.png){kind=small}
I didn’t realize I had been away from blogging for so long! It was a busy end of August! Above is the print I did for Deborah Boschert who was the queen bee for August. She proposed an architectural theme in blues. I picked up some nice stencils at Quilt Knit Stitch and used this one that looked like bricks for a building. The base fabric was a light blue and I sponged on an indigo color.
Debra uses a simple house shape in her work. I made a freezer paper stencil of that shape in 3 different sizes and used a blue green paint to add the houses.
Here is the 6 inch piece for the giveaway.
And the mosaic of the prints done so far.
For a chance to win the collection ( I am sure more will be coming), leave a comment on the Printed Fabric Bee Blog.
I am still having severe pain in my right knee/leg. I am having an x-ray and seeing the ortho doc on Friday. Hope to get some answers and relief.
One thing I did last month was to finally finish the kid quilts made with my daughter’s line of fabrics. Here are the girls with the quilts after they arrived in upstate NY.
We also did a bit of a remodel in the bathroom where we wanted more storage. A huge mirror was removed and medicine cabinets installed. We painted the room a soft gray and put up wallpaper on the cabinet wall. The wallpaper is from a line of removable wallpaper designed by my daughter, Lisa. We love the whole thing.
While Lisa and Clay were out of town this past week, we got to have this cute little guy stay with us.
Right now, I am in the midst of finishing up the current homework for my online master class. Perhaps I will post about that tomorrow.
We had a very interesting talk and showing of kimonos at our local SAQA meeting today. Lorenz Hermsen collects kimono and haori from the early 1900s, concentrating on kimono that was inspired by modern artists. Here is what he says on his website:
The first quarter of the twentieth century, especially the Taisho Era (1912-1926), saw Japan’s interest in Western art and culture increase dramatically. Japan was entering the modern age, and with that came greater ease of travel, a flow of information, women entering the work force, and, for some, a departure from traditional Japanese values.
During this time, kimono remained the mainstay of clothing for women. While their structure did not change, their surface design began to reflect increased contact with the West, as some designers looked to Western art and design for inspiration. These ‘modern’ kimono represent a melding of traditional Japanese sensibilities with new, Western–influenced ideas. They are also valuable as objects of art, as these kimono designers were not mere copiers, but creators of original art synthesizing East and West.
Movements such as Arts and Crafts, Impressionism, the Vienna Secession, Art Nouveau, Cubism, Expressionism, Futurism, Art Deco and Constructivism are recognizable. Many of the major modern artists are represented, such as Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Paul Klee, Raoul Dufy, Marc Chagall, and Joan Miró, as well as important textile designers of the era—William Morris, Sonia Delaunay, Ruth Reeves, and others.
I just loved seeing these kimono and the fabrics. I was totally unaware of these textiles and I was mesmerized.
The haori up above was probably inspired by the work of Chagall. Here is a detail:
What blew my mind was how this was done. It is a form of ikat weaving called meisen. Here is what I found on the web regarding meisen:
Meisen was patterned using chemical dyes that were mixed with rice paste and applied through stencils on to warp (vertical) threads woven with temporary weft (horizontal) threads. After application of the dyes, the latter were unravelled and discarded and the true wefts woven in. This was a speeding up of the traditional kasuri (ikat) technique, by which sections of yarn were hand-tied or compressed in certain areas to prevent the colour penetrating when the skein was dipped in the dye bath. The new method produced the characteristic blurred outline of kasuri, but also allowed for the creation of more complex designs, particularly when a system for stencil-printing wefts as well as warps was developed.
This was a lovely indigo kimono:
And a detail of the very modern print.
And another:
And detail:
I loved the colors in this one, that looked art deco to me:
Here are some details of kimono and haori:
This piece was inspired by impressionist trees.
I just loved the wacky orange and black graphic lining in this one.
This was a very modern design done in the old shibori method. The colors were wonderful.
He also brought lots of kimono fabrics to sell.
