Do You Like Being In New Territory When You Are Making Art?

     Have you taken a workshop and found yourself floundering when before in workshops you felt completely comfortable? Well, I'm in Pat Pauly's workshop these past two days and the first half of the first day I jumped right in, but I also felt like if I was earning a grade I would get a big fat "F".  I kept asking "What should I do next?" and just couldn't see my way forward. But then, I suddenly got it and started having fun. We all started with sets of strips of fabrics that we had prepared at home. Here were mine.

My fabric sets pinned on my design wall in the class

     Then Pat showed us various ways to slash them with the rotary cutter (w/o a ruler) and ways to sew the pieces together again to get interesting chunks. We slashed and sewed for several hours and pinned our chunks to our walls.

Pat critiquing and suggesting ways to combine chunks

     We circulated to each students' wall and Pat pointed out ways to connect the chunks to make the compositions work well. If they weren't working, she suggested how to slash to make them work better.

Day 2 after doing other exercises

     I decided on the above basic composition but still have to slash some pieces off in the middle before I connect the chunks (they are still only pinned together).

Proposed general idea after day 2

     Looks messy to me at this point. We'll see what I can do with it on Day 3. I figure I can always either add on, cut off, rearrange, or something else. And there is no due date for when I have to have it done. One thing I like is the colors and the textures. Someday, I will end up with something I like from it even if it is something very small. It has been a worthwhile and exciting workshop for me. I have learned some very valuable and innovative piecing and cutting skills and there is still one more day to go. The experience with Pat Pauly has been fun and lovely. The facility at the Atlantic Center of The Arts in New Smyrna Beach, Florida for Focus on Fiber for our class is top notch! Amazing class space, wonderful lighting, a great chef for our three meals a day, and beautiful scenery all around us.

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

Do You Fall In Love With Certain Images In Your Art?

     Are there certain parts of your artworks that you become enamored with? Usually with each art quilt I make there is a small corner or a small image in it that I especially love. I think that is where a series is born. In one of my more recent quilts, I had an image of a lichen growing out of a rock. I particularly liked the shape of the lichen and its roots and the rock. I also liked the symbolism of new life finding a foothold in an unlikely place. 

     And so when I was trying to come up with a theme for my 12 x 12 auction donation piece for SAQA, I decided to focus on that same image. I was going to use my usual palette of blues for a background, but when going through my monoprinted fabric stash I came across a rusty brown fabric and an orange circle that I had monoprinted for a sun but never used. And I found a black piece that I had stamped white paint onto and little by little it all came together.

In process

The rock looks a little like a potato so I need to fix that. And I need to embroider the roots of the lichen and embroider around the edges of the circle. After that, I'll see if anything else is needed and then sew a backing fabric on with a pillowcase finish. It will be titled New Growth. 

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

Do You Take Workshops To Learn New Techniques?

     What is the criteria important to you in choosing a workshop? I hardly ever take real workshops from well known teachers. I just can't justify the cost of flying to the destination plus adding in the cost of the hotels and food and the class. But Pat Pauly is going to be in my territory at the annual Focus on Fiber event and I've always admired her art so I signed up for her three day class called Slash and burn. It starts on the 18th. My friend from elementary school is even flying in from Chicago and staying at my house and we are commuting each day the 45 minute drive to the all day class. Here is her website where you can see her art and the workshops she offers. Pat Pauly 
     To prep for the class, we had homework. We had to sew two fabric sets. One set of five similar fabrics in strips from 1 inch to 5 inches until it is at least 3/4 yard wide (sewn from selvedge to selvedge). And another set of five different fabrics sewn the same way. For my similar set, I chose light colored fabrics. For my different set, I chose fabrics that would coordinate with my light set.            Originally, I planned to monoprint all my fabrics so that I might end up with a quilt that would fit with my body of work. But then I calculated what was needed and it was four yards selvedge to selvedge and I realized I didn't want to monoprint that quantity all at once. So I only monoprinted one of the light colored fabrics and purchased all the others. Here's a photo of the finished sets. They are folded in half in the photo so you are only seeing half of their total length.

light set and different set of fabric strips side by side

     In addition, we are supposed to bring 1/4 yard of each fabric uncut plus some extra fabrics. I'm  very curious to see how it all ends up. I'm wondering if I'll be able to print any imagery on the fabrics when it's all sewn together or stitch any imagery or appliqué rocks or fossils. (As you know I am prone to do.) 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.

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.