Spray Time on Off the Wall Friday

Finally ready to Quilt!

How in the world are we looking at March already?  I mean you wouldn't know it since we are

expecting 6" of snow tonight...but still!  I look at my "Things to Do" list on my studio wall and thought I better start getting back after it!   One project I left on the back burner is the Cherrywood Challenge.  When I say on the back burner, I really mean, it's been ruminating around in my snow-covered mind, but I haven't actually done anything yet.   Back in October, it seemed like I had so much time to get this 20" square done!

So tonight, I  took the plunge and finally broke out my new toy, the  Crayola Air Marker Sprayer.  (see it really is a toy!!)  

The rule of the challenge is that you
can only use the fabric in the kit, but they encourage you to manipulate that fabric in any way your heart desires.  Of course, my heart desires all things Crayola (show of hands.... whose with me on this?? )  Isn't one of the best things about being an adult is that you can buy anything in the Crayola aisle that you want??  In my initial research, I discovered that Crayola makes this nifty marker sprayer which is geared toward kids 7-10, so I thought - Perfect - I can do this!

I discovered tonight that yes....I....can.  It was indeed as easy as it looked!  You just choose a color marker, screw it into the end of the gun, point and pull the trigger.  Easy-Peasy!!  You don't even have to clean it between colors.  The kit comes with paper, little markers, and stencils but who needs those when you can buy a monster 40 marker set from Crayola.  I'm thinkin' that I should be able to find the colors I need in there. 

 

As you can see there obviously is a learning curve but I literally only played with it for about 15 minutes.  It works just as nice on fabric as it does on paper.  I really could have played with it longer but ..ya know... I have a post to write!  

Muslin

The plan is to use the sprayer to give some real-life dimension to the graffiti.  How??? I haven't quite worked out but at least I'm on the right path.  I'll keep you posted!

Under things I Like....

Today was a good mail day!  Don't you love a good mail day?!   My eBay package of Tim Holtz's  Eclectic Elements fat quarters came in.  You see I've been hoarding my bonus points at work to buy myself something I totally didn't need but really, really wanted.  I finally cashed them in for an eBay gift card to buy these amazing fabrics.  When they came today, I was so excited knowing they didn't cost me a dime and I could buy them ... just to buy them!!  I personally think that Tim Holtz and his marketing team are brilliant to finally bringing his designs into fabric.  So many mixed media uses!  

Of course, I don't have anything specific planned yet.  I think I'll just fondle them for a while!

So What Have You Been Up to Creatively?

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Sip-n-Paint Pumpkins on Off the Wall Friday

 First of all I want to say SORRY for setting last week's post  to go off on a Saturday instead of last Friday.  We are in the middle of Fall Rush at work and I'm talking to 55 ladies a day...I swear I don't know  if I'm coming or going!

So this week I had fun!  Social Fun!!  Yes, I said it ....socializing fun!  For the first time, I tried a Sip-n-Paint.  Now, I know this type of event has been around for a while, but I sew ...not paint so I've never tried it.  Our local volunteer fire department hosted the event and the picture was pretty so I thought I would give it a try.  Not to mention, I got my best work friend to come out and do it with me.  Let me tell you, when you work from home, seeing your best friend is always a treat!

I was pleasantly surprised.  It was the most fun, lowest maintenance evening I've had in a long while.  I'll let the photos tell the story!

Easy, Fun Low Maintenance!  What more can you ask for!  This week I'm up at my parents cabin visiting so I brought my pinwheels and get back to sewing!

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Class with Emily Richardson - Off the Wall Friday

Basically the Before

Ready to Paint!

So the artist/teacher Emily Richardson finally was rescheduled this year to return to Quilting by the Lake to teacher the class Inspiration Through Reflection: Painting Fabric, Creating Quilts. I believe this was her 5th time at the conference over the last 20 years.  Even though I loved her work, I just wasn't in a place that I thought I could confidently be taught what she did.  BUT this year, I was and I'm so glad I did!!  


At QBL, some years I learn just a bit and play a lot; some years I learn a LOT of stuff and play not at all.  I've had a couple really crappy years where I kept waking up each day and think OMG why did I take this class???  THIS year I really had a creative breakthrough and an amazing lot of fun!!  I would look up at Emily and say at least a couple of times a day, "I'm really  having a good time!!"

My OMG why didn't I take up knitting when I had a chance!

Now going in I really didn't have a clear idea  of what we are going to do.  But I did know that I didn't think she was going to show us how she created and show us how to do it!!  BOY was I wrong.  We had a nice range of 21 ladies in class  - some with a ton of surface design experience, some with a ton of design experience, ladies who had made very few art quilts and even a lady who  really hadn't made a quilt yet.  And Emily taught us all....no matter where we were on our creative journey she found us and dragged us along till we got the hang of it.  The class looked like an art gallery when we were done.

