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.

Day 2 Craft Napa

Day two's class was with Judy Coates Perez, "Print-a-palooza" we spent the morning painting fabrics and the afternoon printing, stenciling, stamping, etc... onto the fabrics we had painted. Judy provided acrylic inks for us to use. It was lighter than paint, thinner, but with a lot of pigments. Judy had painted out a color chart of the inks, and marked which colors were most useful, and which not to buy as they were easy enough to mix yourself. She also had several sheets of sample prints, that she had made. They explained why some prints did not work do to value, different types of folding, and other techniques.

We used several techniques to paint, we used dry brush on dry fabric, wet on wet, and sponge painting.

The blue/green piece was painted wet, and white drops where put on with an eye dropper. The white bled out a bit much, but several others got good effects with it. I sprinkled salt crystals on mine, as the fabric dried the salt pulled the pigments into interesting patterns. I do love the way this looks, I often buy the batik fabric with the salt patterns.

My orange red fabric was done dry, I painted the brush across with lots of ink, it gave a really intense color, not diluted at all, like the wet process. The smaller piece was also done dry, just tapping the tip of the brush on the fabric, I really like the texture it gave.

Someone else's salt fabric, they were calling her the salt queen.

Many of the fabrics drying in the atrium on blue tarps. Can you remember which pieces were yours? We also scrunched fabrics, working wet with the inks and as the fabric dried it gave a good texture. Folding fabric in different ways and then painting the edges or other areas of the fabric made wonderful patterns. Some of us got to do a Shibori with a large piece of PVC pipe. Judy had some beautiful samples of black/gray and white shibori, showing the subtle shading as the paint separated into fine lines as it dried. I will have to try this more at home. I put my dry fabric on the PVC pipe and wrapped it with string and scrunched it down on the pipe. Using a dry brush with black ink I painted just the edges of the scrunched fabric, trying to get a bold graphic look.

After lunch we began to decorate our fabrics. My black and white shibori came out wonderful, I just wanted to add red to it. I used a paisley rubber stamp, but the paint was too burgundy. I got a more scarlet color and just added dots with the brush handle. Judy was using a circle on hers so I borrowed the stamp and made 3 red circles. I really like the graphic look, this is my favorite piece from the whole trip. I switched to Thermo fax screens for most of the afternoon, because this is something I've never done and wanted to learn about it. We switched to heavier screen printing ink and used the screens Judy had brought for us to play with. The pink fabric did not have enough ink on it, so there was a nice light area for me to work with. I printed a delicate leafy print in burgundy and a small branchy design in black.

The salt piece had lightened up a lot, and had crunchy salt residue on it, so I printed on the back side. White printed very well in the printing paint, it was opaque enough to cover the colored fabric. On the yellow fabric the design looks sort of like a pod, I think I'll add some applique hanging leaves on it. Tho I saw it used on Judy's blog, and she used it like a flower bud, pointing up.

The left piece got printed in burgundy with two of my hand carved stamps. The other got a very delicate screened stem of leaves.

My purple scrunched fabric got a white and black bird screened on it, with some leafy green. The bird design was so detailed, it would have printed better with a hard edge tool, but I had done it with a foam brush. It was a good lesson in what worked and what did not work. Judy says some teachers are rule followers, the screen image must be done with a squeegee, and only one pull through the paint. But we were working looser with foam brushes, and mixed colors of paint, printed any which way. I'm not much of a rule follower. I prefer to just wing it, and see what happens.

These images are from other students; work. One lady liked to build up many layers of different screens on one piece of fabric. One student really liked the black and yellow combo, she had done quiet a few pieces like this.


A heavy black image, overcame the busyness of a sponged background.

I like the way the writing image, really adds texture and interest to a piece. Judy had quiet a few Thermo-fax images to buy. Since I don't really have access to screens, I bought quiet a few from her, mostly botanical designs. Also two different writing styles. I really enjoyed this class, although I had used many of these painting techniques before. It was good to try the acrylic inks, but I don't think I need to add them to my collection. I use dyes a lot, they will do just fine. The Thermo-fax screens were lots of fun, and I get to do more the next day. I had lunch at the hotel bar and grill, just asking some ladies if I could sit with them. We had a wonderful discussion about fabric art techniques, politics, teachers, and various other topics. It was nice to talk to "California" people. Rural Oregon is a completely different environment, but I grew up in Berkeley, so the table talk was very welcome. I had enough time after lunch to run off to the local art supply store to get some basic colors of screen printing paint. I debated to buy or mail ordering from Dharma or Dick Blick. It was pay the 10% sales tax or pay for shipping and handling. Buying NOW won, as I was sure I would want to try the screens I had purchased as soon as I returned home. After class, my nephews took me out to a nice dinner at one of their favorite places in St. Helena. It was called the Goose and Gander, we had a very nice dinner, the food was wonderful, and the company great.