More Collage Drawings

Am I now addicted to drawing little faces and critters on folded paper?  Maybe!

 I woke up this morning and wanted to try something as different as possible from the previous fun project as I could - and this is how it turned out.  I'm not certain what will go on the back of this little group.

I do think that my creative self is flexing her muscles as I get ready to try something different with fabric.  I wonder what it will look like.......

Collage Faces - A Different Approach

The previous post shows where how this latest little adventure started - a blank page and then some scraps of an Italian grammar book pasted down.  Here is a small copy of that almost blank page so you can compare it to the finished product and see how the shapes influenced the designs.

The direction the scraps of paper pointed me is especially evident in the lady with the hat.  Who would have thought of a hat? 

So this project was really fun and I enjoyed the various layers.  I painted over the pages with gesso to make the printing less evident.  Then painted the faces and surrounding area with Inktense Blocks.  Then drew in their facial features.  Then went "Yuck.  Boring".

I had not added any of the clothes at this point so I got out a box of old scraps of deli paper that I had gel printed years ago.  Can you tell that I keep everything?  I was really glad that I had these papers because they are so thin that they are easy to tear and glue down.

Once the clothes were in place I decided to keep going because I was having so much fun.   Here are some larger photos so you can see the details.

I added papers to the hat to add depth and interest, the hat lady's hair, the red hair, and the purple hair.

So there I was with this little foldy thing with faces on one side.  And nothing on the other.  What to do?  I didn't want to make four more faces but I didn't want it to be blank either.  Hmmm.  I had really enjoyed playing with the deli paper and I wanted to have some reference to faces to make it seem related to the other side...... and this is what happened.  The faces are sort of ghostly and floating but I like them.  So - project finished.  I wonder what will pop into my head next?

Collage Faces - In a Different Way

This is my second try at a series of collage or drawn faces.  Once again I started with an 11" x 15" sheet of watercolor paper and folded it and tore it in half lengthwise.  Then folded those pieces too.

The top photo shows how WHITE it looked.  Once again even to my brave eyes it looked a bit overwhelming.  So I tried a technique that I learned years ago - tear some pieces of magazine or book pages into random shapes and just glue them down.  No particular pattern. 

These pages are from an Italian grammar book.  I haunt the library free book events to get weird old books that I don't feel guilty tearing into.

The next step is to put a layer of gesso over the entire sheet.  This softens the paper shapes so they provide a vague guide but are not terribly specific.  And the gesso makes the surface toothy so it can easily be drawn and painted.  Who knows? This may or may not work - but it will be fun to try.

Collage Faces

I had fun playing with this idea.  Check out the previous post to see where it all started.

I started fussing around with the space and adding faces of all types.  With no particular plan in mind.  No matchy-matchy stuff here!




And I like the overall design.  I'm not going to fold it into the pages like I originally planned.  Actually I'm not sure what I will do with it - other than appreciate it for just plain being fun.

I think I will try a similar idea only draw the faces instead of using collage.  More freedom?  Maybe.

My creative muse is enjoying this playtime activity.

Small Face Collage

I am sort of poking about with ideas this week.  It is the week between Christmas and New Years and that is always an island of time with no particular plans for me.

And here is the first page of my idea.  I saw a folded little book full of collage faces on a site and liked the thought of having them all live together in a single project.  So I folded an 11" x 15" piece of watercolor paper in half vertically and then into rectangular shapes - one for each face.

And WOW was that flat white piece of paper overwhelming looking.  Yikes.  No idea where to start.  So I opened one of my many drawers of paper bits and started gluing chunks of random paper to the bottom of the pages  I think I will leave the page intact and just start adding faces and see where it goes. 

Maybe the hair of the faces on the bottom half will wind in with the hair of the faces on the top half?  Or not.

Magic Seeds

I made this quilt this past week.  On a whim.  I did not have any particular plan except I wanted to see if I could make a whole person in fabric. 

I traced a figure from a fashion magazine (it is really strange how they have models pose).  And no that person did not have pointy little hands and poky little feet and spikes coming out of their head!  But those embellishments seemed to grow as I put the fabric down. 

And sparkly Magic Seeds seemed to be necessary to add some action to the figure.

I may try this with the same design but a completely different fabric to see how that affects the energy of the piece.

This may lead to a class ---- using traced figures and finding the perfect fabric to communicate an idea.  Hmmmmm........

Winter - Finally

I finished the last quilt of my Earthwise Series. 

The last post that I made of this series was Fall on September 30.  Wow did it ever take a long time for me to finally get around to completing this series.

