Making

A nice rain brought a much deserved break in roofing. I was going to feel a bit guilty if I could have a day of art making while Daddy-O needed to work away on the roof project –it’s much easier with two people. The rain provided the perfect excuse to jump right into some painting on cloth making some Botanicals Art Cloth. Growing around the house are huge ferns and other lovely greens. I plucked several leaves from the ferns, Lily of the Valley and Rhubarb to make leaf prints on 100% cotton batik. For the first pass onto the fabric I used fabric paints and acrylic paints painted directly onto the leaves. Using a brayer I rolled over a protective piece of newsprint, imprinting onto the fabric. I’m finding I have the most success with layering the various colors because the first pass looks a bit flat to me. I also mixed in metallic acrylic paints and hand paint fun details. The next step will be to add some cool image transfers that I’ll either apply directly OR iron on a contrasting fabric and then sew onto the first layer. I hung the fabric outside on lines I strung across the covered deck to dry –otherwise the painted fabric tends to stick to the newsprint. I liked seeing the colorful painted fabric squares flap in the breeze. Some FAB new art supplies from Blaines were wonderful to work with! Check out the photo below of the art paper, pearlescent paint (Genesis Green -one of my favorite colors), the Acrylic Paint Markers(!) from Montana, beautiful Lumiere and Neo Opaque acrylics by Jacquard that gave perfect coverage on the fabric, and finally a good quantity of metallic acrylic paint by Daler-Rowney.  

FAB, new art supplies I bought at Blaines -check out the beautiful PAPER below the supplies. I'm going to SEW it onto some art cloth! The woven PAPER in the background has this rough and stiff texture, I'm going to sew it too! The Acrylic Pens are by Montana -really fun to use.

Some of the finished Art Cloth I've been working on! The Botanicals were from greens around the house. The Halibut fish print was using one of my rubber molds and a brayer with Acrylic fabric paints. The sea stars were made using shapes I cut from foam and hand painted on FW liquid acrylic paints. All Art Cloth is painted onto approx. 13-14" x 13-14" 100% cotton batiks.

All this art making is making for a VERY messy studio! Not exactly ready for a magazine photo shoot -the Virgo in me is going crazy but the artist in me is VERY satisfied.

The front garden is finally in but these cool/warm/cool again temps are confusing my plant starts.  (sigh). It does provide a nice view from the studio window.

Spring Break?

The “Break” part may be true here in Anchorage but I’m not so sure about the “Spring” part! Temps are still in the low 20’s, snow is in the forecast again and the yard is still frozen with drifts and snow depths up to our fence! Olive-dog has shoveled pathways she still needs to use and she isn't too happy about it -especially since her favorite Kong, tennis ball AND tug are missing in the drifts. Only Daddy-O knew how to celebrate the first day of “Spring Break” though… skiing with Chugach Powder Guides! Derek finally had time to use my Christmas present to him and happened to choose a PERFECT blue-bird day skiing Sunnyside Ridge in the Winner Creek Valley, kicking off his Spring Break holiday!

xOx 

In a stark contrast to all of the snow, I kicked off Spring Break by doing some colorful art making using images of Red Poppies. I’d seen an article in the on-line Cloth, Paper Scissors publication using Dryer Sheets that sounded really interesting. Instead of running the dryer sheets through a printer as the article suggested, I wanted to iron on digital transfers using TAP paper (Transfer Artist Paper) onto used dryer sheets and sew them onto an art quilt. My first attempt only yielded in Gus shouting “Mom ruined another towel again!” The transferred images bled through and stuck to the towel. Oh well. I ended up mixing up colorful batches of fabric paint onto the used fabric sheets, rinsing and drying the sheets that made for wonderfully sheer material! I cut, tore and sewed individual red poppy petals onto the art quilts. The base images of the digitally transferred poppies were ironed onto white cotton fabric and sewn onto the art quilt applique style. I’ll post those images on the next Blog post –much more “Spring Break-like” if you ask me! Enough of this winter snow!

This was the result when Gus shouted "Mom ruined another towel!"

I mixed up batches of orange as well as red for the Poppy petal color.

The dryer sheets air-dried beautifully and are ready to sew! 

These are the successful digital images
ironed onto white, batik cotton cloth.

My idea for wanting to make a "spring-like" art quilt using
colorful Red Poppies.