So Here's What We Did:

On the first day of class, I promised Emily I was going to jump on her train and follow her directions.  This really is  not my style.  I mean I love rules....right up to the point that I think their stupid.  But if you just stay in your little box and never step out,  you will never progress.  (maybe I should send that to the leaders of the two major political parties).

Getting the hang of it

hmmmm, Sorry, I digress....

For the first two days we painted mostly silk.  The supply list came with a relatively inexpensive supply kit that contained all sorts of silk types for us to experiment with. Plus I brought all my silk scraps  too.  We stacked the fabric and just started painting.  I would be lying if I said at this point I had a clue of how I was suppose to paint but Emily said just get some paint on the silk so that's what I did (as you can see from the picture).  But with each following painting session, I had more an idea of how it was going to come out and what kind of effects I liked best.  Really, though all the fabric came out usable.  Maybe not amazing usable, but it will do usable.

MUCH Happier With this one

By  Day 3, we put all the paint away, and started to design. Emily gave us instructions on how basically put the fabric up and fill up your piece. THEN you were suppose to move things around by what you liked and what you didn't.  What bothered you...what you didn't,..she gave us a list of things on how to evaluate your piece so you know when it was done and that was a skill I really needed to work on.  But really not many of us started with a clear idea of how it was going to come out and that's how she does it.  At the end THEN she titles it.  Totally different with how I work.

By the end of Day 3, I finished my first trial which Emily thought was almost there.  She walked up and looked at the piece - looked at my silk pile .... grabbed  the right piece and put it in the right place.  PERFECT....so apparently you get better at this with years of practice.  Although that saved me a TON of trials, I still like to do my own work.  I asked if I could do another one that looked more like me and less derivative of Emily's work.  She gave me a look because normally classes start sewing it down but once mine was basted I thought I could do the rest at home. (Most everyone did more than one...some even did three!  She said she never had a class do that!)

Actually this one came out the best....you really don't know you're going until you iron the out!!

Day 4/5 was spent doing a much bigger piece more in my own compositional style and it went  together  much easier.  By Friday at 2:00 pm, it was all basted and ready for our last evaluations.  I'm leaving that piece for another post but I really love it!!

My first piece ...not super big 14" by 20"

Two weeks later, I still haven't made it back into my studio to figure how how to finish sewing them.  But I will  this weekend.

Now we're cooking....ooops Painting!

So to sum it up....If you ever get a chance to take a class with Emily ... DO IT!!  She has a unique teaching style which is totally her.  She's a lovely lady.  Quiet on the outside but really has a nice dry sense of humor underneath. She's VERY generous with her process.  She's one of the few teacher/artist that doesn't do this to be in the limelight.  In fact, I'm thinking that is the last place she wants to be.  I think she creates to share the beauty of her work with the world.  And yessssss...it was super fun to soak it in all week!

I love this picture!

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Silk Painting 101 - Off the Wall Friday

The painting Studio

So I decided to not take a quilting class at John C. Campbell Folk School.  Okay, in my defense when I signed up last November for Silk Painting with Vicky Luffman, I really had no idea what it was.  I mean I thought I knew what it was.  You paint on silk right?!?  But gosh I've been in the surface design quilt world for so long that I thought we would go in and put some paint on silk and then it would be made into something else. But no!!  Apparently, people actually paint on silk - with brushes - paintings on actual silk.  And she wanted me to do THAT!

I don't paint.  No really, I don't paint ever.

On Monday morning, I was thinking what did I get myself into!!   I swear to God if I had my sewing machine I would have changed to the doll making class going on in the quilt studio in a hot minute.  And I would have missed an amazing experience.

My Sketch from a Photo Inspiration

After a Monday night dinner bemoaning that I don't paint to my husband and anybody else that would listen, I put on my big girl pants and gave it my all.  It really is a versatile  medium full of so many surprises and nuances.

Stretching the silk and adding Resist

You first  start out with inspiration and a sketch.  Vicky brought many sketches to trace for those of us who don't draw.  She asked me if I wanted to trace one of hers or maybe she could draw what I wanted but after the look I gave her, I think she figured out that I wasn't that kind of girl. I figured if I was going to go down, I was going to go down with my own work.

Learning how to dry brush  -obviously its an acquired skill

We took 10 mm habotai silk and stretched it onto bars tacking it down with push pins.  Then our sketch was traced onto the lightly with a pencil.  Painting on silk is not like painting on canvas.  First of all, we weren't using paint.  We were using acid dyes.  Secondly, that dye will migrate through the silk like a hot knife through butter if you don't stop it with something.  We used a water based resist method which formed lines through our work and kept each color where it should go.  Now if you put the resist down on the white silk - it will leave a white line.  If you paint underneath it (called dry painting), it will leave that color line you painted.  Of course, I decided to do a lot of dry painting which doubled my work.

