After getting so much out of Jane Davies’ book about abstract elements I decided to take an online “class” with her. I put class in quotes, because this was not interactive. You just download the content and do the exercises on your own. More like a book – although she does have interactive classes, too….
One of the great things about taking a class is that you get to learn from everyone around you. In my class with Rosalie Dace, she was very good about going around the room and coaching everyone. And she didn’t mind eavesdropping, so I overheard quite a few good tips. I thought you’d enjoy seeing…
Back in October, I wrote about creating torn paper collages in order to loosen up and to work more abstractly. Like this: Original photo Torn paper collage Because the paper is torn, you can’t be too accurate, so you HAVE to focus on the largest shapes. The fabric interpretation, Ti Party. One of my readers, Suzanne…
I’ve finished up the series of four pieces made from a stitched indigo sampler. See numbers one and two here. And numbers three and four below. I love the art paper with the circles, above. Piece #2 includes a bit of a dictionary page with the word “amusement” defined. Since I was doing these just…
After successfully cutting up a UFO (unfinished object) and using it as the starting point for some little collages, I was anxious to do it again. The question was “Which UFO do I use?” Because, well, I have more than one. Maybe I could do something with this partially constructed prickly pear. Or with this…
I have a white “silk” orchid that was very realistic looking when I purchased it several years ago. Over time, however, it has yellowed badly. I considered several ideas about how to best revamp these pretty petals. Eventually, I decided just to paint them, with ordinary acrylic paint. This worked well. I left the fiddly…
Every so often I like to spend a week or two doing something artistically different. Maybe with fabric or maybe not. At these times, I typically pick up a good art book and spend time reading it and working through some of the exercises. This time, it was Cas Holmes’ book, Stitch Stories. If you’re…
Have you heard about “painting” with Sharpies? The idea is to draw with a Sharpie on to fabric, and then to apply rubbing alcohol, which makes the color bleed in interesting ways. Here’s a quick tutorial. After reading it, I was ready to give it a try. I used a fine tipped black Sharpie, which…
As I mentioned in the last post, my art quilt group, Dirty Dozen Fiber Artists, often has group challenges based on drawing inspiration from a particular photo. This was the photo we selected for our 2009 challenge. Photo credit: Martha Wolfe We decided on a vertical orientation, with measurements of 18″ x 12″. Here’s the group display….
Have you ever printed onto fabric from your home printer? I’ve had good luck with it, but every now and then I want to print something larger. Like the background for Carefree. At 51″ high, I needed an online service to handle it for me. I used Modernyardage.com and was happy with the results. Recently I found…