Snow Power

Seems Alaska is receiving all the snow for the entire U.S.! Alaska’s weather has even had CNN watching. We’ve set a new record for snowfall in the month of January, ALREADY and with even more snow on the way, it’s been a great time to stay INSIDE the studio and sew. Here is a link to the images from the snowfall in the outlying cities of Valdez and Cordova that appeared in the Anchorage Daily News. With some of my deadline projects out of the way I’ve wanted to work some more on my powerline series using image transfers, fabric painting, embellishing and free motion stitching. The new TAP artist transfer paper provided a smoother image for me to sew and paint over. These pieces have given me an opportunity to practice my sewing when I slow down enough to quilt “properly.” I tend to not want to follow the “rules” of traditional sewing or quilting. It’s a gentle balance because the perfectionist in me would like to already be an expert at sewing the basics but I’ll need at least another week, just kidding, I’m still light years away but enjoying the journey! I’m working on avoiding puckering, maintaining proper tension adjustment, avoiding uneven stitches with my free motion sewing and taking more care with my finish work. Part of my steep learning curve is my desire to use new and different materials, fabrics, designs and embellishments. At least with the kind of winter we're having, the garden won’t even be thawed out until July giving me PLENTY of time in the studio! 

Art quilt, part of the "Powerline" series is about 13" x 30" tall. Cotton fabric, digital image transfers, fabric paints with free motion stitching. 

Art quilt, part of the "Powerline" series is about 14" x 16.5" tall. Cotton fabric, digital image transfers, fabric paints with free motion stitching. 

Art Cloth Fun

After purchasing some beautiful 100% cotton Batik fabric from the Quilted Raven, I was inspired to make some 12" x 12" Art Cloth. I've had several requests from loyal customers for Art Cloth panels that they could sew into small art quilts, pillows and wall hangings. What an opportunity for me to fling some paint around the studio! I made a mess, cutting out custom foam shapes, altering my rubber stamp collection and trying various acrylic paints, fabric paint, Jacquard inks, FW Acrylic Artists Inks. After painting, printing and stamping in layers, I heat set all of the cloth. The pieces where I used high intensity glitter paints, I think, turned out the best. I'm working on the custom hang tags now and the panels will be available at the Quilted Raven!

I need to get the studio cleaned up and add an extra table for Kristen's sewing machine. She's coming home tomorrow for the Holiday break and my studio is going to look like Santa's workshop because we're going to be knee deep in team ART MAKING!

One place I forgot to clean up yesterday was the bathroom near my studio where Daddy-O found my large, rubber halibut and other fish molds floating and soaking in the sink when he went to shave this morning! Thankfully he's used to life with an artist!

There’s a Fine Line Between Underworking and Overworking a Piece

My friend Ann asked me what I was going to do with the fabric pieces that I used the squishy fish on. Hmmm. I wasn’t sure as I didn’t have a good feeling about them yet. I realize they were more experiments in process using various pigments and stamps but after I was “finished” with them, I wasn’t really finished with them. A couple of years ago I won a carved Speedball Speedy-Carve stamp making kit and finally made time to carve a couple of fun stamps to try on

the green batik fabric. I’d already had the fish printed on the fabric and some freehand do-dads but the fabric still seemed a bit “flat” to me and uninspiring to use in a project. After stamping and doing some more washes using the Daler Roney FW Inks, within a couple of strokes I had completely overworked the green batik fabric (pictured below) and now I think it looks too muddy and even confusing. I thought a lot about the fine balance of layering without overworking and think it’s a real art.

I usually over work rather than underwork –though when it comes to process I’m probably too impatient to really overwork any piece of art! I used another one of the screened orange fish on the teal batik fabric and added a yellow border (after consulting my color wheel) and some appliqué sea elements for a small art quilt. That also seemed "unfinished." As I slowed down and tried to be more thoughtful about the overall piece it felt like it was heading in the direction I was looking for by using some iron on transfers. I found the digital images in one of my mega clip art books of vintage illustrations and really love that look. I also was able to reuse a welded steel piece

that used to hold one of my clay fish (that was accidently broke in the Gallery) to hang the small,

16” wide x 12” tall quilt. This exercise had me thinking a lot this week about process, gut instincts, an artul eye and the art of knowing when to say when. It also reminded me that I need to open up a bit, have more fun in my art making and a make a LOT more mistakes!