I have thought about why it took so long.  I think that it was choosing fabric that looked like Winter.  I kept thinking "blue and icy" but could not find fabric that inspired me.  And I was, frankly, scared to cut out the snowflakes with the Scan'nCut.  What would I do if the snowflakes did not work?

Amazing what fear can make one avoid trying. 

Anyway.  Here is the finished quilt.  I know the angle is a bit weird.  That is because all five of the Earthwise Series are hung along the stairway.  It is the only wall in the house that was large enough to hold them.  I like the way they look together and I am happy the series is finished. 

You may not be able to tell the sparkle of the fabric but there is a LOT of shiny sparkle in all of the fabrics.  Especially the snowflakes that are actually a fusible vinyl that is especially made for the Scan'nCut machine.  And the machine worked like a DREAM.  SO easy.  What a joy.  It actually makes me think about how to add more of this type of design to future quilts.




And here is a photo of all the quilts together on the wall

New Class - New Ideas - Fear and Trepidation

The past 10 days I have been taking a new on-line class through Jeanne Oliver Creative Network.  I am doing this voluntarily.  No one is making me.  But it is really hard and sort of scary.  This class is called Figuratively Speaking and the teacher is Dina Wakely.  Wonderful teacher.

But I do not have experience painting.  Full stop.  How card can it be you wonder?  Just a paintbrush and paint?  Well - that is what I thought.  It looks so easy when you watch someone on the computer - but then it is hard when you try it yourself.  I feel like a Klutz.

But - I did work thru the entire class and did the projects and took photos to share.  Here they are:

This is an exercise called Carrot People.  It is a technique used by watercolor artists to grab shapes of people.  Simple and fun to tilt their little bodies all over the place.

Then we traced the general outline of a person from a fashion magazine just to get their abstract shape.  Simple lines being the goal.  Then painted the tracing paper.  Have you ever painted tracing paper?  It wrinkles like crazy.  Then adding words with tissue paper printed with words and glued down, then gluing the whole person to a background.

Whew.  Again - not in my wheelhouse of skills.  BUT I learned a lot about adding both dark and light to the background to make it interesting.  I am a bit of a monochromatic artist so this was really good to think about and add.

Three more figures done the same way.  Spooky looking guys.

Then it got a little harder.  These are two tags where we painted and lettered randomly in the background and then painted around the figure.  All of the color in the figure is actually the background painting. You just have to imagine where the figure is and then start painting.  This is where I realized my lack of painting skill.  Yikes!  But - They turned out OK eventually.

Two more tags.  One of the new skills which is lots of fun is Asemic Writing, a wordless open semantic form of writing.  It is meant to draw the viewer into the piece to try to figure out the meaning.  It is sort of like organized scribbling with lots of loopy upper and lower parts.  It is against my basic nature to be sloppy in any way and this feels sloppy to me but it is also fun once you get started.

This is a detail of one of the tags.  You can see the weaving that was added after the paint dried.

And here is the final project.  Making a little booklet out of the larger piece of painted watercolor paper by folding and cutting and stitching and adding writing and stenciling.  And there is one of my little tracing paper people on the front.

The purpose of the book is to make a place for all of the little tags to live.  The book is constructed to leave little pockets between each page at the top so that the tags can be inserted.  This give you an idea of how that looks.



So here is my overall feeling about this class:
I am very grateful to have had this experience because it makes me realize once again, as a teacher, what it feels like to feel awkward and unsure and even embarrassed by what I am making as I learn a new skill.  I really think this will make me a better teacher.
And - this is good for my BRAIN.  It definitely feels like my brain s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d.  A good thing.

Some Days Are Like That!

This is a busy time of year and I have been distracted by things other than fabric art projects.  Lots of household tasks and lots of working on paper - painting little pictures and things like that.

Actually I have felt like my "muse" has taken a vacation for a while.  Do you have a Creative Muse?  I feel her presence whenever I am creating happily away in my studio.  Or just sitting somewhere with ideas for projects bombarding my imagination.  She is distinctly THERE or..... sometimes.... not.

So when she is away (presumably on a warm beach relaxing in the sun and drinking an umbrella drink) I miss her.  But I find other things to catch up on.  But ---- then I really want her to return and inspire me.  To do that I try to find a simple project with fabric that will get the creative juices flowing.

The picture above is what I worked on to do that this week.  It will be a lovely banner to hang between two trees in our front yard to welcome folks.  You can see what happens when my muse is away on vacation!

