More Greening

If this was a swirl of ribbons, I'd be using them in my stitch piece! I'm having to dig deeper into my stash to locate more varieties of green. We are to have several fabrics coloured with our colour of choice for our next class. I painted cheesecloth (top left) and next to it is felt and below are two close ups of cotton that I dyed with two different greens. I was hoping for a bit more contrast and may add some later. I do like the patterning on the cotton, though.

Tomorrow I will be part of a show opening at Satin Moon Quilt shop, along with the other members in my art quilt group. I've put four pieces in this year and expect a fun time looking at everyone's work.

Dyes and Paints

It's not Halloween yet - even though this may look a little gory! The dyeing was all on cloth! Pomegranate yielded a very subtle gold on this piece of old linen tablecloth.

And this is a Eucalyptus leaf overdye on top of a different kind of Eucalyptus leaf dyed piece of linen - which yielded yellows, this time.

As part of my art quilt group's surface design round robin, I painted small dots over the surface of some large feathers. We will include these half metre fabric pieces in our upcoming show in November.

Paint, dye and glue

Today I painted one of the blue glue gel resist pieces I worked on yesterday - the one of the sun and water - an impromptu drawing. The photo above it is a glue sketch I did of Lawren Harris' 'Mt. Lefroy' - not exact but another experiment I've been wanting to try. I also did two more glue resist fabrics - a circular one of an art deco style fish on linen and another that is a mixture of random patterns and drawings. So it looks like I have more painting ahead! I also dyed the cave style fabric - hoping the dye stick drawings would resist the dye, which they did - and the other ugly fabric I received as part of the challenge to make ugly fabric better, and I think the golden yellow improves both.

Paint When the Sun Shines

These are some of the fabric pieces that I painted today - the green/purple one and red/purple one both were attempts at sun printing and if you click on the green/purple one to enlarge it, you can just see the outline of two ivy leaves in the upper right corner. I have one piece with ferns that turned out somewhat better, but none came out as I had envisioned. I will have to try again. It was surprising how quickly they dried in the sun. I wrapped the red, yellow and green fabric with elastic bands spread at intervals and then squirted paint on and misted it with water. For the white, yellow, orange and turquoise piece, I wet the fabric and twisted it tightly then secured it with elastic around a can. I painted the colours at intervals, twisting the inside of the fabric facing the can outward, so it received some of the paint, too. The orange/salmon coloured fabric is folded in half on the diagonal and had yarn inside that I then rolled the fabric around, then tied tightly forming a ruched ring. I squirted paint on at intervals and misted it with water. I also tried salt with paint on other fabric, which yielded zero results, and I have one black piece still wet and folded that I tested some Stewart Gill 'Alchemy' on by painting the edges of the folds, turning them a lovely metallic blue. I will have to apply more paint and techniques to some of what I painted today see if I can get it to look more satisfactory.

Adding More Colour

After I finished embroidering the bouquet on this small quilt, I felt disappointed at how my eye wasn't drawn to the flowers, but to the vase. I could see that the brighter reds, yellows and oranges were not bold enough in just thread, so I decided to paint the petals in. The sample on the right is before painting. I've also been auditioning various fabrics for borders and hadn't found anything that felt right prior to painting, except the plaid for a 'tablecloth'. Maybe now it will be easier to make a selection.

Inspired to Paint

Last night I attended award winning quilter Gail Thomas' trunk show at Satin Moon Quilt Shop. You can see her work here: http://www.gailthomasart.com/quilts.php Gail warmly agreed to having her picture taken with me so that I could post it as a marker on my fabric journey. I enjoyed her open enthusiasm in sharing with us and her love for what she's creating. I especially resonated with how she sometimes paints and quilts from her dreams, receiving 'answers' to technical challenges that way, as well. I do alot of dreaming about fabrics and techniques and I'm glad the process keeps on working even when I'm in bed. One of Gail's pieces was done in watercolour pencil and covered with clear gesso when it was dry, for protection. Mostly, though, she uses 'Angel' paints from Vancouver's Gastown on her quilts because they keep the fabric's hand soft and allow for working in layers when thinned, and I decided to buy some since there happened to be a set available. I have been wanting to paint on fabric for a long time - and I decided to put these paints to use right away. I wet one side of my fabric and left the other dry to experiment with how the paint reacts. The tulips are on the dry side and it was just a quick rendering from my imagination. While the outlines stay sharper, I prefer the flow of working wet on wet. I did like the dry brush effect of the upper right corner. The blue/orange floral close-up was on the wet fabric. I'm considering whether to paint the sweatshirt I dyed yesterday - or maybe combine paint and fabrics, as Gail does in her pieces. I particularly like how she uses patterned and coloured fabric along with paint. Her stitching was beautiful - she uses a 14 quilting needle and quilter's cotton thread and wool batting and loves her Sapphire Husquavarna.

Surface design

I've been wanting to paint and stamp for awhile now and today became the day for a little experimentation. I plan to do some surface design every week. I used a piece of brown velvet and a mixture of types and brands of paint - both fabric and acrylic. After painting the little crochet piece I wondered if it would make a good stamp and tried it on a piece of paper towel. I like the result. For the square cotton piece I used a foam brush, rubber comb, a foam-tipped applicator and a pipette.

When colouring these pieces, I had nothing in mind and it would be interesting to instead use something to work with as a source of inspiration - even if it was just particular colours. I imagine adding stitch to make them more interesting - possibly shiva sticks, foils or beads. I could also see creating a 'stamped' quilt top with the crochet squares - they're like mini-mandalas.

I also read part of a book about design and I notice how I think about the various elements when I stamp and paint.