Change, Art Journals, and Doodling

When I was a girl, I loved drawing and sketching.  As I began having more homework and and a part-time job in high school, I gave up those activities.  This year, I'm trying to relearn these skills.  I am also going to keep art journals, for practicing those skills, as well as mixed media art.  To get started on drawing/sketching again, I'm taking a variety of online classes:  two workshops (one on sketching, one on watercoloring) by Alisa Burke, and two of the free Strathmore online classes: doodling with Traci Bautista, and, later in the year, watercolor sketching with Carol Johnson.  

To approach the journaling, I joined the Art Journal Caravan (AJC) with Tangie Baxter at scrapbookgraphics.  This workshop provides a variety of weekly journaling prompts, guidance, and technique instruction, as well as a forum for group participation.  While scrapbookgraphics is a digital scrapbooking site, the AJC is open to digital, traditional, and hybrid participants.

One of Tangie's first challenges was to choose a word of the year.  "This a word that you will focus on for the WHOLE YEAR. Instead of setting so many overwhelming "New Year's Resolutions" for yourself, the idea is to find a word that inspires all your goals in one small word. A word that should be displayed prominently at your work space, in your journal, in your mental images. "  I've been doing that instead of resolutions for several years now, but Tangie added a new spin - create a personal symbol for your word of the year, and incorporate it into your journal.  

For a variety of reasons, my word this year is CHANGE.  While a butterfly first came to mind, after thinking about it, I realized that the butterfly represented the final stage of a process of change, and was not really what I wanted as my symbol. But it still spoke to me as being appropriate for my word. As I googled butterfly images, a few chrysalis images popped up and i had an "aha" moment. A chrysalis is a self-created safe haven for growth and change, for internally-directed adaptation. 

After googling a variety of chrysalises, I sketched and then watercolored this image.  A fantasy chrysalis in my favorite color, purple, with some bright yellow and greens for high contrast. The creation of it lived up to my word of the year - twice I thought I knew what I wanted, and executed the idea, and didn't like it. Instead of letting myself get upset, I changed my approach again until it all gelled and resulted in this piece of mixed media art - which I love.  It will reside to the left of my monitor where I can see it while I am working and creating.

Supplies: Watercolor: Caran d'ache Neocolor II; Pastels: PanPastels/Sofft Tools; 

Oil Pastels: Crayola Water Soluble; Ink: Dr. Ph. Martin's India Ink, Tattered Angels 

Glimmer Mist; Pens: Pigma Micron, atyou Spica; Paper: Pink Paislee, Strathmore 

400 Series watercolor 140 pound; Charm, Rub-ons: Pink Paislee; Adhesive: 3M, 

foam mounting tape; Other: sewing machine, thread, bubble wrap.

I wrote quotes having to do with change around the sides:  

• Nothing changes if nothing changes.  Anon.  
• Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle.  Martin Luther King, Jr.
• If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude.  Maya Angelou
• The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind.  Maya Angelou

Traci's doodling class began the day after New Year's.  While I was watching the video for the first lesson, Matthew joined me partway through and was fascinated.  He decided he wanted to take the class with me.  As we were working on the first layer, Jeremy poked his head in and decided he wanted in on the fun.  So we're all doing it together.  

The first lesson is about layers of color building up to the final project: first, spray acrylic or watercolor paint over stencils, then adding layers of marks with different media (paint, oil pastels, sharpies, markers, and white out).  It is not planned art, just free form marks and doodling.  The boys are still working on their projects, and I'll post them when they're done.  

Here are my first 2 attempts.  I like parts of both of them.  I used Glimmer Mist as the base layer on both pieces.  There is also Lumiere paint on one of the top layers on the first piece, and as you can see it reflects a lot of light.  These are meant to be used for other projects, and not used as art per se.  I'm leaning toward notepad covers and bookmark backs, but have not made up my mind yet.

Amaryllis Quilt and Christmas Gifts

I decorated for the holiday over the Thanksgiving weekend.  One of my favorite parts of decorating is pulling out my holiday quilts.  I'll try to feature a few of them here over the next few weeks.

