For Jonaca's Book-CrossRoads

This was actually my rough draft for Jonaca's book.  I was hoping to finish the second draft, but I had surgery instead.  My idea was to blend the crossroads to make a definite "pathway" through the Crossroads of My Life.  There is a path that can be followed by color, but you have to be looking at the second page of the entry.  Here's to your new Crossroad and adventure, Jonaca!

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.

Meaningful song into art...turned into a meaningful quilt for my eldest daughter. I have kept shirts, dresses, favorite worn shorts, patches and ladybug backpacks from my 2 daughter's growing up years. I've carted a bin for each of them from Oregon to Tunisia to Singapore. Last December, I hauled my oldest daughter's bin to BC where my folks live. While I was there, I put together this kaleidoscope quilt for my artist daughter. I pondered on it for ages before starting, trying to imagine how to put together all these memories and colors into an attractively arranged quilt, but then the kaleidoscope idea hit me. I filled in extra spaces with rich velvets and trimmed the edge with black velvet. There are little pockets of shirts and shorts in the quilt that my parents (Alix's grandparents) stuffed little love notes in before we gave it to her. My mom machine quilted the top with her amazing abilities. One corner reads, "You are my sunshine..." as that was a favorite song Jim and I sang to her as she fell to sleep when she was a baby. My mom and I sewed all her nicknames into the quilt. There are even some favorite sock pieces in it. I LOVED doing this project and can't wait to have time to work on Abby's...maybe next year after she leaves for college- boo hoo.

What Inspires Patrick?

My sketch this round is an attempt to depict just how powerfully inspiring my wife is.

I tried to show this through having a plain old letter "P" morph into something more beautiful.  You can see that the B part of the letter is helping to make the "P" part more creative. The idea was that the art and creativity of B "decorates" my life and infects me and changes me and ultimately inspires me.

I tried my hand at the process my wife uses to make her cards.  I hand drew the B, then traced it in Adobe illustrator, then used "live paint" to apply the colors.