ArtFest and SB page, next installment

My second ArtFest class was "Fabric Paint Party" with Lisa Engelbrecht, which I was frankly a little afraid of. Lisa Engelbrecht is a wonderful calligrapher; her work seems very polished and elegant, which I knew I could not do. (Personally, I don't feel I'm a "polished and elegant" sort of person, in life or in my art.) Lisa Engelbrecht's website gallery, with examples of her work, is here... go check it out! But as I found out, there was no need to be intimidated at all- Lisa was very welcoming and gracious, and really, it was all about experimenting with the materials and paints, to see what would happen... now that, I can do! haha! The pic above is my workspace, partway through the day. These materials are ones I've never really worked with at all; liquid inks with very intense colors, walnut ink crystals, pigment powders, things like that. It was really a lot of fun, and the element of the unknown was definitely part of it-- you could never be sure what would happen when you painted the ink on the fabric, or what it would look like when it dried. Our class project "goal" was to make fabric pages and a cover, to sew into a fabric book with pages featuring words of things we love. (mine isn't done yet, but after looking at the pics here again, I really do think I need to get it out and finish it!) Here are some of my classmates; we laid our pieces out on the tables multiple times throughout the day, so everyone could take a look and see how each of us was interpreting the directions. (it was a beautiful day, so we also draped some of our pieces on the open windowsill to dry; thank goodness it wasn't very windy!)

And for a change of pace, these two pics are not class-related; they are of our dinner companions, who would come and join us every evening during the dinner service.

They were so docile, they were seriously less than 10 feet away from the patio, and would just hang out, keeping us company while we enjoyed our dinner inside the cafeteria... very pretty!!

Tthis is a closeup of the piece of fabric that will eventually become the cover of my book. We worked with all kinds of mark-making materials, not just brushes-- twigs, bamboo skewers, ink droppers, etc. And, all kinds of materials to color the fabric- liquid inks, markers, gesso, and some luxurious pigment powders I've never used before, called "Schminke" powders. (seriously, you need to click on this link; just the photograph of the containers is great!)

These powders were so light and fluffy, it was almost like working with powdered sugar. You would sprinkle them onto the wet paint or ink, and they would settle in the most wonderful, shiny, sparkly patterns. (the picture above does not do it justice at all; you'll just have to get some and try it for yourself; I definitely would love to have some in my art materials!)

These two pictures are two of my finished pages-- the page above has a bit of stenciling on with oil pastels (the pink squares), some sparkly gel pen (the heart), and my first attempt at "calligraphy" type writing.The page below is more "organic" and is more of my favorite subtle blues and greens. It got a bit too wet while I was working on it, unfortunately, so the writing ran a bit, but I still like how it turned out. I may add some paper and other collage materials to my pages before I finish them-- I can't leave my beloved paper out entirely, now, can I?? :D

Below is the SB layout I made for this class- again, I didn't want the papers or page design to overwhelm the colorful photographs, and hopefully, they don't. The background is a light grey, and since most of the pictures have teal/purple in, I chose purples as accent colors (with a little shot of yellow- the opposite of purple on the color wheel- to brighten it up). This is another Alison Davis page design, with a few changes- my photos are larger, and I replaced one of the background strips with the fabric squares. When I first designed this page, the black strip was horizontal, but I just couldn't get the photos to work on it that way. I tried-- believe me; I tried!! (again, it gets frustrating when I can't get a page to work.) It finally hit me to turn the page 90 degrees, and then it worked:

So really, if I was to show you the sketch, the only things you'd probably recognize from it are the long strip with the sewing and the background strips... the photo arrangement, title and journaling placement, etc. was all changed to work with my photos. That's the beauty of sketches-- they give you someplace to "start from" but you can still modify them as needed, so your page ends up looking like "you" in the end.

The area in the close-up could have been a title block, I suppose, but since I put the title down the side, I ended up just using this area to feature some of the actual pieces of fabric made in the class. We all made a few pieces of extra fabric, cut them up into pieces, and traded them with the other students in class. I still have more pieces of painted fabric... hmmm, now what to do with them? (after I finish making my book, of course!)

inspiration links- 1950s fabric!!