I made this amaryllis quilt several years ago, from a Susan Du Laney pattern.  The flowers, leaves, and bulb are stuffed, giving wonderful relief from the background.  (No, I *still* haven't embroidered the roots. I also plan to add a little shading with chalks or Copic markers to the bottom of the bulb and the stem/leaf areas.  Someday.)  It is hung at the top of the stairs, and quite lovely to look at every time I walk upstairs during the holiday season.

One of my bees, Cyberbee, will have our annual holiday party on the 10th of December.  We only meet 4-6 times a year, several of which are all-day meetings.   It's all about catching up, sharing both food and sewing projects, show and tell (and what a great show and tell this one is with all the holiday quilts and gifts being shown off!), and a gift exchange for those who signed up.  The gift can be anything, store bought or hand made.  This year, I'll be giving some fabric, chocolate, and two handmade items: a needle book and a notebook cover. 

This is the needlebook.  One nice thing about quilting and scrapping is the number of tools that can be used for both types of project.  I used my die cutting machine and some QuikKutz and Tim Holtz dies to cut out the pieces for this needlebook.  The flowers are attached with french knots, and the leaves (which I hand cut) with a simple vein down the center.  All of the felt is from Papertrey Ink - they make a gorgeous range of colors and it cuts like butter.  I used a white lining and a piece of the melon berry felt for the inner leaves of the needlebook. The recipient's name is embroidered in the upper right quadrant, but I blurred it out in case she reads my blog.

The lining: 

The quilter who gets the needle book will also be getting this notebook and notebook cover:

I dyed dryer sheets with Dyna Flow to try to get green and teal colors that would coordinate with the background fabric.  While the green turned out great, the teal was not as bright as I had wished.  I pulled out the die cut machine again and cut a variety of circles and rings, then arranged them on top of 2 layers of un-dyed dryer sheets (to brighten the colors and reduce the transparency) below the colored circles.  I fused on a very thin layer of angelina fibers to give it some shimmer.  I layered the background fabric and a stabilizer, then free motion stitched the circles onto them and trimmed away the excess, undyed dryer sheets.  Some beads and couching with a variegated yarn in green and teals finished it up.

I made one more notebook cover; this one will probably be for one of the boys' teachers, and I'll be making another one for my other son's teachers. I went simple with this just fused a beautiful peony blossom onto a green pinked square, and added them to a dark brown speckled fabric.  A bit of stippling brightened up the brown fabric.

Seahorse Quilts

So I finished Jeremy's seahorse quilt before the end of August, but just haven't managed to get pictures taken and posted.  I made time to do so today.  When I wrote about it last, he'd had me paint onto the partially-quilted surface - a new adventure for me.  I then quilted in the water, using multiple shades of blue threads in the painted areas, and a slightly blued white thread in the unpainted parts of the background.  In keeping with his preference for all things shiny, all of the threads were shimmery and glittery.  I also added some hotfix crystals for "bubbles".  I satin stitched the edges and couched a single frame of a multihued fiber (perfect for this little quilt, with blues, teals and browns) around the outer edge.  

I brought it to Jeremy, showed it to him, and asked him if he liked it.  Those of you who read this post are probably shaking your heads right now, thinking "she'll never learn."  Sure enough, Jeremy did not agree with me that the piece was complete.  He looked at it for a few minutes, told me how much he loved the paint and the crystals, and then informed me that it needed another row of the fibers along the outer edge, just a little bit apart from the first one.

"No, it's fine as it is", I insisted.  It looked complete to me.  But he turned on those baby blues of his and I added another row of the fiber.  And I have to admit, that while it was just fine with one fiber border, the second border really added definition and set off the piece better.  And here it is:

And a detail shot of the seahorse on the bottom:

This was a great piece for me to practice with new techniques before going onto the bigger piece.  I also learned that Jeremy has a good, intuitive eye for balance and design, and is NOT afraid to share his opinion when asked for it.

So I moved onto the original piece I had intended to make before this little side trip.  It is a beach-themed, mixed media piece called "Live in the Current".

The 3 main panels were cut from felted wool, in shades of blue, green, and purple, that was needle felted directly to batting.  After the felting was done, I hand-stitched a variety of fibers on the top, and did some embroidery as well.  I fused the needle felted sheet to timtex to give it some stiffness, added backing, and did light machine quilting to give additional texture.  I then cut it into three panels, and did a double-layer of satin stitch in a variegated thread to finish them off.

