8 posts tagged “painting”
Day four has come and gone, and day five is beginning..... As promised, I have a few photos to show today.
When painting our fabrics, we have been encouraged to just paint with
no thoughts, just make fabric.... Well, I have a bit of trouble
sometimeswith that, and tried this piece with the trellis cut out of
contact paper and placed on the canvas before adding the colors. This
may be sitting waiting for a while tofigure out just what it will
become.
I have had for a long time. I printed flower photos onto a few pieces and the effect is great.
Time for breakfast..... I hope to have at least one piece at least layed out and hopefully mostly constructed. I will be playing with my blues and see what happens.
This post is a bit later than planned, but the past few days have been a bit busier. Note to self--- Don't even pull one weed without gloves if you have a history of breaking out in itchy blisters. I found many perennials buried in the weeds at work, and decided to give some Hibiscus plants a break, pulling just a few weeds out from their pots and surrounding area. I then didn't think to wash my hands after doing it, and now I am paying the price-- fat, red, itchy fingers-- It's not the first time, so I should know better. Ice packs are wonderful things!
Now to the fun part.... I played with my chalk pastels a few days ago. The weather hasn't cooperated with sunprinting, so I decided to use the breezy, humid weather for other paint play. I learned about using chalk pastels with acrylic and textile paints from my workshop with Elizabeth Busch this summer. The chalk stays put when used with the paint, when the paint dries the chalk doesn't rub off. I got some great effects, and got myself a larger selection of pastels to play with. Irises are one flower I have used in my quilting a lot, but they don't do well for sunprinting. They are great subjects for the chalk!!
Another thing I did that I don't normally do, is to stack 2 pieces of fabric on top of each other to see what I would end up with on the bottom piece. For this I used a more open weave fabric than I usually use. The photo here shows the 2 pieces together.
A lot of the chalk did go through to the second piece. The green for the leaves shows the most, and the lightest colored flowers in the middle are very faint. I will have to try again with the tighter weave fabric I usually use. I don't know if as much will go through.
Here is another set of "twins". I tried for a landscape look, here. I think I really like the under piece better than the top one. It is interesting how the greens transferred through.
Here is another landscape type piece. I was trying to get the look of a pond with grasses growing around it. I used sea salt on the green area for a different texture.
It felt good to be back to my more cheerful colors to work with, instead of the "rocks and mud" colors I have been using so much of this summer.
One good thing about the rocky stuff is that the journal quilt I entered into the Houston show was accepted!!
For something I wasn't even thinking of trying to enter, it just happened and ended up being one the jurors wanted. Now everyone will have to wait until late October for the unveiling of the whole piece. The sneak peek is here. You'll have to scroll to the end of the post.
Now back to a fresh batch of sunprints!! I actually got some done yesterday. I just need to finish heat setting them. I will show some in another post.
I'm not sure where last week went, but I finally feel like a human being now. It took a whole week of napping and catching up on household chores, along with business matters that needed attention. I also got to spend some time with the grandkids with a few visits.
Well, while gone during my last trip away, the weeds did grow. No hail, but more rain and the growing conditions were right for flowers and weeds alike.
The first Photos show some of what my gardens still look like even after being home for a while. Too many gardens to get it all done. I just do a little each day, and have discovered some good size patches of buried plants and flowers.
The great thing about taking photos is that I can shoot the flowers and ignore most of the weeds. I did leave the weedy Oxalis that was in bloom with these Impatiens flowers- some weeds can be pretty.
Here are a few more of my flowers taken with the blue sky as the background. The plumbago on the left are really a sky blue color, and just about blend in.
As you can see in the above photo, the hail smashed planters are now blooming nicely. Very handy to the painting area- I always plant things to use for sunprints so they're easy to grab. The flowers print best when fresh, so having them grow right near is perfect. The Phlox in the nearby garden are perfect for using now, too.
Now, back to work.....