I love, love, love 1950's design!! I also love when I find something on the internet that I stumbled across ages ago, and forgot about... this post covers both of those things!!

this blog post is specifically about a new collection of Michael Miller fabric being released that is a tribute to a 1950s fabric designer, Tammis Keefe. (never heard of either of these names before, but I am sure I will be researching up on them when I have the time).

while reading the above-mentioned blog post, I realized the blog, True Up, is an all-fabric-all-the-time blog written by a bloggetr I've read before, Dioramarama... one of those blogs you come across in surfing, then forget where you found it?? (I've done that so many times before: find something, click away from the page, then forgot where I was in the first place.... I know, I could bookmark them, but my bookmark list would get so long that it wouldn't help any, in the end!!)

anyway, I'm not going to pull any pictures off these blogs to put into this post, but trust me, if you like 1950s design, fabric, or just color/pattern in general, then click on those links and start oohing and aahing.

...eye candy for fiber artists

if you want to see/buy wonderfully shaded and patterned hand-dyed fabric, go here... Random Acts of Dyeness blog... I came across this blog while I was reading an artist's newsletter online. This artist hand-dyes fabric for her own work, and sells her extras. The colors and patterns are luscious!! It makes me (almost) wish I was a fiber artist, but I know if I bought any of this, it would only languish in my closet. Above is a rainbow selection; below is a collection called "Some Like It Hot." All collections of fabric are $30-- not knowing anything about hand-dying,that sounds really reasonable to me.

For her works for sale, go here: Deborah Lacativa's website.

I love the internet-- you never know what you'll find! (all images borrowed from her website and blog)

crafting crisis!

okay, so I wimped out on the Crafting marathon... I don't even remember what I was doing that weekend, but it wasn't crafting. Today, though, I have a crafting crisis. (My crisis is that I have to pick all this up before Tom gets back from his business trip tomorrow night... haha!!) I decided to see if my sewing machine still worked, and hauled it out of its cabinet a couple days ago...when I mentioned the sewing machine, Tom said, "didn't we sell that ages ago??" I guess that means it's long past due for some use, hmmm? Pandora can find a comfortable place anywhere... but why does it always have to be in the middle of my stuff?!?

the hallway between the kitchen and the laundry room is doubling as my ironing station.

I couldn't find just the right shade of green fabric, and then I opened up the pantry where I saw the set of green napkins sitting on the shelf-- unfortunately (for the napkin, anyway!) it was the perfect shade of green. (there's still three left to use-- as napkins, I mean-- or maybe for something else.) This photo of the kitchen island shows you that I follow the law of crafting physics which says "crafting supplies expand to take up all the space available."

the kitchen table: Tom says that before he left on his business trip I promised I would clean this off by the time he gets home-- I don't remember saying that at all! I probably did, though... unfortunately, my crafting inspiration didn't hit till the last possible minute-...which means my crafting has to be kicked into high gear so I can follow through on my promise by tomorrow evening.

Butters doesn't want to be left out, either... she had quite a fun time playing with all the dangly fabric threads that were flying everywhere! This photo is a sampling of proof that my sewing machine does, indeed, work! The photo colors are terrible, but the mini-quilt on the left is really a nice shade of pink. Upper right is an ATC base, and the lower-right thingamabob will hopefully turn into a sewn and embellished necklace pendant. (notice that I also sewed a couple pieces of paper into them!! Probably not the greatest for the sewing machine needle, but I wanted to sew paper, and now I can say that I have. And this won't be the last time, either-- it was pretty fun!)

This is another mini-quilt base that will eventually end up embellished with tons more paper, buttons, stitching, beads, and whatever other fun bits and pieces I can find to go with it. I saw these mini collage-quilts in the latest issue of Stampington Art Quilts magazine... (I also saw the sewn pendant in the same magazine issue). Now that I have the major machine sewing done, I need to get out my buttons, embroidery floss, ribbon, and all the cigar boxes of interesting "stuff" in my craft studio. I better pick up the kitchen table first, though. (...but before that, I think I'll sew a couple more pieces of fabric together...)