I was actually feeling quite happy with my little self when I finished sewing all the flags to string that would act as a hanger.  Until I held it up and realized...... oops!  I started laughing out loud.  I don't make mistakes like that!  I sent a photo to several friends to give them a laugh as well.

And then of course I fixed it today.  I do believe that Life has a grand way of reminding a person (especially when she is feeling sort of proud of herself) that she too is a bit goofy and silly at times.

Little Owl

The past few weeks I took a break from quilting and just did other things.  It is interesting to observe my creative meanderings - sometimes I just need to change gears and do something completely different. 

And I have really enjoyed the little paintings and the on-line class.

But I was ready to make a small quilt.  And this is the little guy that I made.

He is only 9x13 inches and he lives on the floor.  Yes a quilt on the floor.  Not where they usually live.

We have a wonderful water filter that removes the chlorine and the fluoride from our city water.  It sits on the counter with the spigot hanging over the edge of the counter.  So we need a little something to catch any small drips that may fall on the wood floor.  Voila!!  A little quilt. 

I like this guy.  I wasn't sure what else to add to his space but I like the simple branch shapes.  And I especially like the fabric that I found for his chest because it looks like feathers.  Hoot!

Four Little Paintings Get Together

Remember the painting class I took recently where I learned to use charcoal?  Well the last lesson in the class was mounting the drawings/paintings on wood panels. 

Wow.  I never would have thought of that myself.  But it was easy and it made them look so much more.... important?  Official?  Not sure the perfect word to describe the difference - but they looked surprisingly better. 

So I hung them up in a group.  The photo is slanted because they are in a narrow hallway and I couldn't get far enough from them to take a direct shot.  I would definitely take another class from this teacher because I learned SO much.  Now I just need to actually USE that new knowledge to make more drawings. 

Postcards

 I plan to participate in Off the Beaten Path Studio Tour next Fall.  People have such a good time visiting artists' studios that sometimes they like to buy a "little something" from the artist as a memento of that visit.

I was looking for something that reflected my style but was small enough to fill this purpose for some of my visitors.  An artist on this years tour had small postcard size drawings (I bought TWO!) and I am trying out that idea for myself.  So here are pics of some of them.  They are 4x6 inches and I will be getting some transparent mailer covers for them. 

A worthy (and FUN!) experiment.  I am having great fun making these little guys and isn't that what it is all about?

Another little guy....

Some of my card critters.....

Learning More New Things

So here is my first attempt at Pears.  Hmmmm.
It was hard.  Partly because I did not have the proper supplies.  I have a grand supply of acrylic paint - but not heavy body acrylic paint (which is apparently thicker and covers over other layers more effectively).

The process for this little painting was to start with looking at shapes and shadows and then paint those basic areas with a very dark paint.  Fine so far.  Then you use other colors to use the initial sketch as a base - and color over it.

That is where the problem occurred.  My paints would not cover the dark initial layer.  Hmmmm.  A challenge!!  How to proceed?

So I looked at the supplies that I did have - and added some gesso to the paint - and it worked pretty well.  It eventually covered.  I really did learn a huge amount by trying to add the right colors in the right places and to "see" the shades and shapes.  And I am happy with this for a first effort.  But I have a whole new respect for people who paint pears!!

And here is the last lesson.  A "loose sketch of a hummingbird showing motion".  Again hmmmmm.  I don't do "loose" very well.  It is apparently (for me at least) an acquired skill.  I will definitely try this again.

Overall - a GREAT class.  I learned so much about supplies and tools and about ME.  I can't wait to try some of the new techniques on drawing a face.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Learning New Things

Here is something that you probably don't know about me... I have never learned how to draw realistically.  I have great fun drawing whimsical imaginary critters and I can recreate faces in fabric - but I have never learned how to actually "draw" what I see.

So I am taking an on-line class.  And it is great.  My brain practically hurts from stretching but I am loving it.  I figure that anything new that I learn about art will add to my own fabric creations.  And it will certainly add to my art journals.

The class is called "Draw and See" and this first drawing is leaves (I know - obviously!).  But here is the thing that I learned:  It uses charcoal.  I never did that before and it is a whole different experience.  And it uses a technique of measuring distances and angles with a bamboo skewer.  Really!  Strange but surprisingly effective.

This is the second one.  Flowers (obviously!) but the technique starts with watercolor blobs in the general shape of the flower first - then charcoal.  And I was amazed that they actually do look like flowers.  Some more than others of course - but a good start.

And then a Bird.  Again using the bamboo skewer to be sure the drawing is accurate.  You would be amazed at the Ugly Stage this went through.  I truly did not think it would ever look like anything resembling a real bird.  But I am feeling more confident.


