Home at last

Here is how A Free Spirit (on the right) looks in his new home in New Zealand:

Love the two images together...many thanks to Julia Arden for sending this photo!

The previous posts about how this mini-quilt was made are here and here.

Pine in progress

I’ve been wanting to depict this pine tree on our street for a long time, so it’s nice to finally get going on it. The photo is a nice start but I’m going to leave out the distracting trees behind it and tweak the colors. 

Here is the sketch on tracing paper, not too detailed but gets the idea across:

I started with a plain piece of some generic white cotton fabric, then globbed a lot of acrylic paint onto a silicone-treated sheet, one of the ones made for ironing appliqué. I folded over the sheet a few times, added more paint, etc. then laid the white fabric on it and pressed down.

This is interesting, but is too dark and contrasty, so the next step (after letting it dry thoroughly) was to brush over some lighter, semi-opaque paint. I also added some metallic copper paint. This is more like it:

Here is a close-up of the painted background:

Acrylic gel was used to adhere the fabric to a stretched canvas, then it was allowed to dry. (Note: if I was going to go in a more quilty direction, I would skip that step.) Next I transferred the sketch by using my weird method of taping the sketch over the canvas and drawing underneath it onto the canvas with a watercolor pencil. Next, the outlines of the tree were painted on:

I plan to paint in some color then use a few if the collage papers shown in this post to complete the tree. But, we’ll see what actually happens!

Tag Galaxy... a fabulous way to find images

Do you need reference photos and/or inspiration? The Tag Galaxy image search system has been around for a year or two, but I just heard about it. You enter a tag (i.e. search term) such as quilts and a solar system appears:

The main term quilt is on the Sun, while related terms such as fabric, sewing, and patchwork orbit around it. When you click on the Sun, images start flying in from all sides:

 

The images are photographs coming from Flicker that have been tagged with the word quilt, apparently. Once they have arranged themselves into a sphere...

 you can rotate it up, down, and around to see the images on all sides. If you want to zoom in on one photo, just click on it...

 ...and it enlarges. The web site is animated with Flash, so this post gives just a hint of how cool it is. Try it and be mesmerized!

I almost forgot to mention where I heard about this, on the Teach Science and Math blog...many thanks to David Wetzel. There are several other image search engines mentioned in his post, so you may want to check those out, too.

SAQA auction starts today (Monday) at 2 p.m.!

Just a quick reminder that the Studio Art Quilt Associates benefit auction starts today. My wolf quilt is on the first page, click here to see thumbnails of the available artwork. There is a link on that page to get to the bidding form. Everything is $750 today, then the price is reduced each day until Friday, when everything costs $75.

Happy browsing and (perhaps) bidding, everyone!

Great source for vintage graphics

I was looking for an image of a doily, and stumbled over The Graphics Fairy blog. If you need pre-1923 images, here are thousands of copyright-free engravings, playing cards, postcards, advertisements, etc. It’s well-organized with categories, plus a search box. Speaking of ads, there are plenty, but it’s worth it for these goodies.

Check out this wonderfully bizzarre pair of scissors:

Enjoy!

Goodies... in the mail and made in the studio

One of the perks of being accepted into the Quilting Arts calendar is that they send you stuff. Last year, they gave a gift certificate to be used in the Interweave store, which made for some happy online browsing (and buying!) This year, along with the printed calendars came this pile of DVDs, two magazines, some Angelina fiber, a fat quarter, some batting, and what appears to be a very nice book about surface design on fabric, Art Cloth by Jane Dunnewold.

At first I was thinking I’d rather have made the choices, but though I haven’t looked at anything other than the mags yet, these all look great to me. When I get a chance to read/watch/use these goodies, I’ll pass along my 2¢ worth of opinion. The Cloth Paper Scissors Studios issue is very nice, full of inspirational photos of fab studios. If anyone wants to buy the 2011 “Flavor of the Month” Quilting Arts Calendar or any of these other goodies, click here.

What is that image at the top of this post, you may be wondering? It’s a close-up of the paper in the bottom row, second from the left (below). In a couple of different sessions, I cranked out loads of collage papers with the help of my artist friend Joyce and my 2 nieces. These were plain white cardstock, layered with regular and metallic acrylic paint and iridescent/metallic watercolors (from Daniel Smith.) Hmmm...except the one on the top right, which was painted on a restaurant napkin that was similar to interfacing, more substantial than the usual paper napkin.

The paper on the lower right was scribbled on with crayons, then painted with black paint, others were pressed together, stamped on, etc. It’s such fun to splash away without worrying about anything. One thing to remember when building up a stash of papers is to make plenty of light toned papers for contrast, and not just stick to the bright and dramatic colors. The plan is to use these in some upcoming collage work, along the line of these previous pieces. I also want to try these techniques on fabric, just am pressed for time at the moment.

Have a creative week!

Free Spirit will be auctioned for SAQA

Do you remember this wolf? I decided to donate him to Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) for their annual auction to benefit the group’s activities to increase awareness of art quilting. Almost 300 quilts are available, so there’s something for everyone. It starts on Monday, September 20, and is a reverse auction where the prices decrease every day until the works are sold. More details about how the auction works can be found here.


A large image of Free Spirit can be seen here. Two previous posts that show how he was made can be found here and here.


Have fun looking at all the artwork... it’s amazing to see what artists are doing with fabric, thread, and whatever else they can stitch on. : )