Art Club, paint and collage project

 I recently started an art group through the UNK Women's Club and our first meeting was this weekend.

We worked on a painted and collaged piece inspired from a Lynne Perrella class I took many years ago.

We used four paint colors and photocopied images to create our artwork. We also cut out our images to create a stencil.


Here is the group at work.

 

 And here are our pieces.

Caroline

Debra

Melissa

Laura

Cristina

Annarose

Lisa's, in progress, I don't have a picture of it in a more complete state

Mine

Diana left before I remembered to take pictures, so her piece is missing from the gallery. (Sad face).

We had a great time, ate Melissa's excellent coconut brownies, and had wonderful artwork in the end.

Garden Path, Certificate of Merit at the Grand Island Art in the Park

My piece, Garden Path, won a Certificate of Merit at the Grand Island Art in the Park yesterday. It is so wonderful to get recognition for my artwork!

And I got a fancy pink and purple ribbon (and cash award) as well!

Best art/experiments of 2014

This week I have been looking at some blogs that re-cap their favorite projects of the year and I thought it was a great idea.  Then I got somewhat depressed because I didn't feel like I have been very productive this year. 

I figured I could find at least a few projects to highlight, and went through my blog posts for this year. Looking through my posts actually made me feel like I had accomplished a lot, especially since we moved to a different state this summer and we have been spending a lot of time on home renovation projects. So here are my highlights...

Here are my favorite experiments from 2014:

Marbling on fabric

Sunprinting with branches and leaves

Sunprinting on interfacing with stencils

Painting over a quilt

Textile art (inspired by the Cas Holmes class I took in the spring)

Here are my favorite finished projects from 2014:

Fabric/paper collage

 

 

 

Coral art quilt

Storage box with gelli prints

Gelli printing

These are just the best examples of these techniques and art pieces. I really enjoyed gelli printing this year and have a home decor project lined up for a gelli printed collage.  I also would like to complete a lot of my unfinished projects in 2015 as well.  The basement renovation should be complete around the end of January and then I can move into my studio space and unpack all my supplies. We also will be done with home renovations for a while, so I hope to have more time for making art as well.

Wishing you all a great New Year!

Gelli print collaged storage box

I bought this storage box at a yard sale.  I thought it would make a nice travel box for some of my art supplies. It is very lightweight and a nice size.

I gessoed it first, before collaging it, because sometimes the gelli prints on deli paper are somewhat translucent and I didn't want the original colors peeking through. I did brush on some paint colors while I was gessoing.

Then, I collaged different gelli prints on it, both on the inside and the outside. All of the papers are gelli prints, mainly on deli paper, but there are a few on thicker paper as well. I used Matte Medium to adhere my papers, but it did create a few wrinkles on some of the larger pieces of paper. I wasn't too worried about a few wrinkles, as most likely anyone that sees it will say, "cool box" and not "look at that wrinkle!". I like to put the matte medium on the box and the backside of the paper, put the paper on the box, and then apply medium over the top of the paper.

Front Side. The paper on the right is made with one of my favorite stencils, Julie Fei Fan Balzer's Aboriginal.

Back Side. The cacti landscape is a stencil I made from a photo, you can see the blog post showing how I made it here.

The gelli printed face in the interior was from a stencil that I made from a picture of myself.  Here is the blog post showing the stencil (and the coneflower stencil that is on the front of the box). To make the stencils, I put a piece of Mylar over the enlarged photo, traced the outlines with a pencil, and then cut it out with scissors and an Xacto knife.

I did apply a coat of Dorland's wax medium on the box, once the matte medium was dry.  Mainly this was so the box wouldn't seal itself shut, or pull up paint or paper when it is opened and closed. It was the first time I'd used the Dorland's wax, which is oil/solvent based. I just applied it with a lint free rag, and after a few days I buffed it with a clean rag.  The box seemed kind of waxy and greasy when I first applied it but it is just fine now, and the lid doesn't stick so it did the job.

I love it and it fits a bunch of stuff (I just threw in a few things)!

