Collage and Mixed Media Monday 10:27 am
Mixed Media Monday’s challenge is “wings.” I decided to go fun, so I used an image from the CD “Naughty Nudes,” available at Ten Two Studios. I added butterfly wings from a Dover collection, and collaged them on to Chinese newspaper text (also from Ten Two). That, I added to some altered cardboard I had collaged for background. I stitched the layers and a backing together with copper thread and then added a hanger to the tag and a copper tassel. I hope you like it!
Free motion quilting 8:36 pm
Are you a Quilting Arts e-mail subscriber? If not, and you are interested in free motion quilting, I suggest you sign up. This week they sent out a free 18-page e-book on free motion machine quilting. It offers some great tips and cool designs to try.
You can subscribe by going here: http://www.quiltingarts.com/
Fiber Art and Free motion quilting and Mixed Media Monday 9:22 pm
Mixed Media Monday’s challenge this week is “something new.” We could try a new technique, say something about the new year, etc. I decided to try a new technique–liberated piecing–with my new year’s resolution, to use up my scraps. So I used my scraps in a new way and created a little purse. (And once I made one, well … I had to make another).
Fiber Art and Louisville 10:52 am
Ten of my quilts are hanging at Nancy’s Bagel Grounds on Frankfort Avenue. They’ll be there for the month of January. If you have a chance, come in and see them (and try Nancy’s bagels–they are delicious.)
Collage and Mixed Media Monday 4:58 pm
One thing has been a constant in this past year of art-making: There are a whole lot of scraps, bits and pieces (aka leftovers) after each project. I’m ashamed to admit how many leftovers I’ve thrown out this year, but I did save some. (And save them, and save, and save — as they piled up accusingly in the corner of my artspace.
The new year left me with two options: Throw them out or use them. This year, I resolve to use them. I’m not always sure how they’ll be used, and I’ll probably set some sort of size minimum for my leftover bits, but I will make things with my leftovers!
With this in mind, I volunteered to host the first Mixed Media Monday challenge of the new year, and I decided to up the ante by using both art leftovers and holiday leftovers.
Clara and Louise uses the top of a box of chocolates as its base. The blue and silver paper is gift wrap. The cream background is fabric that I had run through my printer (most was used in a gift for my mother-in-law). The light blue stripe is from a scrap from another Mixed Media Mondaw, “Frosty.” The “seat” is from an applique piece. The twins pictured are my grandmother. Louise, and her twin sister, Clara. I had printed multiple sizes/versions of their photo for another piece I am STILL working on.
I hope that I’ll be able to reduce the amount of art materials I throw out this year, and Louise and Clara (or is it Clara and Louise) are going to be my guardian angels as I strive to do so.
Collage and Mixed Media Monday 8:59 pm
This week’s Mixed Media Monday was posed by moi. Using your least favorite color. My least favorite color is pink. I’m not fond of wearing it. I have never been good at using it in art. But I need to stretch. I need to own pink. I need to have fun with it.
With this in mind, I present Polly and her pink pansies.
Fiber Art and Mixed Media Monday and Quilting 3:15 pm
This week’s Mixed Media Monday challenge was “Frosty.” Here in Louisville, we have almost completely avoided that concept so far this year. Frost (and the coming holiday) makes me think of snow, so I decided to cut out some snowflakes in fabric, fuse them to a blue background and free-motion quilt the entire piece. Once I finished, and looked at my snowflakes, I thought of the wonderful quiet the world takes on when snow falls and dampens all noise. Consequently, I printed the word “peace” on organza and attached it to the bottom corner. I thought this peaceful scene deserved a little sparkle, so I added some silver-tone leaf charms to fall along with the snow.
Fiber Art and Mixed Media Monday 11:10 am
This week’s Mixed Media Monday challenge is “just hanging out,” and we were invited to do anything to meet that challenge, including just a piece designed to hang. I had just finished this green-on-green batik, and thought this would be a good way to show it off. So here is my first tree of life attempt, using dye-na-flo and soy wax.
Tree of Life
Fiber Art and Mixed Media Monday and Quilting 7:24 pm
This week’s Mixed Media Monday challenge was hosted by yours truly. The theme: Bedtime Stories, asked that artists depict a favorite story of childhood or one that their own children enjoyed. I chose the poem “Babes in the Wood.” Not the happiest poem, perhaps, but one I remember my mother reciting to us when I was little. It was probably the first poem I ever memorized and recited (though I fought my mother on the pronunciation of the word “children.”
Do you remember the babes in the wood?
My piece is an applique forest that I scanned and then added the ghostly image of two children and the image of a robin. I think it fits the story well.
Collage and Mixed Media Monday 1:15 pm
This week’s Mixed Media Monday challenge was “I am Woman.”
I started with a primed canvas board, and started writing every word I could come up with that I equate with “woman”: Strong, nurture, love, laugh, cry, warm, mother, etc. Then I added a wash of blues.
Katharine Hepburn is an actor and woman whose progressive attitudes about what it means to be a woman I admire. I just happened to have a magazine image of Hepburn that I decided would be my focal point. I have always admired Hepburn’s casual elegance, the fact that she didn’t conform to what was considered fashionable, but she was always beautiful. So when I found this quote: “Dressing up is a bore. At a certain age, you decorate yourself to attract the opposite sex, and at a certain age, I did that. But I’m past that age.” I decided that it was a good one to use to flesh out the theme. So I added southern belles, a lingerie ad, a few more quotes, and then put Hepburn on top — above it all.
