a full-size enlargement from Staples Copy department and had it shipped to me as I’m not going anywhere to avoid…
Creative Chrysalis
91 – Going Big!
My next quilt will be 3’ high x 11’ length. Truly a commitment, especially with the level of detail that is typical…
Creative Chrysalis
90 – Quilting Fear
Intimidation by size of project and social media hesitation will not stop the forward progress of Susan Polansky’s art quilt.
Creative Chrysalis
89 – Big Bang
Impact! Oversized “Flying Pins” by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen yell out and demand a look. This site sculpture wouldn’t be…
Creative Chrysalis
88 – Giving thanks
I depart from my usual arty posts to wish a Happy Thanksgiving to all! I cooked up a feast for my social-bubble…
Creative Chrysalis
87 – Primary focus
If I were looking straight ahead, my primary field of vision would be the blue area. I colored these areas to remind…
Creative Chrysalis
86 – Coloring fun
Just for the fun of it, I colored in a bit of a drawing. I really don’t know how to “paint” on…
Creative Chrysalis
85 – I want it all
I’m working on the center section, what will be behind the girl with the balloon, trying to figure out how to get…
Creative Chrysalis
84 – Ditch the Snake?
I spent oodles of time on drawing a snake slide, but in this version, I’ve ditched it completely, and, well, I like…
Creative Chrysalis
83 – Spot the difference
These two drawings remind me of spot-the-difference cartoons that always captivated me! There are many of the elements that I have shown…
Creative Chrysalis
82 – How’s it looking?
I’ve got a lot packed into this, but I can’t say that I’m happy with it. There is no flow in the…
Creative Chrysalis
81 – Kneading it to go away
You might be wondering what the silver thing is that is often on my drawings. It’s one of my favorite drawing, or…
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80 – Barrel of fun
Back to using the background grid and drawing boxes to figure out how a barrel would look lying on it’s side. Because…
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79 – Ruinous ruffians ruin ruins
Versions of what will be to the left of the girl with(out) the balloon. I liked the idea of a dog pulling…
Creative Chrysalis
78 – Beginning to see everything clearly
My balloon people will be in the front of my story, so they will be a bit larger than some of the…
Creative Chrysalis
77 – Of course you can have cotton candy
Here is another opportunity to have everything count – I could have both child and adult reaching up to the escaping balloon,…
Creative Chrysalis
76 – I’ll never get it back
The loss of a balloon is another idea that has been floating around my imagination. Child loses cheerful balloon, adult reaching but…
Creative Chrysalis
75 – Gotta get my hands on some fabric!
The amusement park is taking shape! I can start seeing colors in my head. After so much drawing I am really itching…
Creative Chrysalis
74 – Cap / guns
I’ve drawn a shooting gallery in my amusement park and now I’m working on characters that are passing by, a man with…
Creative Chrysalis
73 – Will they make the cut?
I like the idea of two people pointing and laughing at the bottom of the slide. I think it’s clearer that they…
Creative Chrysalis
72 – Sizing up a bully
How do I know how large to draw a figure? It’s back to boxes and the perspective grid. At the start of…
Creative Chrysalis
71 – Look hard enough and it will be found
Different versions of the same idea. Haven’t settled on the size or placement of the snake slide, but I’m figuring that if…
Creative Chrysalis
70 – Re-appearing images
Colors! Paint! Creative Play! Oh the fun of being in my studio! My artistic life allows escape from current events, but I…
Creative Chrysalis
69 – It’s not funny
I’ve got some idea of my snake slide drawn, so now what happens? I recall being slightly dizzy at the exit of…
Creative Chrysalis
68 – The muscle memory of drawing
My husband will repeat a tennis shot over and over to get the correct form into his muscle memory. While I wouldn’t…
Creative Chrysalis
67 – Bottled up meaning
I’m still on the subject of drinking and playing with how it will fit into my grand scheme of a plan for…
Creative Chrysalis
66 – Fangs and functionality
This slide functionally works. It’s size or something isn’t quite right, but good enough for now. I am pleased with the person…
Creative Chrysalis
65 – Ouch!
2 AM: Startled awake with a WTF moment! Last post I claimed to be getting better at recognizing errors with perspective. Yeah,…
Creative Chrysalis
64 – Playing with boxes
WHEN DRAWING IS DIFFICULT, GO BACK TO BOXES! The snake slide that I envision is a tough thing to draw. Not only…
Creative Chrysalis
63 – Making my recycle bin overflow
Man, I can really relate to this quote from Chuck Dixon, “Every artist has thousands of bad drawings in them and the…
Creative Chrysalis
62 – Re-thinking snake oil
Bottle…drinking…downward slide – connects in my mind to: insidious poison, sneaking, slithering, evil snake oil. But, snakes and alcohol are not all…
Creative Chrysalis
61 – Sitting ducks
I don’t want to say directly “shooting at people” but I do want to make this suggestion with a shooting gallery. I’ve…
Creative Chrysalis
60 – Same, but different
I continue to work out how my theme park will look by sketching out slightly different versions. One of my earliest sketches…
Creative Chrysalis
59 – Something more to add
I think I will add some giant murals to the sides of the funhouse/amusement buildings. They have to be done in a…
Creative Chrysalis
58 – Promise of fun
Frantic, flashing lights, colorful neon, bold graphics!, A promise of fun and excitement, luring people to spend money and wait on lines….
Creative Chrysalis
57 – It will be a quilt!
You’ve seen a lot of drawing, but have I mentioned that I intend to make the final piece of this project out…
Creative Chrysalis
56 – Wandering through the funhouse
A tighter sketch with some different additions – a menacing animal beyond the mouse hole reaching out its paw. Maybe a jail-like…
Creative Chrysalis
55 – Did you ever play Mousetrap?