Gelli print collaged brush storage

Today I have a guest post on Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's blog, where I create variegated arrow strips using her Chevron stencil.  Thanks Julie, for letting me share my technique on your blog!  You can see my guest post here.

I thought I would provide some additional photos of the container that I collaged with the variegated arrow papers (as well as some other gelli prints that I have).

I bought this container at the thift store for a couple bucks. It is supposed to be for holding silverware, but I thought it would make a great brush and pen holder.

I only collaged the outside, leaving the interior lime green.  I put a coat of gesso on the outside, as my gelli prints on deli paper are somewhat translucent.

Here are a bunch of different gelli prints I used. I cut them into strips with my paper cutter, then cut then into rectangles and squares with scissors.

Here is my finished container!

On my work table

Between renovating a bathroom and increasing my hours at work, I haven't blogged in quite a while. I have not finished any art in the last two weeks, but I have quite a few in process so I thought I'd show what I am working on. I will do bigger posts on each when I am done.

This is an fabric piece made from polyester fabrics, lutradur, and gelli printed interfacing.  I plan to do quite a bit of free motion stitching (with cotton thread) and then will zap it with a heat gun. I think it's looking pretty good. I may add some paint after zapping it as I think it needs more contrast.

I am working on collaging gelli prints on this storage box. I just  need to find my Dorland's wax so the edges don't get stuck together when it is closed, otherwise this one is done.

Then I decided to pull out my felting supplies.  I thought they were all in one large plastic storage box. But once I pulled out all the supplies, this is the pile.  And there are still a few things I haven't found (must be stored in the garage somewhere), like my favorite roller and my sprinkle bottle for soapy water.

Here are my felting experiments.  I am working on making some felted cuffs/wrist warmers, but also did some experimenting with nuno felting and resists.  The ones with the balls tied in them are not fulled enough to remove the balls. I plan to cut them open so you can see the interior.

These are the projects I have in progress. I expect things will be busy until Thanksgiving. By then, I hope to have the clawfoot tub moved back in the bathroom, instead of being in the middle of the living room (where it was moved to allow the bathroom floor to be tiled). And hopefully, we will have the new vanity installed by then as well.  December will be another wave of craziness as we have the basement remodeled.  I may have a studio of my own by spring (at this rate).

Art with gelli prints on deli paper and interfacing

I really loved the translucent quality of gelli prints on interfacing, and wanted to layer them with some paper prints. Here is a detail of the final piece.

To create this, I took this gelli print on interfacing (this piece was lying on a table, so the picture is from an angle).

 And this gelli print on deli paper

And I hand stitched around the figures to attach them to one another.

 
It looked pretty cool, but most of the deli paper print is obscured.

So I took out my trusty embossing gun (outside for good ventilation and on concrete so I didn't catch anything else on fire, with a tub of water at the ready just in case) and melted away some of the interfacing.  I love how it looks!

Embrace the Orange

One of the things that Cas did on the first day of the workshop, was to give each person a color chip and we were to use this color in our work.  She made sure not to give us our favorite color.  I got orange (liquid amber  - a nice yellow orange).  I rarely use orange in my work, but actually like it and was up for the challenge. 

The first few pieces I worked on were orange and a purply-blue, but I found the contrast too strong.  My other problem was that we were working small, and I just made them too busy.  I created four small ones and my favorite one disappeared. I think it fell out of my bag in the parking lot. I guess I am practicing (accidental) art abandonment.

This one is lost:

This one I added some hand embroidery:

I worked on some bigger pieces the next day, one almost completely orange and another almost completely blue-purple.  I think they are a nice start, but I need to work on finishing them.

I also started three other panels in a cream/green color scheme and look forward to working on them as well.

I really liked pushing my boundaries with the orange color.  I know I have some orange in my stash so I will try to include it in other work.  I loved working with the techniques I learned in the workshop and look forward to using it more.  Unfortunately I have a large stack of work-in-progress that needs to be addressed before I continue with these or start other pieces.