Crows & Dragonflies

A week after returning from Asilomar, I am off again, for our annual retreat to the Oregon coast. Our Fyber Café art group takes four days at Bandon, Oregon. We had LOTS of FUN! It is a work on what ever you want kind of retreat. I did not know what to take, it was a last minute, throw some hand dyes and thread into the car. I packed a spare sewing machine, as I thought my usual was getting wonky from all the goop from the Steam a Seam, that I used in Asilomar. It must have worked itself out, as I had no problems. I took this piece of hand painted, printed, stamped, and stenciled fabric, I wish I had a picture before I started adding applique to it. I really liked the way I layered all the acrylic paints. My idea was to add a pair of crows on a branch, I began free hand cutting a variety of leaves from my hand dyes. Sketching the crows was an issue. I am good about drawing almost anything but birds. It is so important to get the body language right, the correct angles of the head. It looked more like a dove, until I bowed the head down.

I wanted the free motion quilting to be loose and sketchy, I am a fussy quilter when I do raw edge applique. I like to follow the edges exactly and make sure I don't miss any. So this was a challenge! I took a couple of deep breathes, tried to get my head around the idea, then just dove in. Fast and loose, sketchy, trying not to stay on the edge. I really like the effect, it came out the way I wanted it to, and it was really fast. With a couple of thread color changes, it probably took me no more than 45 minutes to quilt. Adding a nest and eggs was a last minute choice, I used some striped shibori fabric I had dyed for the nest, and an ice dyed blue for the eggs. I haven't named it yet.

After a fun lunch excursion to Port Orford's "Quilter's Corner" to add to my large fabric stash, I got a fabric with gold metallic dragonfly wings on it. It inspired me to begin a composition with three dragonflies. It was difficult to cut out opposing pairs of wings from the print. In looking through my hand dyes I found a blue piece that already had a curved ripple cut, so I used that for water. With no planning and no pattern, I chose a sky fabric and began cutting lily pads and flowers. The flowers are from an Ombre fabric, light to dark pink. I wasn't very happy with it at this point, no plan leads to no good.

It needed more to the composition, so I added the cattails, I was concerned that they were too dark, but I liked the way they framed the piece. It also needed the koi for balance and as a better focal point. The sun and cheesecloth clouds added some interest to the sky. I free motion quilted with my usual rayon threads, in my usual tidy way, to edge and add detail. The koi is quilted with gold metallic scales, and sparkles nicely. I am happy with it now, but I don't like it as much as to crows. It is pretty but too tame.

Several of us wanted to play with paper fusion. We used mostly napkins and tissue paper to collage onto muslin with gel medium. Some old book pages and music sheets, and other ephemera were also used. This one was too dark until I added the green to brighten it up. I've already cut it up to make greeting cards.

I began this one trying to use lighter colors as a background, but it is very jumbled and scattered. Not sure about it, it doesn't seem finished.

Then I tried to make more of a composition, using florals at the bottom, light prints and patterns in the background with the large butterfly as a focal point. I really like this, I might quilt it. I am linking this to Nina Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" check to see what other talented artists are doing this week.

Asilomar Conference

Oh, what fun we had!! My friend Lorraine and I went to Asilomar Conference Center in Pacific Grove, Ca for the Empty Spools seminar last week. WoW!! I had class with Gloria Loughman from Australia, I love her work and have all her books. It was a 5 day class on painted landscapes. We made a sample from her pattern which I'll put at the end of the post. Then we painted sky fabric, mine is dull blue, gray, white, for a moody Oregon seascape. Many of the student works were beautiful sunsets, with bright colors. Cutting the fabric into various widths, from 3/4" to 2". we then rearranged them to get a blend of colors. We could do them vertical, horizontal or diagonal. I chose diagonal to give it a rainy coastal feel.

The water is painted in a darker, more intense color, I added some green to the ocean, and painted the fabric dry instead of wet. I wanted it more streaky, not as blended. My design is from a photo I took from the South Jetty beach at Bandon, Oregon. The rock formations are very distinctive to me, and brings back many good memories of trips with my husband. The second photos of the trees on the rocks is from Bastendorf beach, I added a few trees to my design, but haven't made them yet. I worked hard on the sketch, especially the "pointy" middle rock. Trying to make it skinnier, shorter, chunks out of the side, anything to make it look less phallic. I finally decided to make it gray and hope it would fade into the background more. ha ha ha.

Gloria's technique adds a black edge to each section of rock, put together with Steam a Seam 2, then on black fabric and trimmed to 1/8". I did NOT like the Steam a Seam, it is too sticky, and thick, two layers was ok to stitch through, but more, like the rocks, and my needle gummed up, and my thread broke. I need a stronger thread too. It also gummed up our scissors and rotary cutters, and my needle threader on the sewing machine is screwed up too.

So far, so good, I added some sand fabrics and some cheesecloth at the bottom. I have more stitching to do on the cheesecloth and more to add at the bottom edge of all the rocks. Also some waves splashing up. The bits of white will add a much needed brightness to the design. I've also started adding some trees to the top left rocks and a single stunted tree on the big rock in the water. I can't wait to get this finished.

My practice piece with a fat quarter of Gloria's hand dyed fabric, we picked the piece from a brown paper bag, so could not choose the colors we liked. The ocean area is a bit of green hand dyed shibori fabric I brought with me.

I made a second piece while I waited for people to catch up. I thought I would do my Bandon seascape with a horizontal background, so wanted to play with that orientation. I will add a larger rock to the bottom right and some sailboats to the water.

This pic is all the student practice pieces, while we learned her technique. Notice the horizontal, vertical and diagonals. Also, the man in class had to be different and added a palm tree to his, he was from Hawaii.

My friend made this beetle in Susan Carlson's class. I will not post anymore student work, as many people were picky about people taking pics of their work. We had a fabulous time. The beach was beautiful, the food great, and we toured all the class rooms at the end of the week. Seeing all the fabulous work was fascinating, and being able to talk to all the teachers. I will definitely use this technique again, it adds a lot of interest to what could be a boring piece of blue sky.

The wildflowers on the dunes were in full bloom. I will be linking this to Nina Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" click here see what other talented textile artists are doing this week.