Are You Allowed Do Overs In Art?

     Do you ever look at your art that you made and wish you could have a do over? Sometimes I do. I posted about it here where I redid a couple of my pieces. This past week I worked over another one. When I made this piece, I liked everything about it except the monk never looked quite right to me. Originally, I struggled with choosing a color and a fabric for him. I used a color wheel to choose the color, but he always seemed to stand out too much. This week, I took the quilt to a meeting with some art friends and they agreed. They suggested to change the color of him, perhaps make him smaller, or perhaps make him sitting.

     When I got home, I decided to explore what I wanted the piece to say. I made a mind map. I wrote the title, Contemplation, in the center. Then I wrote words and phrases coming out from the center that came to my mind. These are some of them: meditation, balance, passageway, questions, answers, searching, finding, being open to hidden messages. This process was amazing to me because it made me realize that some of the elements that I had already put into the quilt were telling me a story that I didn't realize was there. All I had to do was make it more clear. Here is the quilt before and how it is now. ( I did a blog post about how I made the sitting man here.)

before

Contemplation (in final form)

I painted veins in the rocks and I couched fibers on the sun to match the patterns in the rocks. They resemble stick figures of creatures and symbolize that nature holds many answers. The patterns of the "bulls eyes" that I put into the ground and sky here and there are the answers that are traveling through the air. The gold "window" in the center symbolizes when a passageway or window opens in the mind when a person is opening up to receiving answers to questions they are seeking. 

     I also redid the shadows. Before, I had embroidered the shadows. While I still like that treatment of the shadows, I think that it didn't work on this quilt. I used Shiva paintstiks to put them on after I painstakingly removed the embroidery.  The last thing I did to modify it was to cut off the yarn edging and put on a pillowcase facing.

     Here's a close up of the sun and the rocks now.

couched with 6 strands of embroidery floss

rocks painted with "creatures"

     So now I'm much happier with Contemplation. I think it delivers its message, the composition is much better, and the symbolism is strong. I'm linking this to Off The Wall Friday where you can find other art quilt blogs. Please make comments on their posts so that the artists know you stopped by. Thanks for visiting.

Is There More Than One Shade of Gray?

     Are you tired of hearing about the shades of gray yet? I guess it depends on the context. I needed a sitting human figure for one of my quilts and I needed it to be a gray. But I needed it to be a greenish blue gray. The only college art class I got to take was Painting 101 and I took it only a few years ago. It was a very useful class for my art quilts. We spent a huge amount of time studying gray. We had to mix our own. The teacher could tell if we made our gray by mixing white paint with black paint. That was a big no no. We had to make our grays by mixing cadmium red light with ultra marine blue and then add white. Sometimes you need to throw in a little cadmium yellow if it has a purple tinge. We could make warm grays by having more cad red or make cool grays by having more of the blue. I learned to love all the hues of gray. I actually got (and still do) very excited when I mix a particularly wonderful hue of gray.
     One of the assignments was to paint a color wheel. It took hours and hours to get it right. It was a major homework assignment. I refer to it often to choose colors and to figure out how to mix colors. What a great class to take even though it was nothing about quilts or fiber.

my color wheel from class

      Today, I got out my paints, GAC 900, my gelli plate, some white cotton muslin, and various texture tools.

paints I used today

Notice that I used all sorts of brands of paints. I use whatever is on sale. I do mix them with GAC 900 fabric medium from Golden so that they play well with fabric, though. My first prints were a little greenish, but soon I had the right fabric.

one fabric

another fabric

Then I cut out the figure that I needed and tried it out on my quilt. It looked exactly the right color and texture.

Sitting on white paper

I won't show it yet on the quilt until the quilt is finished. The answer to the question is that yes, there is more than one shade of gray. And it is fun to mix gray. I strongly advise you to buy some cadmium red light, ultramarine blue, cadmium yellow light, titanium white, fabric medium, and play. For fabric, you can use old bed sheets, old shirts, or you can buy white muslin or any other white fabric. I'm linking this to Off The Wall Friday where you can find other art quilt blogs. Please make comments on the artists' posts so that they know you stopped by. Thanks for visiting.

Do You Change Finished Art Works?

      Do you ever look at some of your finished art works and think "I wish I had done so and so"? I was looking at my Screen Door piece and wondering why I left a notch sticking out on the side. I liked it when I did it, but as it sat hanging in my studio, I liked it less and less. It was an easy fix to cut it off and resew the edge shut. So that is exactly what I did. Here is its photo before and after its surgery.