Sometime Tuesday morning, I realized that although I didn't know how to paint, I did know a lot about composition, value and color.  That was when it clicked.  I just started thinking of the dyes as fabric and started using them as such in my piece.  My life became much easier.  As I worked on my one little painting over 3 days though, my classmates were doing two, three or four of them.  Still the rule at John C. Campbell's is that this is NOT a competition.  There were only a couple of people in the class who had painted before so I wasn't the only beginner!

Sunshine at John C. Campbell's, Nina-Marie Sayre, 2019

Once the initial painting was done, it needed to dry thoroughly, then placed in a steam bath for two hours to set.  The resist is then washed off and you iron it dry.  And Wha- La.....You have a painting.  I did two others but this was my main piece.  I was so glad I chose a piece that I could play with how the dye hit the silk and how the colors mixed together.

Talking to my whole class, I think everyone had fun.  We were tired....I painted till 8 or 9 every night but I learned so much.  We also learned how to dye scarves.  Well my class learned how to dye scarves!  Apparently silk scarves are dyed just like cotton (even in their own version of the Red Solo Cup Dyeing method).  This I knew how to do so I just kept learning how to use a brush.  To paint.  An actual picture.

Peaking in on Paul

Where was my husband  during all of this???  Well he took a Windsor chair class.  Now Paul is an accomplished woodworker.  He tends to do artisan functional pieces.  This one, however, was all done by hand.  When I would mention to people that Paul was in that class, they all laughed and said don't plan on seeing him much.  And they were right.  We met up for meals and 11 pm for bed where he was snoring in 30 seconds.  Still his whole class managed to make a Windsor chair in less
than 5 days.  Now he just needs to make 5 more....grin

Tired Paul sitting on his new chair

Looking back at the class as a newly retired painter, I can highly recommend Vicky as a teacher.  She was ridiculously energetic and generous with her time.  She stayed every night to teach till 9 pm.  She came early to clean the gorgeous studio and she was our biggest cheerleader.   Really all the teachers were top notch at the school.  I didn't hear one bad comment about any of them and several - like Vicki - had taught there for several years.  I like how they made even the very beginning beginner feel successful  by the end of the week.

Some of my Classes Work

So did I find a new passion....ahhhhh no.......truth be told I missed fabric terribly the whole week.  But now I totally learned what I originally set out to do.  I can now surface design and paint on silk proficiently to be used in my own work.  I even came home with enough supplies to play with this summer.

My Class' Selfie , That is Vicky on the far right with gorgeous white hair

I love, love, love this Picture - It makes me smile!

If anybody has any questions about the school, or class or silk painting method please leave them in the comment section and I'll answer them there.  

So What You Been Up to Creatively?

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Watchin' the Paint Dry - Off the Wall Friday

So, I have a confession.  Now that spring rush is done at work, I took a couple of days off to catch up a bit around the house and spend some major time in my studio.  Instead, I slept 5 hours on the couch. *Blush*

The good news is that I did get a couple of hours in the studio, painting my organza.  For the last month, I've been reading books and blogs on how other artists have treated their organza.  And you know what I found?  That they basically winged it.  So that was

what I was going to do.

Basically, all I did was play with paint, water, and the silk.  I sprayed it down with water and painted it orange with textile paint (remember I suppose to be working on my lily project - I'm partial to day lilies).  I mixed yellow in.  I used it as a base and made a monoprint with another piece.  I made another adding more paint -

less water.  It just went on and on until I ran out of time.
And space.

Which brings up another problem of this whole painting fabric thing.  Spring on Lake Erie is not a pretty thing most days.  We still have a lot of gray, cold, wet, weather.  Oh, and snow.  (Yes it
snowed today).  So, where to hang all of these to dry.  I mean if I wait for it be a warm sunny day to paint, I might never do any.

With a little bit of surfing, I found some really good ideas.  They have  indoor clothes lines that are temporary - they open and retract.  Very cool!  They have them in this model that does several or the single ones.  Now what I worry about keeping it inside is where does it go?  My studio isn't that big and who wants drying paint around their house?!

So my other idea is that my Victorian house came with a big wrap around Victorian porch.  What if . . . I. . .  my husband hung hooks up on the porch, then when I get on the painting mood simply strung line on the hooks.  It could stay a while and then taken down when the paint was put away.  Plus with the  porch  - it offers coverage from the rain, its right off  my studio,  and if these are a few drips it won't matter.  Now, I just gotta get Paul to do it for me. . . . grin.

I still have a couple more days off so I'm sure that I've gotten my nap in, I should get more done on this project!

So What have been up to creatively?

