Adding Shiva paintsticks to a whole cloth quilt

Last month, I had sewn up some whole cloth quilts, roughly 16" x 20", using some ice dyed fabrics. I had quilted and then painted two of them, which can be seen here.  I have two more that I had started, and I worked on one this weekend.

Here is my quilt with stitched clouds. I wanted the clouds to be more defined, so I decided to add white at the top of each cloud.

I used a white Shiva oil stick and a stencil brush to apply it.  After removing the waxy coating from the stick, I rubbed it on a piece of freezer paper.  Then I rubbed the stencil brush into the paint and then applied it to the fabric.  I could have used the oil stick directly on the fabric, but it would have been more opaque than I wanted.

Here is the finished piece.  After letting the paint air dry a couple days, I will iron it to heat set it.

I still have one more whole cloth quilt to finish, it has big pink flowers.  I have done the free-motion stitching, and will probably add some Setacolor transparent paints to enhance the colors. Off to the studio to finish it!

Marbling on fabric, part two

I did some marbling a few weeks ago, that post is here. I thought a lot of them could use a second layer. Also, I had problems with the paint adhering in the first session, so I wanted another layer in order to cover some of the sad parts.

The weather is much better this time, so I am working outside.  Here is my set up.  I have my carageenan mixture in the pan, and my diluted paints in little cups. I used a different pipette for each color.

Here I am putting paint drops in the carageenan mixture. I am pretty much using Jo Fitsell's technique for marbling.

Last time I had marbled one patchwork piece of dyed and painted fabrics, and I loved how it turned out. This time I am doing quite a few like this.  Here is my piece about to be laid into the pan.

I gently pat the surface to make sure there aren't any air bubbles.  I usually leave it resting in the pan until I can see the fabric is damp from the backside.  I used a mix of quilting cottons and canvas, and the canvas was slow to absorb the liquid.

Here is the piece just pulled off the surface.  As you can see, the colors of the original fabric make the paints look like different colors.

Wow, here are all my fabrics. I also did some wood pieces, and marbled on some paper collages.  

Here are some of the results.

And why not try cheesecloth?

 
I matted about fourteen pieces to sell at an art show in June.

My favorites are the patchwork pieces. Again, the marbled paint is the same color throughout but looks different depending on the fabric color underneath. The orange section is orange fabric, and the green/purple sections are on blue fabric.  I plan to mount the patchwork pieces on black painted canvas.

Colorado Mixed Media Club May meeting: stencils and gelli printing

Saturday was the May meeting of the Colorado Mixed Media Club. May is a pretty hectic month, so we did gelli printing with stencils, which we've played with before. This time, we made our own stencils using a thin graphic (mylar type) film, and made prints using a Gelli plate and open acylic paints.

Here are a bunch of Sabyl's stencils
 

Sabyl's plate while she is laying down stencils.

Here is one of Sabyl's demo prints.

Here is one of the stencils I made (using a photo of myself). This is after I printed with it.

My stencils of cone flowers.

Laurie at work.

Laurie's print.

Another of Laurie's.

Enid reviewing her prints.

Three prints of Enid's.

My print with my face stencil. I printed this on some canvas paper that already had paint on it.

My cone flowers.

The turquoise is a print from a flower stencil, printed on pre-painted freezer paper.

Susan's print using my stencil.

We had a good time, and I want to make some more stencils. The film we used was easy to cut, because it was very thin.

Denver Botanical Garden, field trip

The Denver Botanical Garden was having a plant sale on Friday and Saturday so admission was free.  I wanted to take some photos of the lily pads (for reference for an art piece) so I thought I would swing by. It was a beautiful, around 70 degrees and sunny, and I ended up wandering around for an hour an a half.

I am a sucker for poppies. My big ones at home should flower soon.

 The fruit trees were flowering.

I don't know what type of tree this is, but I liked the color contrast.

Columbines.

I am not sure what this is either.

 Peony.

Tree peony.

Even the cactus were blooming.

 
 Koi fish (for reference for an art piece as well).

All of the spring flowers were out: lilacs, irises, tulips, bleeding hearts, and lots of others. The next day, Sunday, we got lots of snow, so I wonder if they all survived.

Core WOW Show

Here are a few pictures from the reception at the Core WOW show on Friday night.


My piece is above me (with the pulley, arm, and bird).

A few of my friends had work in the show as well.

Gayla Ruckhaus ( the flower is felted wool, mounted to painted canvas).

Susan (Simone) Maxwell

Sabyl Horneck

I had a great night hanging out with friends before and after visiting the show.  I should have been getting down to the Denver night scene more often in the last few years.