Well, here it is.... my first post from the road. I'm finally learning how to use my new laptop computer. Right now I am at Morrisville College in NYS, at Quilting By the Lake (QBL). I was honored to receive a scholarship to attend a 5 day class here. It's like being a college student again for a week. We are staying in the dorms and eating in the dining hall. Wonderful food! I'm taking a class from Elizabeth Busch- Small Works. I am learning so much and having a wonderful time. I really neded to get away, and this has been just what I needed. We began on Monday, and have not used our machines yet. We have spent our time so far painting fabric. OK, anyone who keeps up with me knows that I already do a lot of paintng, but there are so many new techniques out there. More tools in the toolbox.... New ways to think about paints and fabric.
Today, we begin cutting and composing some small pieces. The machine will come out, and I will see what will come from what I have produced along with what I have brought with me.
Here are a couple sunprints from my last painting session at home. I finally got a day that would work for printing. There have not been too many this summer with all the humidity.
Well, time for breakfast!! Did I say the food here is great? Then on to class-- more photos later of my progress.
I finally took some time for painting on fabric. The first for the year, Wow, late start for sure.
I played with squirting on yellow paint from a small bottle, instead of brushing it on in some areas. The effect in the lower piece, especially, made some neat effects. The next time I try this, I will have my materials ready better. I was digging through my pressed leaves in paper, while the paint was trying to start drying- lots of spraying with water to keep things wet.
The mud and rocks are back, too. I still have pictures in my mind of the rocky roadsides, and played with these two pieces. I painted the deeper colored one on the left, first then added some green and gold metallic. I then added a dry piece of fabric placed over the first, brushed the rose onto the top (back of piece #2) and pressed them together while brushing. I then scrunched and lay the pieces separately on the rock pile in our side yard that was to house a swimming pool. The lichens on the rocks helped to make some neat patterns.
I'll see what happens today, still humid, but sunny.
To see the list of books I have for sale, scroll down, or click here.
Wow, what a morning! The rain began late yesterday, and kept on coming
through the night. We woke up to an icy wonderland. Everything was
covered in dripping ice! I began my day with my camera and an umbrella
outdoors.
The tree on the right is a very old and knarled pine that always reminds me of an oversized Bonzai.
Iced pine needles on the left.
These Sedum flower heads are totally covered, with their drippy icicles. The flash on the camera helped to show the ice better.
The cats really love it out there, near the stove. That's Baby in the chair (not a very original name- I called her that when she was a kitten, so that her new family could give her a real name... we never found her a new home, so she became My Baby), I love the patches of color on her belly.
I began by mixing paints in various muddy colors. I was looking for colors in the stones and rock outcroppings I have been studying. This is a change for me, I usually use clear, pretty colors, not the colors of mud.
This would be one of those "don't do this at home" things. Never leave painted fabric near a wood stove unattended. With the way heat rises, the fabric did not get warm at all.
The same fabric a bit farther along the drying process. It was really starting to make some great drippy patterns from the angle of the board and the salt.
It's a good thing the floor out here is made for water drainage, I can hose off the drips that hit the floor.
In case anyone is wondering..... Yes, the toilet is still out here, and not where it belongs. We are still taking showers in a very cold bathroom with a huge gaping hole in the floor, the other bathroom has no shower or tub- way at the other end of the trailer. For that matter, it doesn't have a finished floor either. At least it has a smaller hole, and now with a space heater, is not quite as cold as an outhouse. So much for the weekend fix up job. Did I mention the remodeling contractor husband??
Now that the weather is feeling more fall-like, I have been staying
indoors, and trying to get something accomplished. I finally have had a
few days in a row where I have felt able to do more than surf the web.
I have been collecting used dryer sheets for a while, and finally decided to paint a few. This photo shows a few of them on a paint board. (I think I need to do some board cleaning- they are getting a bit of a pant build-up on them) The upper left piece is a shimmery organza painted blue. I used metallic and Super Sparkle paints on the dryer sheets, and tryed to do an assortment of colors.
Here is a group of dryer sheets that have been heat set, and pressed flat. Wonder Under release paper or parchment paper is needed on both sides while using the iron to be sure they don't melt. You can see how sheer they are. I really like how they turned out. I have been thinking of using the orange ones for fall leaves. Now more ideas can start forming in my cluttered my brain.
These quilts will be auctioned off, with the proceeds going to Alzheimer's research.
