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Archive for the ‘painting fabric’ Category

Printed Fabric Bee – Inspirational Words

Tuesday, September 2nd, 2014

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We took a month off for the summer and now, we are back with the August fabric selection. Queen Bee, Lynda Haines, asked for 8 X 18 inch prayer flag size with inspirational words.To have a chance to win the fabric pack of 6 inch samples, you can leave a comment on Lynda’s blog or the Fabric Bee blog:

 

In my last blog, I showed some of the testing of ideas that I had. I decided to do the syringe writing in the background. Then I chose a quote from Joseph Campbell to print with my new block print alphabet. I embellished with the wax crayons, using one of the decorative wood blocks. You can click on the image to see it larger.

lyndapfb8-14

Here is the little piece I did for the giveaway.

pfb8-14

I am home and tired from our week away to celebrate our 50th. I hope to get a blog post up tomorrow about our happy week.

 

Some Studio Time and an Art Date

Saturday, August 23rd, 2014

syringewriting

I had a rude awakening this week and realized that I needed to get a project done for The Printed Fabric Bee. So I spent some time in my studio this week. It is cooler now so much easier to work there. I did a little syringe writing with black paint.

beeswaxcrayonwork

I also used one of my wood block designs to do some beeswax crayon rubbings. I will share more of this project later when it is finished and mailed to the Queen Bee.

It has been one of those crazy weeks. Monday and Tuesday were left brain, excel spread sheets, kind of days doing my membership work for SDA. Wednesday, I worked at Trinity helping to prepare food for the community outreach meal. I love doing this; it combines two of my favorite things, making food and hanging out with great people. Then, I got to spend some time in the studio for a couple of days.

Sidnee Snell, a local textile artist and SAQA member has an exhibit of her work at the Guardino Gallery in the Alberta area of N. Portland. Sidnee manipulates photos to create patterns to create her beautifully stitched pieces, using hand-dyes.

Sidnee

This piece is from a photo of a rusting bridge.

sidneerustedbridge

 

This one is called red laces:

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I love the richness of the colors that Sidnee uses and her machine quilting adds a wonderful dimension to the work.

I loved the two pieces she calls sacred seating which are church pews.

Sidneesacredseats

sidneeseatsandcarvings'

The other artist in the show makes wood sculptures with figures in evocative situations. They were very interesting and well done.

carvedwork

sidneeandmorecarving

After our gallery trip, we stopped at the mall and I did some binge shopping at Macy’s for some things for out upcoming trip to celebrate 50 years of wedded bliss.

 

This, That and The Other Thing

Sunday, July 27th, 2014

printforpokey

It was a beautiful day today and so, after church and some mega grocery shopping, I headed to the studio to print some fabric for a special project. (seen above)  I don’t have AC there and it is too hot to work there on most summer days.

I found a piece of fabric on which I had done some previous printing – think if was discharged. I used one of my stencils and daubed on some red paint.

pokeyprinting

Then, just for fun, I spatter painted with white paint.

pokeypaintspatter

It was fun to spend some time in my studio. I sort of cleaned up from the quilting frenzy for the blue show.

Speaking of the blue show,  the Blue Picasso Woman was juried in but not the sky blue pink piece. I was not surprised. I rushed that and I knew that the dyed cheese cloth was too centered. So, here is my plan. When I get it back I am going to do a major crop on the top and also some on the bottom and redo the flying geese. I think I can get it ready to enter into a different show.

Before

Before

 

After

After

On Friday, Mr C and I drove my 3 quilts up to Tacoma to The American Art Company for the exhibit which opens on August 16th. I had to add sleeves to the bottom with slats so that they will hang better, I guess. It was kind of a pain.

tacomaquilts

 

americanartcompany

I hope I can get up for the reception on the 16th. The gallery  is very spacious, and I have seen the show in the past and it looked great. Quilt Knit Stitch is happening that week and Kristin LaFlamme, one of the Twelves and my art quilt daughter is coming for the week. She has one of her Army Wife Aprons in a show here in Portland. It was curated by Marci McDade, the SDA Journal editor. Just before that, we are going to CA to hang out with Paige for a few days.

I have 3 exhibit receptions in August! The Simply Red show is opening in Newport down on the Oregon Coast, the Columbia Fiber Arts exhibit, Fiber Inspirations, is opening here in town at the ArtReach gallery and then the exhibit in Tacoma. Pretty cool!

 

 

The Printed Fabric Bee – June Edition

Tuesday, July 1st, 2014

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Another month has come and gone and we have a new collection of fabrics printed by the members of the bee for June’s Queen Bee, Susan Purney Mark. She chose an industrial theme with neutral colors.

Here is my piece for Susan:

SusanPurneyfabric

Here is how I created this. I started with a piece of hand-dyed gray fabric. I looked through my thermofax screens for a particular screen which I made a while ago and looks like steel girders, but I couldn’t find it. I did find my screen of stacked chairs that I had used for my Twelve by Twelve chair quilt. You can see it here. This is the screen smudged with black paint.

chairthermofax

I got really messy with the black paint and I even spilled half a bottle.

blackpaintindustrial

Here is the first layer.

firstlayerindustrial

Next, I found a stencil with random squares that looked like it could be a good counter point to the thermofax screen.

whitepaintstencilindustrial

I found some LiquiTex white paint which I mixed with some textile medium.

Whitepaintindustrial

I just hit the stencil with a paint sponge in random swipes.

Here is the 6-inch piece which will be part of the giveaway. I am really happy with how this turned out.

PFBindustrialprint

To have a chance to win this collection, you can comment on Susan’s blog (link is at the top) or leave a comment on the Printed Fabric Bee blog or FB Page.

Keeping Busy!

Saturday, June 7th, 2014

picassowomanpattern

This is my larger than life Picasso woman. The original file was rasterized and printed on 20 sheets of legal size paper. She is going to be one of my entries for the What’s Blue to You show. I originally created her as an etching when I lived in North Carolina, where I took a print making class.

picassowoman

I eventually made her in fabric.

picassowomanportrait

 

I made a modern day version of her, as me.

nowselfportrait

So, now, I plan to turn her into blue Picasso woman, larger than life. I wanted to use a pale shade of blue for her face and neck and didn’t have a large enough piece so I quickly dyed some.

bluefacefabric

I was going to go out and buy batiks for the hair, but on second thought, I felt that I should print some fabric – some dark blue with orange red highlights. I used russet metallic paint.

 

I used my wavy wood block.

wavywoodblock

wavyprint

And sequin waste.

sequinwastestencil

And a Stencil girl stencil.

stencilforhair

 

I created patterns using freezer paper by tracing from the large print out. It will be relatively easy to do the eyes nose and mouth. My next decision is what to use for the background. I think I want to bring in some other colors for fun – maybe a Picassoish cubist background!!

I am having fun and learning how to work in my smaller space. I can not leave things out. Every thing has to be put away when I am done and moving to the next phase. When I took Judy Robinson’s class last month, I found a new clean up tool to have in the studio. Baby wipes, if used soon, will clean up dye and acrylic paint from your skin.

huggietool

Last night, Mr C and I took the street car over the river to the venue for the High Fiber Diet show, Simply Red, which is at the Architectural Heritage Center. Here are a couple of scenes from the exhibit and reception.

simplyredshow

You can see my moonstruck piece in this shot.

simplyredshow2

I have been doing lots of walking – yesterday, I walked to my studio and back home. I did over 8000 steps before lunch! In the afternoon, I got some training on the SDA website. I am going to start helping with membership stuff. It will add a few hours to my work load with them, but I think it is manageable.

That is all for now. Enjoy your weekend.