Successful painting

Today we painted fabric again, outside, and this time the weather really cooperated. We got some great fabrics. Some of them did it on frames, a la Phil Beavers, and some did it with the sun prints, using leaves, and southwestern cutouts. Some painted scenery, and that turned out great. I did a little sun printing and one that started out to be a sunset, and ended up looking like a mountain on fire.




I'm trying to get a big garden plot ready for next year. For every spadeful of soil, I get two handfuls of rocks. By the time I get all the rocks out of the top 8 inches, the soil is going to be 2 inches lower than the whole rest of the pasture. But it is good exercise - every night I come in dead exhausted, but every day I can work a little longer before I hit the wall.
Some anonymous commenter named the cross-stitching on gingham - it's called chicken scratch. Thank you! I knew that, but I sure couldn't remember what it was called.
My summer class in color and design is over, and I got an A-. My final project was to design a fabric. It is done in gouache. The idea is to do a painting that won't look too lined up when it is rendered in repeat. People are always asking for fabrics featuring their particular breed of dog, instead of cartoony dogs or fabrics that feature all breeds in one fabric. So someday if I ever become a fabric designer, I'm going to do a collection of each breed. My final project for this course was the dachshund fabric.
Gouache is an opaque watercolor paint, similar to poster paint or tempera.