At first I had no idea what I was going to do, but then I began to think how I have been feeling lately, and some ideas began to form. I have been dealing with some bad fibro flares lately, and some days I can't remember friend's names, or find the words I want to say. It feels like my brain has chunks missing. That gave me the idea of making quilts with pieces missing to represent the memory loss from Alzheimers that so many people have to deal with. I feel lucky that my memory losses are temporary, and can't imagine knowing it would never get better.
Missing Pieces and Butterflies is made of pieces of my painted fabrics, a couple partial sunprints, and commercial fabrics. It is satin stitch seamed with some of the pieces missing, leaving holes. The Echinacea flowers are photos printed onto cotton fabric, cut out and appliqued, with a couple petals missing from one flower. The butterflies were added to show there is hope. I backed the holes of this quilt with a painted dryer sheet in blues and greens.
I will be sending these two out this week, and in a month or so, they should be put up for auction or sold some other way with the full profit going to Alzheimer's research.
This is the first quilt that I made using the leaves from above. I made this for this past Fast Friday Fabric Challenge. Each month we are given guidelines for a quilt to be made in a week. This month, we were to make a quilt using something as embellishment, to show movement. Now that fall is really here, the first thing I thought of was the Oak leaves I had, and the fall winds that blow the leaves around outdoors. I began with a piece of fabric sunprinted with oak leaves, cut apart and arranged, using a metallic gold-flecked ivory fabric as a background.
I couched a yarn with the colors in the fabric over the edges of the sunprinted fabric pieces. I used a variegated thread in fall colors for the free motion quilting around the sunprint leaves and to add the veins. There are also wobbly curved lines quilted in with clear thread. The quilt edges are bound with the yarn used around the sunprints. I then added the "silk" Oak leaves over the top, as if they were swirling in the wind. I only stitched the veins in the leaves, and let some of them drift off the edges. The photos show the quilt on a pre-stretched artist canvas. The quilt is 11"x14" in size, on a 16"x20" canvas. I am trying to decide just how to mount it. I don't know if I will leave the canvas white, or cover it with a colored fabric.
If anyone has any ideas, feel free to add a comment.
Now off to work, getting ready for my next show.
Here it is the last week of October, and yesterday we had a beautiful, sunny, warm perfect day for painting fabric. Until I started pulling out supplies, I didn't realize how long it had been since I had done any painting. I usually get much painting done the last weeks of Sept. through the first couple weeks of October, but with preparing for the guild quilt show, and traveling to GA, I lost a lot of painting days. I still had not unpacked my paints from taking them to my last show for demonstrating. That was the first part of September!
Here are the results of yesterday's puddling.
When taking photos of the sparkly paints, they seem to jump off the fabric with the flash.
For this piece, I used a couple new paints I picked up a while ago. They are a different brand that I usually use. I found a metalic mossy green, and a copper metallic. They are mixed in with my usual green, yellow, and a hint of blue to give the feel of fall colors on a sunny, blue sky day like yesterday.
Rainbows!! Summer may be gone, but I felt like playing with my bright colors to do a bunch of rainbow fabric. Here is one of the Fat Quarters.
The photos below show another FQ from the front, and the smaller photo of the back. I love the way the backs look!
A Salted rainbow front and back. The salt makes such interesting patterns.
Here is a full yard of fabric I painted in rainbow fashion, showing both the front and back. I mostly paint fat quarters, because they are a smaller size to deal with, and the fabric usually doesn't try to begin drying before I get all the paint on. I had a customer this summer ask if I could paint a full yard, so I gave it a whirl.
I really prefer painting the smaller pieces. It's really hard to stay farily uniform across the whole piece, but that is the best part of painting my own fabrics, I never know just what I will end up with at the end of a painting session. Sometimes the pieces I like the least when wet, end up being some of my favorites after drying, they change so much.
Final photo of this post. I looked out my front window, near sunset a couple days ago, and saw how my grass looked, backlit by the sun. It didn't come out as I had expected, but It is interesting anyway. I love the way the grass heads look like they're made of gold, and shimmering. Next time, I'll have to try a bit earlier with the sun above the trees in the far background.
Now to play with some new fabrics, and come up with a few wintery pieces for the coming holiday selling season.