Background ideas are formulating. I like the Mousetrap game’s ladder and basket and the diving board person. They kind of just found…
Creative Chrysalis
54 – Beware the whirlpool
The rolling barrel entrance to a funhouse began with my thoughts on getting sucked into the internet, how I’m drawn into a…
Creative Chrysalis
53 – What’s your position on this?
Position alters perspective, even more so when the type of perspective is distorted. Re-locating where an “attraction” is in my theme park…
Creative Chrysalis
52 – Finding your center
A lot of geometry going on here. it will be no easy thing to draw a funhouse entrance barrel convincingly. It is…
Creative Chrysalis
51 – Thoughts on fire
Detail added to the gingerbread house, adding some people and the Food Court signage. One of my biggest fears is fire, so…
Creative Chrysalis
50 – backdrop? More like gumdrop
Planning stage for some other buildings has started. A gingerbread house would be tasty – not only for its colorful appeal, but…
Creative Chrysalis
49 – Taking the paper training wheels off
I’m using a grid behind tracing paper for my drawings now. Newsprint was for quick sketches. Now I want to have a…
Creative Chrysalis
48 – Eye see!
Here’s some crucial info that completely escaped me until lately: People of similar heights standing on flat ground, arranged from closest to…
Creative Chrysalis
47 – 7.5 heads are better than one
The size of a human figure is often shown in “heads”. Height: 7 ½ heads, Width: 2 heads, Arm length: 3 ¾…
Creative Chrysalis
46 – Go figure: figure drawing recommendation
This is my go-to for figure drawing reference. The simplified human anatomy, along with details of expression, age, clothing, gender differences are…
Creative Chrysalis
45 – Maybe my biology degree has helped
As I plan the positions and appearances of the structures in my landscape, I need to think about people in the same…
Creative Chrysalis
44 – Please wait for assistance
I’ll keep some of the details that appeared in the sketching stage and include them later. I really like the “Not Dead…
Creative Chrysalis
43 – Where will everything go?
Now that I’ve decided to do a landscape view, and have more of an amusement park look rather than a solitary funhouse,…
Creative Chrysalis
42 – Stranger in a strange land
“Grok” is one of my favorite words. Thanks to Robert A. Heinlein for coining it in his 1961 science fiction novel, “Stranger…
Creative Chrysalis
41 – Using a perspective grid
This perspective grid is what I’ll use for my drawing. There are many kinds of simple grids available for free on the…
Creative Chrysalis
40 – The amazing art of Kim Jung Gi
The South Korean artist named Kim Jung Gi creates absolutely amazing drawings using unusual perspectives. Here’s his website: https://www.kimjunggius.com/pages/about-artist There’s links to videos…
Creative Chrysalis
39 – Panoramic drawing example
The artist John Lee granted permission for me to use his drawing in this post as a good example of the type…
Creative Chrysalis
38 – Perspective beyond the normal range of vision
You can get lost in all the information about perspective drawing that is available on Google. I had never used a perspective…
Creative Chrysalis
37 – Beauty in a mathematical grid
My previous thoughts on Perspective Drawing Art Instruction = math, angles, geometry = let’s not go there: Yes, classic math avoidance syndrome!…
Creative Chrysalis
36 – What you see is just an illusion!
How do you become a better artist, a better anything? Identify what needs improvement, then learn and practice.I need to study up…
Creative Chrysalis
35 – Facing invisible barriers
What do you do when you come up to a barrier? Do you shirk away from things that scare you, or do…
Creative Chrysalis
34 – Perspective is all about relationships
An imaginative world requires convincing size, shape and space in order to be believable. Photographs can give me the basics of how…
Creative Chrysalis
33 – Self-portrait perspective
Yes, this is a self-portrait – from 1979! (Don’t ya just love those big eyeglasses?) It’s a first attempt at etching. We…
Creative Chrysalis
32 – Quicksand of my own making
Somedays, everything feels like too much. I go into my studio to escape from complications of the day, and find myself mired…
Creative Chrysalis
31 – Drawing the line between scary and fun
Preliminary sketches – imagining how some ideas might fit together. These may not look anything like the final drawing for my quilt,…
Creative Chrysalis
30 – Diving into a pool of imagery
I’m beginning to think that I’m trying to do too much with one artwork. Better to have too may ideas than none,…
Creative Chrysalis
29 – Complicated possibilities
If I had one amusement house featuring all the ideas that I’ve thought about so far, it would be pretty jammed packed….
Creative Chrysalis
28 – “Nothing to see here folks, move along.”
Thinking on the collapsing space of a traveling carnival ride, I tried to stretch the idea to something else that works in…
Creative Chrysalis
27 – Pack and play
I’ve now searched the internet for amusement “dark rides” and funhouses. Some of them travel with carnivals, so they need to disassemble…
Creative Chrysalis
26 – How about a creepy Victorian house?
If I’m going to put all my ideas in one house-like structure, then the large, ornate, and often creepy look of an…
Creative Chrysalis
25 – Snakes and slides
The idea of a snake shaped slide is too good to pass on, so I’ve sketched out how it might look. Something…
Creative Chrysalis
24 – Exit by twists and turns
I like the idea of a slide in my new art work, but not sure how it works with the idea of…
Creative Chrysalis
23 – This way to the egress!
I’m trying to recall any experience I’ve had with amusement funhouses as I think of how to incorporate their structure with my…
Creative Chrysalis
22 – Photoshop Elements to the rescue
How do you figure out how a funhouse warped mirror image will look like? Photoshop Elements! There are all sorts of “Filter”…