Serenity Pond

Serenity Pond is finished and hanging at the Umpqua Valley Quilters' Guild Show. The show is this weekend in Roseburg Oregon at the Fairgrounds, April 26-28, 2019. I had a lot of little details to finish up, the dragonflies, the shadow of the rock, gold painted highlights, and toning down the striped fabric on the branch. It all got done with time to spare, Including dyeing more indigo for the binding and getting the label sewn on. It is made entirely with my hand dyed fabrics.

I also added some brass Chinese coins to the squares on the left edge, to give it a bit of an Asian flare. And because the Fyber Café challenge was to add some metal objects to the work. The rocks have additional acrylic paint on them, I'm glad I added this, as the hand dyed fabric was beautiful as it was, but the paint made it even better.

The leaves and the moon have gold metallic paint added, the extra shimmer really adds depth and highlights. I'm very proud of this one. It was started in a class with Claudia Law of Ashland, Oregon. I am linking this to Nina Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" click here see what other talented artists are doing this week.

Gelli and String

I have been doing more gelatin monoprinting, having fun and just playing. I watched a you Tube video by "Alice Art" click here she makes absolutely beautiful gelatin prints, on home made gelatin. I really liked what she did with hands and string. Her prints are much more detailed and in depth than mine. She is working on canvas and I am printing on fabric. I can not seem to get the saturated paint colors, as the fabric absorbs the paint. These prints are ones I wasn't happy with, not enough contrast, no color in the hands, etc... I worked through several options on technique, string first, then a plastic mask for the hands, or vice versa, then light and dark paint colors, trying to get contrast and bright string colors.

I did make several prints I was happy with enough to quilt. Two prints were put together here, one on teal and the dark blue one had just string. Then I framed it in my hand dyed shibori fabric, that blended well with the string effect. It is free motion quilted with rayon thread to outline and detail the print lines. I really like the effect of the string showing on the hands. The burnt sienna paint was dark enough to give a good print, but translucent enough to show the under layer.

The second one I quilted, I wanted to practice on stitching the hands. How much detail was I going to stitch to add detail, or just outline. The bright green string was my favorite part of this one. It could have used more contrast on the hands. I wish I had a photo before I couched on the lime green yarn. It is 8" x 10" the size of the gelatin plate.

I've stitched these prints together in a composition. The rust pair of hands have a beautiful hand dyed fabric border on them, and are now ready for quilting. I will couch on a bunch of my hand dyed cotton string, and call this one "A Tangled Mess." The purple hands were difficult to print. My purple acrylic paints were just being absorbed by the fabric and it looked gray, not purple. So I brayered paint directly on the plastic mask and printed it directly on the fabric. It took three prints and still did not give me a nice purple color. I am calling this one "The Three Fates" after the Greek goddesses that weave the lives of people together. This has been a fun experiment in gelatin printing, I tried it with yarn and it was too thick. The string impression was done with pearl cotton. I drew and cut out the hand masks myself.

After I had come back from the class I taught, I made a few more prints to coordinate with the ones I made in class. I collaged this composition, with several of the botanical prints and some stencil prints with leaves. I like the dark blue, green and golden yellow colors. The free motion quilting added a lot of texture. I have not hand stitched the binding to the back yet. My hand has been cramping up, so I only hand sew in small bursts. I will link this to Nina Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" click here to check to see what other talented textile artists are doing this week.

