40 West Arts Opening Night

Opening night at the new 40 West Arts gallery space was a huge success.  About 300 people attended!  There was a lot of great artwork and a lot of variety.  It was so exciting to see my own work hanging on the walls.  The energy of the show and all the people who attended was so positive.  I was excited to see the work of another fiber artist.  I'm not alone!  Hopefully I will actually get to meet her one of these days.  I went over and hung out for a while on Saturday.  Theoretically I was helping at the welcome desk but really I just sat and talked to people and watched all the activity.  There was a great sense of community going on, with people looking at artwork, standing around talking to each other, introducing one another etc.  I really hope this atmosphere proves to be the norm for this new art district.

Stacked Journaling Experiments

I'm working on a project right now that I thought would be interesting with some kind of text so I decided to get out various tools and try Stacked Journaling.  I had some left over copy paper with faint marks on it that I used for practice sheets so you can see some strange marks hidden in there too.  I tried writing with skewers, brushes, pens, Fantastix etc.  My favorites are the one on top of the page above which I did with a long liner brush, and the one in bright blue below which was fabric paint squeezed out of a bottle and then mono printed.

This is probably the only way I'm ever going to like my own handwriting! LOL! Once I got started I realized there are dozens of options to explore.  Not only the materials involved but also trying things like writing in all caps, using long ascenders and descenders or using short ones.  Printing or cursive.  Now I want to experiment with trying to get my SJ onto something that will be very transparent.  I plan to scan in a nice large block and then print it out onto silk organza, tissue paper, t-shirt transfer paper and ink jet transparency.

This isn't great art but it was fun to play and I was pleasantly surprised by the variety of looks that came out of it.  I will add these to my art journal so I can refer back to them again. 

Chaotic Work Table

The thing about working in fiber or collage is that it generates scraps.  Beautiful scraps that I'm always sure I could do something with.  Its the bane of all artists!  I keep getting ideas about using the bits and pieces from the original project that turned into a disaster but left me with all these delectable scraps.  The theory is that I'll use the scraps up but somehow that never seems to work out.  LOL!  I've decided that I need to start making an effort to photograph my work as it progresses, on the off chance that a magazine article idea strikes me.  That way I'll have pictures for how-to articles or something vague like that.  And something to post on this blog.  So I get out the camera and start taking pictures of the piece on my design board.  While I'm in there I decide to take pictures of the incredible mess on my work table.  Actually, it does get worse than this.   I'm a menace to myself in here!  I can't find the sewing needles, or the right paint brush or..... you get the idea.  Not enough space, too much stuff.  And really, when you get into the zone you just aren't thinking about being tidy.  Here I was working on experiments with Stacked Journaling which I learned about from artist Judi Hurwitt.  Check out her work, its gorgeous!  The experiments were a ton of fun.  However, the pictures of the artwork came out incredibly blurry.  Whats the deal?  Same camera, same room, same photographer, and the pictures I came in here to take suck while the "incidental" photos are fine.  Hmph.

Here is a photo of the lovely sewing machine I work with.  My mom can't recall exactly when she bought it but it is approximately 40 years old.  I learned to sew on this machine.  Its a serious work horse, but at this point it kind of lacks finesse.  Unless I win a contest somewhere I'll never be able to afford another machine so I'll probably use this one until one of us dies.

Although this picture doesn't prove it, I kind of looked nice yesterday.  So while I was in a camera happy frame of mind I decided to take some pictures of myself.  Never a good idea!  Nonetheless, bravery is getting the better of me this morning so here I am, red nose and all.  But hey, you can kind of see the little pink jewel on one of my teeth.  Its been there since last August but only one person has ever noticed it.  Enough about me.  There will be more about me later!