And even though I fell in love with this one, I did not buy anything. Those who have been around a long time must know how hard that was for me as I used to use a lot of vintage Japanese fabrics in my work.
I am slightly immobile again since by other knee is in lots of pain. It is a week of meetings, High Fiber Diet last night, SAQA today and STASH tomorrow. I delivered my tree quilt to SAQA today. It will probably be traveling for a couple of years.
I know I have been missing in action, but for a good cause. I helped to coordinate an information table at Quilt Knit Stitch 2015 for Surface Design Association. We set it up on Wednesday and the show ran Thursday – Saturday. We had a display of swatches of samples of surface design techniques by our members and lots of journals to peruse.
The opening quilt up above was in the red quilt show that debuted in Houston. I liked the more modern versions of the red quilts. That one was made by Betty Hahn, an artist that I really admire.
Here is another innovative red quilt.
We were next to an exhibit of work by students in Jane Dunnewold’s master class. Some of these pieces were my favorites in the show. Here are some I especially liked.
This piece was so gorgeous – hand dyed and discharged and some applique of poppy heads.
The hand stitching on this is really lovely. It has sections of hand-dyed gauze laminated to the surface. It needs to be seen up close.
This is one of Jane’s pieces that is digitally manipulated and printed by Spoonflower and then quilted.
These 3 pieces had such gorgeous surface design.
Another gorgeous piece with surface treatment.
Here are some other random pieces in the traveling special exhibits.
Sue Dennis of Australia makes such lovely quilts using leaves. She does rubbings, printing and applique.
Another fabulous quilt by Betty Hahn. It is painted!
This is a small modern quilt with Big Pink, our iconic building here in Portland.
I always love a Betty Busby quilt. This one was in the SAQA Redirecting the Ordinary exhibit.
My regular readers may recognize this as the big sister to a SAQA auction quilt that I purchased.
And here is the little sister.
Hope you enjoyed this sampling of quilts from Quilt Knit Stitch.
Are you tired of seeing this piece? Here is the final incarnation of what I was calling a hot mess. When I came into the classroom this morning, my first goal was to work on the pieces I had started and figure out how to finish them. I added more wax to this one to seal in the collaged materials, then scraped wax and added a bit more black. It was telling me it wasn’t finished. My tablemate had an electric encaustic tool that you could dip in wax and then make fine lines. I grabbed some cadmium red and borrowed the tool and added some graffiti and wow! I loved it as did the teacher.
This brown silk piece was needing something, too and there was too much wax medium which was obliterating some of the details. Lorraine demonstrated how to use a stencil on our work so I grabbed some sequin waste and added the turquoise dots and then threw some turquoise pigment in the other corner. The dotted area is finished off with a blending of brown Shiva paint stick. Then I went to work with the razor blade and the little mini-iron. Here is how it looks, now. Lorriane thinks it needs something else.
The cheesecloth piece was making me very happy after the wax had dried, but it needed a focal point. I picked up a magazine at the store last night and started looking for things I might collage in the work. I found several bits with varied stripes and I like what happened. Lorraine said this was her favorite of my work. Now that I know how to stencil with the wax, I can see how I could make little rectangles of color using pigmented wax. Just to recap, I started with a piece of hand-dyed cheesecloth that was rusted, adhered to the board and then branded before the final wax coating and collaging.
Lorraine encouraged us to do some drawing with wax to show the hand of the maker. I had an indigo dyed dryer sheet which I adhered to a board, covered with wax medium and then drew circles with the cadmium red.
I had an indigo pigment oil stick that I picked up at Dick Blick and rubbed the piece with it. I love what happened.
I had time to do one more piece. I just love the idea of using my unique fabric as a base for encaustic work so I grabbed a piece of shibori silk organza and adhered it to a board and went at it with a brush and wax. I also had some copper foil with me which I rubbed on to the piece.
I felt it needed a focal point so I started looking for things from the magazine. Not sure this is it – still needs some work.
I enjoyed this so much. I am feeling that I want to pursue encaustic as a second medium for my work. Hope I can make it work.