The "library cards" are digital images by Katie Pertiet (Library Card Collection: Seaside) that were printed onto background fabric that I made in Susan Brubaker Knapp's class in June.  The background fabric was painted with very dilute Lumiere paint, and it glitters slightly.  I batted and back them, then stitched outline stitched the critters and the lines of the index cards with Monopoly thread.  I inked the edges for a little more definition, and attached them to the felted cards with small clips.

The background has the same seahorse and seaweed used in Jeremy's quilt on the right, as well as a shell on the top-left corner.  These were stenciled with Shiva paint sticks.  I used two of the images from Katie Pertiet's Beachy Clusters to create the layers and cut stencils.  I used a Silhouette America cut file to create a stencil for the seaweed.

To create the title, I used letter stamps (by Autumn Leaves), then filled in the letters using Copic markers.  I added a little bit of sparkle to those letters by selectively outlining with a Spica glitter pen.  After quilting it, I decided to add a little blue and purple color to the background with Faber Castel Gelatos, and using water and a stencil brush to dilute the color across the background in washes. I decided not to bind it, and instead, faced and turned the edges, so the design goes right to the edge.

Jeremy's Seahorse Quilt

I'm working on a mixed media piece.  (Some of the background fabric was shown in yesterday's post.)  It will be a tryptich-style for the main elements, in a sea theme, but on a stenciled, painted, and quilted background, which looks like sand.

Using my Silhouette and a seaweed cut file from the Silhouette studio, I created a vinyl mask for the seaweed, then adhered it to the fabric and applied Lumiere paint.  However, it was too wet, and bled a lot around the stencil edges.  My son Jeremy wanted it, though, so I decided to use it as practice piece for the background to the mixed-media piece, and to give it to him when it's done.

With the Silhouette and a seahorse cutfile, I used Shiva paintsticks to add two seahorses.  Being a semi-solid, I didn't have trouble with the Shiva paint bleeding under the vinyl mask. After the paints had cured and been ironed, I was able to quilt the images today.  Using Madeira Glamour threads to add more sparkle (because Jeremy loves all things shiny), I added detail to the seahorses and outlined the seaweed.

When I showed it to Jeremy and asked if he wanted wavy lines for the water, he told me I needed to paint a few areas with blue - not too much - and use that for the water.  While he didn't realize it, it was a great, out-of-the-box challenge  for me.  I pulled out my Twinkling H2O watercolors to add the color and yet more shine.  (These paints have mica flakes in them for added shimmer.)   While it's not perfect, I like the way it came out and it was a great practice piece.

Now it's drying, and I hope to finish quilting in the water tomorrow, and get it bound (or perhaps edge finished with some fibers) and hanging in his room.  And then to complete the mixed media piece...

Surface Design Madness

Time got away from me and I'm finally posting about the surface design class I took with Susan Brubaker Knapp at the NC Quilt Symposium.

We started off playing with Tyvek - that plastic stuff they wrap houses in before putting on siding.  It got painted with Lumiere paints, then you place it between parchment paper and heat it with an iron and it gets all bubbly and the colors intensify.  Depending on which side (painted or not) is up, you get bubbles or craters.  The fish below is 3 pieces; the fins were odd shapes that shrunk like that on their own.  I did a little "surgery" on the fish body (the tail fins) to get the shape I wanted.  These are 3 separate pieces, but can now be glued or sewn onto whatever base I want to use.

The beads to the left of the fish are tyvek beads, made by painting, wrapping around skewers, then heating.  They were then wrapped with wire and beads.  The bit up at the top is angelina, heated on an inked rubber stamp. 

We did a lot with the Lumiere paints.  In the next image, fusible web was painted with Lumiere and when it was mostly dry, ironed onto fabric.  I had one large piece of fusible web, painted with blue and blue-green, and cut it in half.  You can see how the background color makes it look bluer (on the white fabric ) and more silver (on the black fabric).  The bits that peeled away were still wet when ironed, which could be used as a deliberate technique for making something look distressed.  But I'll have to be careful to place parchment paper over them if I have to iron them, unless I want to glue my iron to the ironing board!