Obviously the teacher is excellent.  To lead someone like me with basically no experience to a point where I feel pleased with what I am learning and also looking forward to not only the rest of the lessons but also to making up my own challenges and seeing what I can draw is a real accomplishment.

This lesson was very strange - but my eyes are learning so much.  This is an eraser drawing.  Yup.  You start with a smeared charcoal background and start erasing to find the shape of the Moths.  Then add charcoal and white pastel and white ink.  Again using that goofy bamboo skewer to make the size and angles accurate.

I am especially amused by how different each of the lessons is - but how they all flow together and build on simple techniques and new combinations of different media. 

The next class is Pears.  Hmmm..... can't wait!

Fall

The latest in the EarthWise series.  Scroll down to find Mother Earth, Spring and Summer.

I hate to play favorites .... but this IS my favorite in this series.  I especially like the details of the eyes.  The design is not what I thought it would be when I started.

It was pretty obvious that if I made a quilt called Fall that it would include falling leaves.  Uh huh.  But in my head, there were four times as many leaves falling in the background.  And I really had no idea how to add interest to the head.

Funny how quilts just "tell you" what they want to be sometimes.  And I have learned that if I simply pay attention and do what the quilt wants to do - it works better than trying to force it into submitting to my original design idea.

Anyway I absolutely DO like the final quilt.  The Scan 'n Cut was essential to the success of this quilt because I could not have cut the leaf shapes without it.  I was rather challenged when it came time to figure out the quilting lines.  Go around the sharp angles of each leaf?  Nope.  Find a way to imply the motion of falling leaves?  Yes.  And the tiny beads and light colored thread really helps that motion become visible.

So Winter is next.  I am still unsure of the colors.... sparkly white? Or silver? Or blue?  We'll see........

By the Sea By the Sea.....

Do you remember in the last post one of the critters that was wearing a swim suit?  Well - she decided to become a quilt. 

I loved the design that my friend Betty made - it made me smile.  But when I started to make this little gal in fabric I had a terrible time!  I almost threw it away.  But when that happens, I try to keep plugging and figure out what is NOT working, and fix the problem.  I actually like the completed project.

She is standing in a lake and you can tell she got a little too much sunshine on her pink body.  She must have used more sunscreen on her face.  The blue sparkly fabric on the waves adds a lot of sparkle to the finished quilt. 

This quilt is what I call one of my "cleanse my palate" quilts.  I needed to just switch gears and do something completely different - and this really helped.  I am curious to see what I do next.

Creating with Friends

One of my favorite days each month is getting together with my Renegade friends.  We have been meeting each month for 14 or 15 years.  All of us are Art Quilters and we bring our latest projects to share and to get advice on when we run into challenges.  And we are Friends.  This meeting adds Joy to my life.

So this month I brought a project for us to try together.  I found the idea online and had such fun myself that I knew my buddies would make lovely little critters. 

Again it is very simple and uses just cardstock and scrap paper and glue.  Here are the designs that the Renegades made.....

3D Picasso Critters

I get the most wonderful and FUN ideas from the Carla Sonheim website.  Every summer she has kids classes for free - and since I am a Kid At Heart I always take part and have a good time doing things that I never would have imagined by myself.  

One of the projects this summer was to use cardstock and staples and markers and make 3D critters.  The one above is a big dog.  The others are a smaller dog and a chicken.

I had SOOO much fun making these crazy guys and figuring out how to decorate them with color and shapes was actually a really good exercise in thinking creatively.  Life can be such fun if you just let loose and trust your instincts.

 

Summer is Here

So here is Summer - the latest addition to the series.  I should probably think of a name for the series.... hmmmm.

Anyway - the inspiration for this one was the fabric that is the "body".  It is a beautiful scrap that my good friend Betty gifted me from the leftovers from her quilt.  It seemed perfect for this vibrant quilt.

I did run into lots of problems with the hair or flames or heat that is rising from Summer's head.  My original plan was to use the black with shapes fabric that makes up the interior of the flames right now - but of course it didn't look right because all you could see were free-floating blobs of color.  But once I changed to the other fabric those pieces fit right in like I planned it that way.








I also originally planned to have bright yellow lightening bolts shooting up from her head.  But that just looked stupid and confusing.  So I changed the plan and used variegated thread and then added beads.  Also some great beads on the eyelids.

Watching the Series Grow

 

Here is this series so far - the original sketch, Mother Earth and Spring.  I think the series itself deserves a name.... hmmmmm..... not sure yet.  But I do know that Summer is next!