CHALLENGE: Kathy's March Crayola Challenge

If they were starting their careers today, Rockwell and Picasso would probably both be painting on black velvet.

~Brad Holland

My, oh my, has life gotten in the way of creating.  The last couple of months has been challenging with every minute of every waking hour consumed.  I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel...winter semester of the school year ends in TWO WEEKS!  Yesterday, I could not contain my excitement and made my list of what I want to accomplish this summer; it will only take 58 hours of work per week...OK, maybe I need to trim somewhere!

As I talked in my last post,  the March meeting of my Art Quilt Group meeting brought so many wonderful pieces (you can read about it here). The  March colors were Indigo, Red, Red Orange. I did not get the chance to talk about my own creation, so here it is....

Since I began dyeing a couple of years ago, I have been most excited about dyeing velvet for projects.  I have a dream of a velvet swing coat...but that will be another day. I decided that the March challenge would be a great month to play with velvet.  Luckily, I had the three Crayola colors readily available in dyes.  I began with prepared for dyeing velvet and painted areas of each color around the piece.  I sprinkled salt crystals on the (it is supposed to created star-bursts) and dampened the entire piece with a water spray bottle to get the dye flowing. I was not impressed with the salt effects, but the rest was just what I needed.

 I drew a fleur-de-lis inspired pattern on the piece. I created a quilt sandwich using double thickness of a high loft batting, the velvet top, and muslin bottom. Yes, I said, double thickness of high loft batting and yes, it was VERY thick going under the machine for the first time. I sewed the outline of the pattern and then I thread painted to my heart's content.

As you can see below, I completed a very dense machine thread painting using the three Crayola colors.

When the thread painting was completed, I stuffed additional batting into each relief section. I ran into the difficulty of the backside was equally mountainous as the front. Using my regular quilt batting, I created this cut-out shape below to help level the back.

 I then used the excess top velvet to self bind the quilt.

 Here are some close-ups.... 

And alas, the final piece.  I am very pleased with the final work.  I have experimented with two additional pieces that I will share in a later blog....

Remnants

There are so many fun and helpful bits that I would like to share,  I am creating this last bit of my blog each week,  My hubby, Mark, came up the the name of this section, Remnants, so named perfectly as its definition is: a remaining, usually small part, quantity, number, or the like.

My first remnant is the announcement that Pokey (Patricia) Bolton has decided to leave Quilts, Inc! and as she states, "I am ready for a break after a lot of change in my life the past few years."  A you probably know, Pokey is the founder/creator of Quilting Arts and Cloth, Paper Scissors among others.  She has inspired so many of us in our quilting and mixed media journeys.  I wish her the best!

You can read more about Pokey's bucket list for the next phase of her life here:

Pokey's Bucket List.

ART QUILT GROUP: Life is Like a Box of Crayons....Part III

Never invest in any idea you can't illustrate with a crayon.  ~Peter Lynch

Our March meeting of my Art Quilt Group meeting with crayon challenge brought so many wonderful pieces.  The  March colors were Indigo, Red, Red Orange.

Below is the rundown of what everyone made.  First is Anna Mae's piece; it reminds me of a sparkly diamond ring!

Next is Carolyn's.  She began with hand-dyed organza and then, due to traveling, she moved on to hand stitching and beading.

Here is Diane's (and sorry, my camera did not capture the color well here).  She was inspired by the artist Charley Harper and his cardinals.

Here is Doha's work.  Doha is our newest member and I am glad she has decided to join us. She chose to applique lots of fun fabrics.

Here is Evey's; I believe we all agreed that this reminded us of a campfire with sparks.

Jackie did some indigo dyeing with Shibori; she is continuing to complete the piece with sashiko stitching  The beauty of this piece in person is phenomenal.

Jackie has a second piece of a skunk cabbage that is in its early stages.  She said that she imagines there will be lots of French knots on it.

Jenny used this month's challenge to work on her applique; she is emphasizing her applique with sashiko stitching.

June used hand dyed fabrics and couching of fibers; she finished with circle quilting (her specialty).

Mary was inspired by Gwen Marston liberated stitch blocks along with Amish quilts.

I do not have any pictures of my own submission.  I will work on this and put it in my blog for next week.

Our colors for the next challenge are: Red Violet, Salmon, Granny Smith (now these are colors I can get on board with!)

EXPERIMENTATION: Should I Sketch?

It is our choices...that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. 

~J. K. Rowling

Have you ever thought that maybe the universe is trying to send you a message?  The last couple of months, I have been thinking that someone is trying to tell me that I should be keeping a daily sketchbook journal.  

I have taken a few drawing/sketchbook classes, but it is something that does not ever quite stick with me.  Sure, when I am ready to create something, I sketch what I am going to do. I keep encountering lately is keeping a sketchbook of places/things encountered in  everyday life; when you are ready to create, go to your sketchbook for inspiration (What! I wouldn't be going to Pinterest anymore!?).

Besides the blogs that I follow, the first encounter of this was while I was watching Jean Littlejohn and Jan Beaney's video, In Stitches.  In this video, Jean and Jan show many lovely sketches from their travel journals and how they transform them into unbelievable embroideries.