Sunday in the Studio - Design Wall Monday

 

Crosses II

37" by 24"

hand dyed cotton by the artist

machine pieced, machine quilted

So I managed to keep the promise I made to myself to be  more productive on Sunday.  Not only did I manage to get  4 - count them - 4 loads of laundry done (which means clean underwear for tomorrow - yay!) but I also spent hours and hours in the studio painting and quilting.

Yep - you read that right - painting!  If you've been paying attention you know that I'm not this big lover of the surface design end of art quilting.  I mean - yeah - I resent  understand  that I need to dye my own fabric and occasionally add some kind of design on it for my work - but I'm not this big fan.  It all seems a bit messy - a bit expensive and well - okay - a bit scary (even after a 5 day class with Jane Dunnewold!) So I don't often get out my paints.  That said, this week I got my order from C&T's publishing's warehouse sale.  Included was Mikey Lawler's  SkyQuilts book.  She makes it look so easy and reminded me that - Paint is my friend.

So after reading her book - twice - I pulled out the supplies - searched out some nice Kona Cotton pieces and mixed up some sunset colors.  Why sunsets?  Well, all summer, I've been meaning to play with the some small quilt ideas centered around the Lake Erie  and its gorgeous beaches.  Now here was my chance!

Really, it wasn't too hard either.  Basically, you just wet down the fabric (just damp  - not to wet where it puddles your hands when you pat it), use a natural bristle brush and do horizontal movements of the different colors.  I chose to mix up red, red orange, orange and purple using Setacolor transparent paints.  They worked fabulously well and were super easy.  I mixed half paint - half water testing out the colors to make sure they were the shades I wanted.  Then just painted them on  - Easy- Peasy!!

 

Then while they were drying, I spent the afternoon free motion quilting the second in my Cross series.  I finished the quilt top last summer but never got around to quilting it.  I swear - I think my hatred of basting a quilt made me put off the actual finishing of it!  Now with spray basting, I can get it done in a long afternoon.

So I can face this one as well as Fall for our Open Studio next month!  Gosh if I keep up this kind of work - I might just start getting things done around here!

See other great Design boards on Judy's Patchwork Times!  

Thermofaxing a Quilt - Off the Wall Friday

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You know after 20 years in the quilt world, you think you've heard it all.  At least I did, until I was eating lunch one afternoon at Quilting by the Lake and the conversation turned to thermofaxing.   THERMOFAX???  From what I could gather, there was this really great way to make surface designs using a "thermofax".  Not till after lunch, did I confess to my friend Pam, that I had no idea what a thermofax was.  She was kind enough to explain that thermofaxes (early copy machines) were being used with special plastic paper to create stencils for screen printing on fabric.  The stencils could be used over and over and were washable.Well, how cool is that??  (then she had to explain screen printing - but that's a whole other story!)

 Finally today, 2 years later,  I got to make my first thermofax.   I spent the day in Sandy's amazing studio working on the next step in  Sign, Signs.  It was one big day of surface design techniques.  First of all, I had to apply another air brush paint layer of pewter to the background brick wall I made over a month ago. It had originally turned out wayyyyy tooo light for my tastes and needed to be gruffed up a bit!  I mean this is suppose to be a city wall after all!!

While that dried, Sandy showed me how to make a thermofax.  After picking the font I wanted, I had printed out the letters.  I then had the letters copied at Staples with laser printing and black toner.  Each sheet had a letter.  The letter is placed on the special thermofax plastic, run through the machine and then magically "burnt" into the plastic.  WOW!  The plastic is then mounted to a plastic frame using double sided tape.

Once we had all the thermofax stencils made, we had to figure out the placement of them.  The brick wall background was first pinned to a padded coreboard for easy screen printing.  We tried several arrangements - the diagonal line looked the best with the horizontal lines of the bricks.

Almost Right but not quite!

No Way!

Then came the paint.  Isn't paint fun??  Its pretty easy to silk screen - you basically take the paint - put a line of it on one side of the frame and squeegee it across the silk  -  now remember in this case the "frame" is the thermofax and the "silk" is the blue thermofax stencil.   We used screen printing paint, but you can use any fabric paint.   As I did each letter, I wasn't too particular about getting each one just perfect since more urban signs aren't perfect.  A couple of letters bled a bit - either from my inept use of the squeegee or the thinness of the paint.  I have used thermofaxes in the past with regular fabric paint and didn't have any bleeding.



It took about 4 hrs from start to finish but all and all - I was pretty happy with the results. Since the piece is smaller than I originally planned - I don't think I'll need as many stitched signs  as I first thought so maybe the 6 I have done will be enough.  Then again maybe I'll just keep stitching them and pick the ones I like best at the end!!.




The next step???  Quilting and thread painting the brick wall.  Now if I could only get my new studio done so I could stitch in there!!



So what have  you been up to creatively??