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Gotta say, this was an extremely satisfying toast eating experience.

Catherine Schwab Raspberry Jam and Strawberry Jam 2025 acrylic on canvas 36” × 36”

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Catherine Schwab Raspberry Jam and Strawberry Jam 2025 acrylic on canvas 36” × 36”

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Mom's Art Day: April 2025

Strawberry Jam Red and Raspberry Jam Red, all ready for me to finally paint next month!

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Mom's Art Day: December 2024

I haven't been posting every time like I used to, but I am still doing one art day every month! Over the past few, I've been making some nice, if slow, progress on the paint mixtures for Strawberry Jam and Raspberry Jam. I had been looking forward to mixing a big test batch of strawberry jam paint today, but this morning I just wasn't in the mood to deal with paint, so instead I worked on my Hair Calendar mock-up, and I got a nice bit done!

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And for those interested, here's what the back of the mock-up looks like, 2017 is in the middle:

You can see that about a third of the way downa I switched from Scotch tape anchors on the front to linen tape anchors on the back, and then quickly to linen tape anchors and buried ends. You can also see on the right how much less trouble I go to with cotton embroidery thread, I just bury the ends without any need to anchor.

Mom's Art Day: August 2024

The first thing I did was look at my jam paint test swatches from last month compared to actual jam:

The raspberry (bottom right on the swatch sheet) is really close, but the strawberry (bottom on the swatch sheet) needs work. These are both about 1% paint 99% medium, and the strawberry needs to be more like 0.5% paint, and it needs to be browner.

For the rest of the day, I worked on my Hair Calendar mock-up, and finished the year I was using to figure out how many strands of hair to use for the project:

As you can see if you look at my notes, I messed up the progression at August and that's when I added the note to "check which month you're working on!" And I started anchoring on the back partway through, which I blogged about previously. I now have to decide between 6 and 7 doubled strands, so I'm going to do a 2013 with 6 and 2014 with 7 on this same piece of cloth. (I'm doing these in sets of five years and I started collecting hair for this project in 2013, hence the date range in the mock-up.)

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Mom's Art Day: August 2024

The first thing I did was look at my jam paint test swatches from last month compared to actual jam:

The raspberry (bottom right on the swatch sheet) is really close, but the strawberry (bottom on the swatch sheet) needs work. These are both about 1% paint 99% medium, and the strawberry needs to be more like 0.5% paint, and it needs to be browner.

For the rest of the day, I worked on my Hair Calendar mock-up, and finished the year I was using to figure out how many strands of hair to use for the project:

As you can see if you look at my notes, I messed up the progression at August and that's when I added the note to "check which month you're working on!" And I started anchoring on the back partway through, which I blogged about previously. I now have to decide between 6 and 7 doubled strands, so I'm going to do a 2013 with 6 and 2014 with 7 on this same piece of cloth. (I'm doing these in sets of five years and I started collecting hair for this project in 2013, hence the date range in the mock-up.)

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Mom's Art Day: July 2024

Today I need to do some serious experimentation (read: play a lot) with ratios of paint to medium so I can find the correct translucencies to mimic strawberry and raspberry jams. After that I'll be continuing to work on my Hair Calendar mock-up.

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Mom's Art Day: June 2024

Just like last month, the plan is:

Mixing and swatching paint tests for Strawberry Jam and Raspberry Jam

Working on the mock-up for Hair Calendar

Also I am very migrainey again/still. Chronic pain sucks. I am not letting it stop me. Slow me down, though, yes. I have to take it easy or it will get worse. 💀

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Mom's Art Day: May 2024

Between migraine, anxiety, and parenting a toddler, I'm off to a very slow start this morning....

The plan is paint mixing and hair stitching but I anticipate a lot of distraction in the form of office tidying.

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And that’s exactly what I did. I think my next few art days will probably be spent like this: picking away at the preliminary work for Strawberry Jam and Raspberry Jam and Hair Calendar.

