My Muse (One of Them)

     It wasn't difficult to think what to use for the theme of my next wheelchair cover since he is always with me in my studio. Rosie is always there, too. But she isn't quite as involved as Opus.

Can't keep him away

     Here's the finished wheelchair cover sitting on a chair in my studio. I wanted to model the other cat after Rosie, but she is a gray tabby and I felt that the art needed more color, but her personality is in the gold cat on this cover. She's a sweet, gentle soul.

It feels good to be using up my stash of commercial fabrics this way. There are so many bright, pretty ones in my bins that I forgot I had. If you want the pattern for the cover or directions you can visit this previous post on the covers.
     I'm linking this to Off The Wall Friday where you can find other art quilt blogs. Please leave comments on their posts to let them know you stopped by.

Gelatin Monoprinting

     I'm getting my fabrics painted for the rocks for my art quilt. To paint the fabric, I used the technique of gelatin monoprinting. Here are some photos that show the process and tools I used.

water in spray bottles, sponge brush, spoon and palette knife for mixing paints
brayer for spreading paint on gelatin plate
acrylic paints in cup, textile paints, toilet paper rolls and cardboard to add patterns to gelatin plate,
plates on which to mix paints

     I used mostly white cotton muslin. I also had some loosely woven white fabric.
     I mixed my own gray using Ultramarine Blue and Cadmium Red Light and Titanium White acrylic paints. That way I can control how cool or warm the gray is. (I learned that in the only college art class I got to take ... Painting 1.) I used various other browns, some yellow, some blues to make the other colors (acrylic paints and textile paints).
    I have the gelatin in a cookie sheet (dedicated for this use only) and I made a cover for it by cutting a sheet of plastic I had from something (sorry I can't remember where it originally came from) and then I put duct tape around the sharp edges. The duct tape also acts as a nice seal against the cookie sheet. My gelatin plate is over a month old and has several spots of mold growing on it even though it has been stored in the refrigerator. But the mold spots can be a good thing, and in the case of getting fabric for rocks, it's a very good thing. The spots add a perfect texture that mimics rock textures.

The gelatin plate with the cover on it

The gelatin plate without the cover

The plastic cover with the duct tape edges

Here is a photo showing a piece of fabric getting pulled off as it is being printed.

Doesn't look so great at this stage? Just wait...

To show you some finished pieces of fabrics, I decided to "frame" parts of them up for you rather than show just the raw whole pieces. I used some L-frame pieces of white mat that another artist gave me.

This fabric will be great for rocks

I put two fabrics in this frame

Can you make out the toilet paper roll shapes?

And finally, here are Opus's and Rosie's reaction to be locked out on the screened-in patio for a few hours so that I didn't get any paw prints on the gelatin or the wet fabrics. The squirrels, birds, and lizards didn't get any attention this day.

They know how to tug at my heart strings.