This is lumiere painted onto steam a seam fusible web that had  been pre-wet.  The pre-wetting helped the paint colors run together.  It was ironed on wet.  The left side of the image below is the painted fusible web - bright and shiny.  However, I ended up liking the back side even more - some of the paint came through to the back, giving a subtle shine in organic shapes. I think it would be great for backgrounds.

We also played with diluted Lumiere.   I took a bit of my plain white fabric and dipped into diluted purple paint.  The shine remained, but I over-diluted it and it was a barely there lilac color after wringing out the fabric.  So I added a few globs of teal and purple and smooshed the fabric all around and ended up with this.  I'm currently using it as background fabric for some digitally-printed images.

We played with Shiva sticks too, using them on top of templates.  I was boring and just did one color per plate.  Some of the more adventurous gals mixed a bunch of images and created their own multi-patterned fabrics.

And here is, hands-down, my favorite piece of the day.  We used Caran d'ache Neocolor crayons directly on the fabric to color an image, then used water and paintbrushes to paint them out.  I am not practiced at drawing, but I do know (thanks to the inspiration wednesday videos that Donna Downey posts on her blog) how to draw a poppy.  So I did that with purple crayons, and gave them a gold/orange background.  I'll be quilting this piece and hanging it in my office/sewing room because it's just so bright and cheerful. 

Susan is a fabulous teacher - she did a great job of explaining her techniques, the various modifications that could be made, and then stepping back and letting us "play".  I'd happily take another class with her!  Here is a link to her blog, Blue Moon River.

Quilted and Needle Felted iPad Bag

For our 10th anniversary, Ryan spoiled me with an iPad2, with a slick little magnetic cover.  I love it, and it's been great for all the waiting-around time I have with the kids (carpool, games, practices, etc.).

At the NCQSI a few weeks ago, I got some fun fibers from the YLI booth - organic cotton, hand dyed lacings (think shoe lace like), which, if you pulled up one thread, ruched beautifully.


I pulled out my needle felter, some blue scrim, various wool pre-felts and wool rovings, and some silk carrier rods and had fun making this fabric.  After the wools and silks were attached, I machine quilted it using variegated thread in a plaid pattern.  I then ruched up some of the lacing and added it to the top of the piece.

Today I made it into a padded bag to hold my iPad.  While I had picked out a glorious sunflower fabric to be the back side, Jeremy wanted something a little less "girly looking" for when he gets a chance to use the iPad.  So I switched to this mosaic-style fabric instead.

I decided to use piping around the top edge, to give a more finished look, and a flap to make sure that the iPad doesn't fall out.  I had recently picked up some of Nancy Zieman's Wrap 'n Fuse Piping and decided to give it a try.

 I had two pieces of piping in about 2 minutes (cutting out the fabric strips and ironing it around the piping).  I made a 3" wide flap, added the buttonhole, both miraculously BEFORE sewing the bag together.  

Everything But the Kitchen Sink

I've spent little bits of time playing with my craft machines in the last few months: sewing machine, felting machine, die cutting machine, and computer.  Mostly just playing to try different techniques.

I wanted to do a small fall piece with the colors of the turning leaves.  I used wool fleece and wool roving to make a mixed-colors sheet of felt, then cut the leaves out of it using some of Papertrey Ink's leaf dies.  The digital images were layered and printed directly onto the canvas.  For the tree and ground, I needle felted wool fleece and roving directly onto the canvas and burlap, then quilted it to batting and backing fabric.  I attached the leaves last, using a single line of stitching as a vein to anchor the leaves to the surface but allow them to move a bit when there's a bit of a breeze.

Every Leaf.  Digital Supplies: Word art: Fall WordTransfers
No. 1 by Anna Aspnes, Designer Spotlight Sept 2007 by Sue Cummings;
Paper: Autumnal No. 2 Paperie by Anna Aspnes; Dies: Leaf Prints Collection
by Papertrey Ink; Canvas: Sticky-back Canvas by Claudine Helmuth;

Other: wool fleece, wool roving (Living Felt), thread (Valdani, Superior),
sewing and felting machines (both Janome), die cutting machine (Provo Craft).