The second encounter was found while I was reading the New Zealand Herald and found an article about British Fashion Designer, Zandra Rhodes. Below are two videos from Zandra Rhodes.  The first is all about her journals; it is interesting that she  uses rice paper because it is easier for her pens to flow. 

Zandra Rhodes' Sketchbook

The second video shows how her sketches become reality in her clothing.  I love the the New York  skyscraper that became the pattern of a dress in her Beaded Collection from the 1980's.

Zandra Rhodes Drawing to Design

What an inspiring woman!

I am sure this method works and would help push my work to another level, but where do these people find the time to sketch?  I think may plate is already pretty full.  Secondly, I am not a proficient sketcher (yes, I know, practice makes perfect).  Here are some samples from my sketchbook:

  

I guess I will take JK Rowling's advice and not worry about my abilities, but choose to sketch and see where it takes me.  I will keep you posted.

Do you keep a sketchbook?  Do you sketch and use your sketches for inspiration? OR do you sketch as you get ready to create? (By the way- I have changed the setting on my blog so you do not have to be registered with Google to post comments) 

CHALLENGE: Crayola Challenge

Color is my day-long obsession, joy and torment.

                                                           ~Claude Monet

Last week I talked about the results of Art Quilt Group and the our Crayon Challenge for February (challenge colors were dandelion, raw sienna, and tumbleweed). You can read more about our Crayon Challenge here.

My personal art goal for 2014 is to experiment with as many techniques as possible; whether is it something new or just delving in deeper. So let's talk about what I created for the February challenge.  Here is my final piece:

There were two techniques that I was focusing on:

1. The rolled fabric
2. Incorporating sand into my art

First, the rolled fabric.  I bought the most beautiful and inspiring book called "Stitch and Structure: Design and Technique in Two- and Three-Dimensional Textiles" by Jean Draper.  Here is the cover:

So I thought this would be a great challenge to try to use the 'rolls'.  The problem is that I looked at the pictures, but really didn't read the directions.  I made my rolls from rolling fabric; once rolled, they were fairly stiff and somewhat tough to manipulate.  If I were to do this again, I would use something much softer and more pliable when rolled (ie: felted wool, pre-felts, etc).  Or a better idea, read the book!

The second experimentation was all about sand...yes, sand. I experimented by silk-screening heavy gel medium onto fabric and sprinkling sand on it.  Once it was set, I sprayed it with a clear spray.  Here are some experiments... 

The first one has a dot pattern made with the sand.

 This one has three loose triangles.

This last one is a mini quilt that I made to experiment; a grid pattern was used with yellow sand.

On my finished piece, I made the brown sand circles separately and adhered them at the end.  To use this sand method, it truly is the last thing that you will do to the art-piece. Obviously, you do not want to have sand anywhere near your sewing machine.  I do not think this will become one of my favorite techniques, but it is good to keep in my box of possibilities.

ART QUILT GROUP: Life is Like a Box of Crayons....Part II

Color is an intense experience on its own.

                                                                        ~Jim Hodges

Last month I talked about my Art Quilt Group and the our Crayon Challenge for 2014. You can read more about our Crayon Challenge here.

Our February challenge colors were dandelion, raw sienna, and tumbleweed as shown below:  

When we met this past week to show what we made using these three colors, I believe the entire group would agree with the quote at the beginning of this blog posting...it was a very intense experience!  I do not believe these colors would have been a color palette anyone in the group would have used voluntarily; thus making this a true challenge!  When we began to share, there were many comments about deserts and dead plants, but each of us had a piece that we are proud of.  

Below are the challenge pieces from the group. 

Here is my piece:

I will talk more about this piece next week, but it is a combination of rolled fabric, machine quilting, hand embroidery, Heishi beads, washers, and sand.  Yes, sand.  I will tell you more about the sand next week.

June's work is below. This is a lovely piece with some wonderful beading in the middle.

Ann's piece is a pyramid with bubbles rising to the top.  Ann is working on a quilt series using circles.

Jackie interpreted the colors as rocks with marsh marigolds.

Diane O. purchased this squiggly template at our guild show in the fall.  It was supposed to be an easy template to work with, but ending being a headache.  In the end, she placed the squiggly cut fabric down and did a raw-edge applique.

Diane S. has decided that her pieces will have a bird theme (last month her piece was called "Crime Scene").  This month she has a roadrunner.  The tree was made using Texture Magic.  If you are unfamiliar with Texture Magic, you can find out more here.

Jenny did circle appliques trimmed with hand embroidery.

Mary was inspired by the Southwest. She felt that the piece needed the black to balance the colors.

Carolyn did two. First, she did a snowy scene in the woods with beech leaves, oak leaves, and crocus.  We are allowed to used black and white with our crayon challenges.  Though she loved this piece, she felt she may have taken the black and white a bit too far so she did a second challenge (I actually thought she was genius with her strategy).

Then Carolyn's second.  She discharges the fabrics by hand.

Jackie revisited the January Challenge and crested these two pieces:

 and the second...

We ended the night by picking March's colors.

Red Orange

Red

Indigo