Before

After

 




















 The next quilt (my rock cairn quilt called Rise) went through more of a struggle. I didn't like the plant that I had sewn onto one of the rocks and I liked even less the way I had sewn roots onto the rock. It took hours to rip out all the little stitches. But I got them out successfully. Then I decided I didn't like the painting on the rock either. I had enough fabric leftover to cut out another rock and I sewed it on top of the other one. Then I researched plants and decided on sewing a lichen so I sketched out several and finally got one I liked. I cut it out of fabric leftover from one of the other rocks and painted its tips the color of rust. I sewed the lichen on a different rock and this time, for its roots, I mimicked the pattern I used in the sun. To me, this looked so much better than before. Aren't we lucky that we can rip things off and do over?

Before

After

     I have a third quilt I want to make over, but I'm not sure it's possible on that one. Maybe I'll take it to my art group for an evaluation and see what they think.
     On the more fun side, I made an Artist Trading Card for an upcoming class I'm taking with Pat Pauly. I like to trade with other artists. I started with a background of some of my monoprinted fabric, which I included on the reverse side.  I sewed sari silks and a tag from the inside of a garment. Then I did some stitching with black thread which I love to do on my quilts.

Artist Trading Card

     I'm linking this to Off The Wall Friday where you can find other art quilt blogs. Please make comments to let the artists know you stopped by. Thanks for visiting.

What's On The Reverse Side Of Your Fabrics?

     Have you ever flipped over your fabrics to the reverse side to take a look and see what's there? Especially the ones that you've painted yourself? Well, once I decided to use some white crinoline as a base to sew appliqué silk pieces of fabric onto for an art quilt.  (This one, here.) I didn't want any of the white to show through in case the edges of the silks didn't quite but up all the way. So I decided to paint the crinoline first. I used colors of paint that would be similar to the colors of the silks. One side of the art quilt would be cool colors and one side would be warm colors and the center was going to have a female figure in it. I placed a paper cutout of the female figure on the crinoline and used a wet sponge brush and painted with acrylic paints the various colors onto the crinoline. Then I removed the paper cutout and painted onto the then white profile of the female figure. It was a fairly ugly (but functional) piece of crinoline.
     After it dried, it fell onto the floor and flipped over. And oh, my! It was beautiful! The paint had not gone through uniformly at all. It had created a ghostly effect of the female figure. The areas around her had created marbled effects. As a whole, it couldn't be used for a piece of art. It was a shame that it was going to be buried underneath other pieces of fabrics and never seen. But since we are in the digital age, that really isn't the case.

original ghostly figure on back of crinoline

original reverse side of crinoline

     I took photos of all the good parts of it and kept them on file for future use. And that future is now. I sent out the photos to a digital printmaking fabric company and within a few days the fabric was delivered larger than it was before. The colors were true and I was very pleased with it. I hung it on the design wall for about a week and wasn't sure what to do with it. I put it away for about a month. Then I did a few sketches on my iPad from one of its photos and got an idea and out came the rotary cutter.
     I sewed panels of the digitally produced fabric together and then put it on batting and did a lot of stitching. Here's a peak of some of it in-process.

stitching in gray variegated thread

she moves

The crinoline only had a partial head and part of a torso so I had to imagine the rest. Now, I'm working on the rest of the design and a quilting design. So my message to you is that when you paint a piece of fabric, always flip it over to look at the back. You may like the reverse side better. And if you like both sides, you can take photos of the reverse side and have it digitally printed if you want to use it, also. 

     I'm linking this to Off The Wall Friday where you can find other art quilt blogs. Please make comments on the artists' posts to let them know you stopped by. Thanks for visiting.

Do You Like A Challenge?

     Do you ever make art as a result of a challenge? One of the things my art group, ArtsEtc, does periodically is set a challenge for ourselves. At our January meeting, we went on a field trip to a local park and we walked and took photos. Our challenge was to make an art piece 8 inches by 8 inches as a result of our inspiration from our visit and our photos. It's due at our March meeting. The park is a really cool place. Not only does it have amazing plants, but also has ruins from a sugar mill, dinosaur sculptures about 10 feet tall, a few cement ponds, some buildings here and there, and lots of pathways. Here are some of the photos I took.

lots of Spanish moss

from the old sugar mill

from the old sugar mill

I like circles and use them a lot in my art so I wanted to incorporate the shape of the bowls somehow and definitely wanted to use green and capture the texture of the Spanish moss. There were also several rusted remains there, too. As I wandered the pathways and took and took my many photos, I immersed myself in the feeling of the place.
     At home, I tried several arrangements of fabrics and in the end I used two of my monoprinted fabrics, a commercial fabric, a sheer that a friend hand dyed, a cotton that I had rusted, a piece of a dryer sheet that I had painted, and some cheesecloth that I had dyed. I even used a car part (I think) that I found in a parking lot a long time ago. The circles I embroidered represent the many pathways and also represent a stack of rocks (which, to me, represents reaching a goal). I embroidered stitches around the rust marks of the washers in the lower left and that also represents pathways. The archway is an open passage to somewhere. The piece is called "Passages".