Mom’s Art Day: April 2024

Today my plan is to mix & swatch more tests for strawberry and raspberry jam reds, and get back to working on the Hair Calendar mock-up.

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Mom’s Art Day: April 2024

Today my plan is to mix & swatch more tests for strawberry and raspberry jam reds, and get back to working on the Hair Calendar mock-up.

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I started yesterday off working on new strawberry jam reds and raspberry jam reds test mixtures, even though I wanted to take pictures of 3781 3371 right away. Then when I was done mixing and swatching, I wasn’t really a picture-taking mood anymore, but I did it anyway, because you gotta do what you gotta do. Honestly I think the light in the spots I use is better in the morning, so I’ll have to keep that in mind next time.

These days I just take photos with my iPhone, which can be frustrating because the iOS Camera software does a whole bunch of pre-processing and it’s extremely difficult to get colours to be consistent, let alone accurate. I didn’t really realize until after getting the post up that in most of the shots the light pink looks straight up white. 🤦🏻‍♀️ I’m honestly pretty annoyed about that, but I’ve decided it’s going to have to be good enough for now. (One of these days I’ll dust off my DSLR and get my hands on some proper photo editing software again….)

The benefit of having mixed test colours and swatched first thing is that by the time I had finished shooting and posting, the swatches were dry enough for me to compare to real jam and make notes!

I really need to be swatching with a dilute wash of the strawberry jam reds in order to properly compare to strawberry jam, which is not very heavily pigmented. And I’m delighted by how close the 1:1 and 2:1 mixtures of quinacridone violet and transparent red iron oxide are to the real raspberry jam! I might start playing with medium next time.

Mom’s Art Day: March 2023 Make-up

A year ago I had to skip an art day, with promises I could make it up later. Finally my busy family calendar allowed me schedule two in one month!

Today I’m going to take some decent pictures of 3781 3371 and make a proper post just for it, and work on paint colours for Strawberry Jam and Raspberry Jam.

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Catherine Schwab 3781 3371 (2023-2024) acrylic and embroidery thread on canvas 36” × 18”

This painting was created using only unused materials from other projects. The canvas and most of the paint were left over from Rita & Thérèse (2016-2022), the blue paint was left over from Blue Icon (2014), and the embroidery thread is from a needlepoint project that stalled out early in the pattern-making phase several years ago.

My intention with this piece, beyond using up leftover materials, was to experiment with technique and the juxtaposition of shapes, and I’m super grateful to have learned a lot from the process.

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Mom’s Art Day: March 2023 Make-up

A year ago I had to skip an art day, with promises I could make it up later. Finally my busy family calendar allowed me schedule two in one month!

Today I’m going to take some decent pictures of 3781 3371 and make a proper post just for it, and work on paint colours for Strawberry Jam and Raspberry Jam.

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I finished 3781 3371!

With this painting, I set out to use up leftover mixed paints and an extra canvas from my previous paintings, Rita & Thérèse; to incorporate embroidery, because I hadn’t made a stitched painting since the end of art school in 2015 and I was really itching to; and to do some experimenting with shapes and technique. I’m honestly not sure how much I like the resulting work, but because I achieved all of the goals I set out with, plus I used up a much older (a decade old) leftover batch of mixed paint from Blue Icon, and because I learned so much from the process, I’m considering it a success. I’ll take some nice pictures of it and make a proper post to show it off on my next art day.

After finishing the painting, I cleaned and organized the office/studio a little bit, and compared the last paint swatches I made for Strawberry Jam and Raspberry Jam to actual strawberry jam and raspberry jam and made notes about what I want to mix & swatch next time.

Mom’s Art Day: March 2024

I’m really excited to finish my painting, but I’ve been having a bad time with my chronic migraines recently, so I’m not sure how today will go….

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Mom’s Art Day: March 2024

I’m really excited to finish my painting, but I’ve been having a bad time with my chronic migraines recently, so I’m not sure how today will go….