Catching Up is Hard To Do.

So Sorry, I have not been posting on my blog for a long time. I got behind and then it was difficult to catch up, and I'm not on my computer as much as I used too, etc... The excuses could go on and on, so lets just jump right in and forget about what we missed. The most fun part of my year was going to Craft Napa 2018 back in January. Four days of fabric, fun and art! I took 2 classes with Judy Coates Perez, I just love her work. The first was painting with acrylic inks, we painted "wet on wet" to make a light color background, then used foam stamps and other stamps to print patterns on the fabric. It was an all day class and another few hours in the evening, very intense!

Then the hard part, coming up with a design on the spot, from scratch, sketching, deciding and creating a pattern, this could have taken all day. Pressure!! I came through with a fern design, after sketching several types of curls, leaves and scallops. The pattern was more complex than most and I had to make it full size and cut it from freezer paper. We used the paper as a MASK, and painted in the remaining negative space with the dark blue and green, so the pattern was made from the lighter background printing we had done earlier. Adding detail with the inks and a paint brush did not go as well as I had hoped, but I finally accepted what I had done and thought the quilting would make up for it.

I thought of it as Ferns, but after adding the blue everyone kept saying sea weed, or undersea. So I went with it and added some fussy cut tropical fish, I did not want bright glaring colors, so choose a quieter blue-green fish to blend in and camouflage, except for the big dark eye spot, which makes them stand out. I also added some Swavarski crystals as bubbles coming up from each fish. The quilting made a lot of difference, I almost always use rayon threads for a little shimmer, stitching all the veins and outlines, with small stipples in matching colors in the background. It created a lot of depth that I had not be able to get with the detail painting.

My next class was also with Judy Coates Perez, her "Ephemera & Tea Bags" class. Lots of different techniques, put onto a background of her tea colored dyed fabric. This is a process photo as everything was laid out before all the assembly with mat gel medium. We started with a little thermo-fax screening, drawing on tea bags which were later painted with acrylic inks, then collaged with papers, napkins and other ephemera, then rubber stamps and stencils. It was a very busy day, lots of fun new techniques to try. I was concerned with making a cohesive theme, so tried to stay rather botanical, but she said we were just making a sampler of techniques. But her class samples had themes and color ranges and looked like they were planned rather than just a bunch of non related objects. I don't have a picture of the finished project yet. The gel medium leaves it just a bit stiff, but it will stitch through on the sewing machine just fine. I'm trying to decide if I want a border or just leave it as is, as art.

The last class was mono-printing, on different papers, with acrylic paints. We used small Gelli plates about 5 x 8 rectangles, and a brayer to apply the paints. She urged us to pick 3 colors so all our finished paper would have a cohesiveness to them and be able to be collaged together. I started with botanicals, ferns, heavenly bamboo, and others. She showed us how to make ghost prints and two color prints, and vary the similar prints, making a set. Then we used masks and stencils in a similar way. We used many types of paper, rice paper, old book pages, old music sheets, pattern tissue, brown craft paper, deli paper, tissue paper, and she had pages from a German dictionary and a Japanese one too. I made quiet a few prints, and switched to a different colorway about 2/3 of the way through. After lunch, to let everything dry, we began to collage a set of prints onto a canvas board with gel mat medium.

I made 3 collages, a large, medium and small. It was more fun than I thought it would be, to put them together and I am happy with the way they look. Although I have no wall space to hang them at my house. I plan on doing all of this again with fabric when I get home, the same techniques, just a different base. Then stitch the collage together to form a wall hanging. Craft Napa is loads of fun, some people remembered me from last year which was nice, we wandered thru different classes during the day, to see what we want to do next year, they had such a variety of art techniques and sewing, with wonderful teachers. I highly recommend it, tho I don't know if I'll be going again. The drive through the mountain passes from Southern Oregon at that time of year is rather nerve wracking, altho this year was better than last. My next big adventure this spring is an Alaskan quilting cruise with 6 ladies from my art group. Yea!! I'm so excited. I promise to be good and keep my blog updated from now on! I'm linking this to Nina-Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" click on the badge on the right hand column or click here to see other wonderful textile artists.