AU 2008 Recap Part 1

My first class at Art Unraveled was Monday: an all-day class titled Two Art Quilts Two, with Jane LaFazio. I decided to take this class because I love fabric, I do like sewing sometimes (as long as the sewing machine isn’t involved, that is!), and because I loved the pet portraits in the class description… I still really want some sort of portraits of Cleo and Phoebe, and was really excited by seeing her interpretation.

I found Jane LaFazio through Flickr-surfing, I think. She does amazing watercolor journaling, and wonderful art quilts of all kinds. Since then, I’ve seen her work a couple more times in Cloth, Paper, Scissors magazine… fabric and sewing, sometimes combined with paper: what could be more perfect than that?? (perhaps only some glue and stamping added in for good measure!)

This is one of Jane's pet portraits... I love the buttons on the edge!!

We started with the pet portrait- I only had really crappy photocopy enlargements of photos printed off my Flickr account, but I think it turned out okay, considering what I started with. We started by tracing the major shapes onto tracing paper (think paint-by-numbers, or coloring book), then transferred it to unprimed canvas using a Sharpie marker. From there, we started painting using thin washes of acrylic paints…Jane said when coloring in the shapes, don’t think about the “actual” color of the pet, but rather, think about their “aura” and their personality. I had really wanted to make Cleo’s picture a really soft, sage-y, olive-y green, but couldn’t get the paint color right, so she ended up being kind of pop-art instead, but actually, when I think about it, Cleo wasn’t a soft, sage-y kitty in real life, so I think the blue and yellow fits, after all.

I think I managed to capture her personality in the facial expression; I’m really proud of that. The next steps are stamping her name at the bottom, layering the batting and backing with the front, stitching the outlines and details, and finishing it off with an edging of some sort… hopefully, anyway! I really had HUGE expectations of perfection for the results of this project, (like everything I do, naturally) so perhaps I shouldn’t have done something with so much personal meaning for my first try, but I still think I’m going to finish it.

My tablemate for this class was a member of the East Valley Mixed Media group; I mentioned that I recognized her from the one meeting I attended, so she invited me to lunch with her- How nice of her!! This group of ladies meets once a month (in downtown Chandler, in the evening) to learn/discuss/share all sorts of things associated with mixed-media artwork… I’ve been trying to figure out how to attend regularly, but with Tom’s unpredictable travel schedule and the distance, it hadn’t been working out. Anyway, we had a very nice lunch with a couple other members, then headed back for the Landscape Quilt portion of the class.

Below is one of Jane's examples of a mini landscape quilt: I really like the way she used the sheer fabric in the sky, and how the frayed edges of the fabric suggests grass and growing things. And, if you look close, each of the colored bits in the lower left is an individual fabric scrap, sewn on by hand!

Again, I had definite ideas of what I wanted to do with this project, but my creative muse decided otherwise- I had purchased several beautiful batik fabrics from a (sort-of) local quilting shop, and thought I would make a desert landscape with mountains in the background. Jane’s approach to this project was to take a few fabrics, lay them next to each other, see what worked, and pull out/replace fabrics till you get something that feels and looks “right” to you. While I was pulling my supplies for the class together, I decided to throw in some other fabrics from my stash to take in addition to the batik.

During my process of pulling fabrics out and laying them down, I tried to make the desert landscape I wanted, but some of the fabrics just didn’t work, so they got replaced with my other cottons… more of this trial and error process (“no, try this one” and “how about using a piece of this?” from Lulu’s stash of fabrics) led to my landscape changing from a desert mountain scene to Midwestern rolling hills and fields, instead… amazing how that happens, isn’t it??

This landscape also needs lots of work to finish, although I have ideas for some of the details: embroidered grass, running-stitch plowed furrows in the fields, and tan buttons to represent round hay bales. And perhaps some running-stitch swirling clouds in the sky… or maybe a bird or two flying over the fields…

This class was a lot of fun, and it led me to reconnect with a group of really interesting people I hadn’t thought I would be able to again… it also showed me that sometimes pre-conceived notions and thought-out plans about projects can be (sometimes need to be) discarded in favor of what works at the time with how you’re feeling, which can lead to a totally different (but no less successful!) result in the end.