Gel Print Class

On Thursday I taught a Gelatin Monoprinting class, for several ladies from my Fyber Café art group. I hauled in a whole lot of supplies, stencils, masks, found objects, feathers, twine, potato mashers, combs, as well as paint, fabric and paper. Most of us wanted to print on fabric, but we did do some paper too. Fabric takes a little bit thicker application of paint, to adjust for the weave showing through. We played and played all day. Spring was three weeks late for us, as we had a late snowfall at the end of February, so there was very little greenery to pick. Ferns and heavenly bamboo are green all year around here, I had put some ginkgo leaves in the freezer last fall and they worked great. A friend gave me a hand full of peacock feathers, what fun! One lady got fixated on a spirograph type stencil, another with the turkey feathers. Each had a favorite style, and I encouraged them to make coordinating prints, in different colorways, so they can collage an art quilt from them. The photos are a few from each lady, but I am sure I've got the identities mixed up on some prints. Crystal had a variety of stencils, and the last print is on an "ugly" hand dyed fabric. Lorraine loved the feathers, and she made a few prints with an opaque yellow on black. Meredith used a lot of botanicals, a tangle of eyelash yarn, and stencils. Stephanie's spirographs in many bright colors, she made many more. Tracy used feathers and a favorite stencil. The last print is the stencil and it's ghost print on the same page, isn't it fabulous! I made some prints to use as the demonstration, but I did not get any pics, I'm sure some of them will show up in a future project. I will be linking this to Nina Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" click here to see what other fantastic textile artists are doing this week.

More Gel Prints

I have been playing with my Gelatin Plate, making lots and lots of prints. I'm going to be teaching a class soon, so I thought some practice was in order. I also wanted to check out different paints, and the difference of printing on fabric and paper. The fabric takes a thicker application of paints, and a heavy body acrylic or tube paints works best. The paper works with ANY paints, and a thinner layer can be applied. Paying attention to the opacity and translucent qualities of the paint was important. You can't put light colors onto darker with out the opacity, but the translucency made the colors glow and many of the layers show better.

I worked mostly with stencils this round, trying many that I have collected. I am a stencil ADDICT! That is the main reason I bought the Brother Scan N Cut, to cut my own stencils. With all the many prints the next step is to make something from them. ???? What to do? I pulled a selection of like colored prints, mostly blues and greens with a bit of complimentary red, added some botanical prints from another session, and collaged them together. I really like the color combo, and the leafy designs gave it a cohesiveness, but I think it lacks focus. But I am going to use it as a sampler for my class. I think it would be a nice table topper with a center piece in the middle.

The sprouting bulb images are from a rubber stamp I carved, actually four, each stage of the sprouting. The leafy green at the top right is thermos-fax screened, from a screen I got from Judy Coates Perez at Craft Napa last year.

I really enjoy the quilting on the gelatin prints. Using rayon threads gives it some shine, as the paint is quiet matt. I outline all the printing which gives it lots of texture, especially the hexagons. With lots of thread color changes, it brings out the details. I haven't come up with a name for this one, besides gelatin sampler, any better ideas?

I began to assemble a second piece, more of the earth tone colors, yellow, orange, rust and red, with blue/green accents. The blue green took over more than I had intended, but it still reads warmer than the first piece.

A few close up pictures of some of the printing details. I think I will call this one "Tire Tracks" or just "Treads." I am linking this to Nina-Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" click here check it out to see what other talented artists are doing this week.

Craft Napa - Whoopee!!

Wow! I made it to Craft Napa, with a maximum of stress, worry and thinking I may not be able to make it. The weather in Oregon was SNOW, even tho Roseburg rarely gets an inch or two of snow each year. Medford/Ashland south of us got 7-8" that week before I left. When I singed up, my sister said "January?" and I said if the weather was bad, I'd just drive down the coast. So that is what I planned, until California got a HUGE rain storm coming in, gale force winds on the coast and flooding and landslides predicted. Everyone talked me out of the coast route, if there is a landslide, you have to go all the way BACK to get around it. So... with much trepidation, I drove over the Siskiyou pass into Northern Cal. I picked the perfect window of opportunity, Eugene was getting 6 more inches of snow that day, but it was all going north, so I headed south. The rain coming to Calif. was warm, they call it a "Pineapple express" as opposed to the "Arctic Blast" we were getting. So the pass was rainy, warm, but not icy, and it rained and rained and I thought I might need an ark. The news reported Folsom Lake, near Sacramento got 13" of rain in 24 hour! I spent a few days with the in-laws before heading to Napa, but we were still concerned with flooding. I made it fine, to the Wednesday evening registration. I was a little early, so just sat and visited with a nice lady, who was in some of the same classes I was in. Pokey Bolton, the sponsor of the show, presented everyone with gift bags of goodies, name tags and class schedules. We had fun with a drawing, to get your classes free, everyone drew a Ghirardelli Chocolate from the bag and whoever got the gold Caramel wrapper, won. Little did they know I had bought a package of Ghirardelli chocolates, and only had the gold ones left in my pocket, cause they are not my favorites. Ha Ha. I played fair, and a very excited lady won. I then drove to my nephews in St. Helena, about 25 minutes north, and stayed there, for the 3 days. My first day of class, was with Mellanie Testa.