Passages

     This kind of challenge is a good one for me in that it makes me put together images in a meaningful way. It's a small piece so it doesn't take a lot of time. And perhaps it could lead to a larger, even more meaningful piece in the future. We will probably take another local field trip later this year that will lead to another challenge if the group likes how this one turned out for our members. I'm linking this to Off The Wall Friday where you can find other art quilt blogs. Please make comments on their posts so that the artists know you stopped by. Thanks for visiting.

Do You Have A Way To Give Yourself A Push Forward?

     Haven't you sometimes found yourself sometimes stuck creatively or just get a little unsure of yourself? Well, that's why I chose my word of the year to be EXPLORE. It gives me the excuse to jump forward and try things without fear and to not worry about stumbling along the way. Sure, I'll have some "failures". But I'll probably have some unexpected successes, too, that I wouldn't have had if I hadn't set my sights into new territory. To start off this idea, I began by making a prayer flag for my studio with my word on it. Here is its photo in-process.

original plan

     I hand-sewed those elements on and did a pillow case backing. The bottom of the fabric was hanging lopsided and I liked the look so I went with that. I embroidered the word on with a split back stitch.

Finished flag

     I decided to not add the key. I added embroidery instead to symbolize footsteps.

Flag hanging on studio door

     I sewed tabs on the back of the flag and attached it to a wood rod leftover from a paper Chinese scroll we bought in China in 1984. The scroll deteriorated long ago. The orange silk ties are remnants from saris that I got in a fabric trade in one of my art groups.

     So now, every time I walk into my studio, I am pushed forward to not be afraid to go for it. I'm linking this to Off The Wall Friday where you can find other art quilt blogs. Please make comments on their posts so that the artists will know you stopped by. Thanks for visiting.

Do You Have Favorite Fabrics You Are Hesitant To Use?

     Do you have a stash of special fabrics that are too precious to use for anything? When I went to Festival for my first and only time in 2012, I bought a few baggies of hand-dyed silks. Some were from saris and some were not. Some were very small pieces maybe 5 inches by 5 inches and others were almost fat quarter sized. Unlike my other fabrics, I held onto these for awhile and just took them out and admired them; afraid to use them up. Then, a call for entry came, and I got very, very inspired (like never before), and made a quilt using many of them. I had never used silk before and they were perfect for this quilt. Perhaps because it was very much different than all my other works and I wasn't adept at this style, the quilt didn't get chosen and my friends had somewhat subdued responses to it. But I had never had an experience of working like I did on this one.  I was obsessed with inspirations and revelations while I was working on it and got up in the middle of the night to work on it when I awoke with ideas. I literally worked on it hours and hours on end for three weeks. It was an amazing process for me because the work came from deep inside my psyche and I hope to have another like it someday.
     As for the quilt, it hangs in my studio. It is for sale on my website, but I'm not sure if I'll be happy or sad if it actually sells since it was such an emotional process to make it. I'm in the process of renaming it. I've never been happy with the name it presently has of Circle of Emotions

Circle of Emotions

     Also, it doesn't at all fit in with my other art so I don't know where in my head it came from. But there it is. Anyway, the reason I'm showing it again is because of all the precious hand-dyed silks I used on it.
     This week, I decided to make a prayer flag for my studio with my word of the year EXPLORE on it. And since it will hang on the door to my studio where I will see it every time I walk in, I decided to use very special fabrics. So I took out what's left of those silks and I used them to design a flag.
    Here's my design.

In-process

-The elements are pinned on the background silk. All are silk, too.

 -The circle thing is stamped on sheer silk and cut out. (It's a symbol I've developed.) 

-The wood stick is one I picked up on a beach when I was observing penguins in Argentina in November in 2014. 

-The key is from a photo I took of an actual key and then manipulated in ArtStudio on my iPad and then used the Waterlogue App on it and then printed it onto cotton muslin.

- The word Explore is printed on fabric but will be embroidered directly onto the silk.

 And of course, as it proceeds, I'll probably make changes as I go. I think the whole thing will be hand stitched. (A carry over from my online class with Jude Hill .) 

     Speaking of classes... I don't take many. I'm pretty picky about which ones I sign up for. I just signed up for one with a fabric artist I've long admired. Her name is Pat Pauly and she's teaching a wonderful class called Slash and Burn: Techniques for Improvisational Design in New Smyrna, Florida March 18 - March 21.  There is still room in the class but the deadline to sign up is Feb. 1. The accommodations are marvelous and beautiful in a natural setting. Here is the link to read about it and register if you are interested Focus on Fiber Florida Style

     So I do still hold on to my precious stash of fabrics and only use them for special things when my heart calls out. But when it does, out comes the scissors and I don't hesitate to cut them up and it feels so good to see them being used. I'm linking this to Off The Wall Friday where you can find other art quilt blogs. Please make comments on the artists' posts to let them know you stopped by. Thanks for visiting.