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!