The class was deconstructed/constructed foregrounds and backgrounds. We worked on a 12" x 12" framed board, I could not find one at several art supplies in Seattle, but got one at home in the wood burning section of Michaels for about half price of the art store ones. I started softly with lavender and pink acrylics, and painted thick so we could impress rubber stamps in the paint to create texture. The next layer I used burgundy and we added a thick gel medium to the paint and used stencils to leave a raised design. She liked the high contrast of my board, but it became a problem later. So now the scary part, paint over it with another color, what? Hide all the good stuff I had done? This is why I took this class, I am afraid to add layers, because I already like what I have. But my motto for this trip was "Loosen Up" that is why I was there! So how about the opposite on the color wheel, burgundy and green, so of course I went with LIME green!! I'm not such a chicken as I thought.

I only limed half the board, keeping two small sections of pink to save. After getting it dry with a heat gun, we sanded off the top layer to expose the texture underneath. The lime became not so "in your face" and the raised flowers in the burgundy came through. This is my favorite part of the whole painting, and I saved most of it as we progressed. We covered everything in a layer of clear gel medium, before we broke for lunch, to let it all dry very well. I went down the street to the local grocery store and got a premade salad, as the restaurant prices in Napa were quiet high by my standards of rural Oregon. Before lunch I snapped a bunch of other artists' work in progress. I also ran to the Art Supply Store in town and got some new stencils. I am a stencil addict!! I admit it. A pink flamingo and palm fronds, 2 palm trees, a coral reef with tropical fish, and I can't remember what else.

After lunch we decided what design we wanted on our boards, Melanie had some photo copies you could choose from, or draw your own. I used one of my bird stencils, with a long branch and added some tropical leaves from another stencil. She asked us to add some stencils for texture patterns and to paint in a darker color around your drawing. The idea is for the drawn design to peak through the paint like a window. This is where I got into trouble with the high contrast, I already had dark colors on the page, and I should have painted the dark background BEFORE stenciling any more. As it was I had to paint around some of the stenciling, arggh. The lighter pink areas of bird, did not show up well enough, so I added some paint, and eventually I got out a black Sharpie to outline. I added more lime teardrop stenciling to the darker blue areas, that helped a lot. So, I learned a lot about layers, mixing color combo's, and design, but I would have done it different, if I knew in advance what she wanted.

The photo is not quiet where I stopped at, but it gives you a good idea of where I'm going. I will have to work on it at home, adding more dark and more stenciled texture. The top right bird needs help too. Here are some more of the students work as they layered. Many of them used the poppy flowers and pods designs, one used a butterfly. There is lots of wonderful work here, I can see I need to blend my colors more, and less contrast to start with. Complimentary colors are fine for the end work but I think you need to use analogues colors at first.Many of these techniques I can apply to fabric painting, but not the sanding layers. I also see why drying between some layers helps, not to just keep working wet. More student work. Another thing I tried was to use new Golden Open Fluid acrylics, as opposed to my cheap bottles of craft paint. I painted with each, the craft paints were more opaque and chalky, the open acrylics, were more transparent and heavily pigmented. I'm just not sure I want to pay the price for the better paints. $1.99 vs. $8 and up per bottle. when we broke for lunch the class next door had laid all their screen prints in the atrium on blue tarps to dry. What fun!! I can't wait to try it tomorrow.