Working in a Series: Experimenting

A while back I started working on this project that I intended to try to enter in the Evolution show at the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum.  I selected my colors and fabrics and decided on some techniques I wanted to try, which included some painted Wonder Under fusible webbing.  Well, the project took a major turn for the worse and I did not end up trying to enter the show.  Happily I was able to deconstruct the parts and put them together in a new piece that will now be in the 40 West Arts exhibit for Lakewood Inspire Week.  And I also ended up with this beautiful piece of painted release paper left over from the painted Wonder Under.  As I mentioned in a previous post, I am working on a series inspired by the original failed project.  Just trying to see how many different pieces I can make using the same colors and materials, although I like to throw something new in now and then.  I wanted to make something with some of this pretty painted release paper, but seeing as it is purposefully designed to not stick to things I wasn't sure how to use it.  I decided to try some paper weaving with newspaper to create a background that I will do some remnant collage over.  I think.  LOL. One idea leads to another and I never know where I'm headed, even when I get there.  Here is how it looked after the weaving:

I like it!  Paper weaving isn't exactly a revolutionary concept but I often like the look when I see it in other people's work.  I'm also having fun trying out new camera angles.  Photography is not my passion, and is frankly the biggest stumbling block for me as a blogger, but maybe trying something besides a straight on shot will excite me more.  Gotta start somewhere!

Cat Hair Studio

I wanted to call my blog Cat Hair Studio but the name was already taken.  There's a good reason for wanting to call it that.  Everything I make ends up covered in cat hair!  Short of closing the door while I work there is no possible way to keep the cats out of the studio, and frankly, I enjoy their company.  Once I ended up with a cat with blue paint on his paws!  OMG, the chaos!  LOL.  I had to scramble to catch him before he tracked blue paint all over the house or tried to lick it off.  There is a rule that applies to cats as well as people....DON'T EAT YOUR PAINT!  This lovely glimpse of a newly finished piece is posted merely to amuse the cat lovers out there.  Don't worry, the  hair will be removed and better photo's will be taken.  I'm thinking of submitting this piece and a couple of others that are part of a series to some magazine or other.  I just have to finish everything first!

OMG!!!  I'm going to be in an art show!  The new art district shaping up in my home neighborhood is opening a new art gallery and holding their first juried art exhibition and I've had three pieces accepted to the show.  This is beyond exciting!  The show should be eclectic and interesting with a lot of different types of art represented.  I'm really looking forward to the opportunity to see what other artists in my area are doing.  After working in a vacuum for the last few years I'm excited to meet some other artists.  Real, live, in person artists!

Book Reviews

More Fabric Art Collage by Rebekah Meier is a treasure trove of techniques that will appeal to any mixed media artist. Many of the techniques presented in this book have been around for a while but the author does an excellent job of explaining the techniques in simple terms that will make it easy for any artist to get started. She does not address the problems that can arise from some of the techniques, such as getting fusible adhesive on your rubber stamps when embossing Fast2Fuse, or completely disintegrating your tyvek when ironing it! The techniques are presented in such a way to help you get started and to inspire ideas, but they are not in depth examinations of the process. The author suggests several ways to upcycle items found in your home or art studio, such as paper towels, aluminum foil, dryer sheets, soda cans, waxed paper and scraps left over from other art projects. With these ideas nothing goes to waste although you risk finding yourself wanting to save every last scrap that you might otherwise throw out! The author covers a really nice array of substrates/foundations, texturing mediums, and other art supplies such as transfer paper, and Rigid Wrap, and Mul-tex. There are numerous ideas in this book for using lots of techniques together in one cohesive piece of art which will appeal to all the technique junkies in the mixed media art world! All in all this is a very inspiring book and would be an excellent resource for an art group looking to work on a book study. The artwork shown in this book is a bit more sophisticated than that show in her previous book and is very inspiring. Rebekah Meier uses these techniques to create artwork that is layered, interesting and feminine. This is a book to return to again and again for ideas and inspiration.

As part of the book review program with C&T Publishing I decided I wanted to read and review Create With Transfer Artist Paper, by Lesley Riley.  This book is a great introduction to the variety of wonderful things you can do with Transfer Artist Paper (TAP).  Lesley's writing is warm and personable and she really clearly explains the various uses of this product.  I was not overly impressed by any of the artwork in this book but I did appreciate the variety of surfaces and techniques demonstrated by each piece.  There are some good basic instructions for editing photos using photo editing software. Lesley covers some of the pros and cons of using TAP on various surfaces so the user will have a good idea what to expect and how to deal with any complications that might arise.  I find it really exciting that you can use other art media such as pastels or pencils on TAP and that transfers can be layered on top of one another for additional effects.  This book will give you some great ideas if you are an artist who is interested in image transfers or is looking for a way to get your own artwork out of your sketchbook and onto another surface.  

Transfer Artist Paper (TAP)

As part of the book review program with C&T Publishing I decided I wanted to read and review Create With Transfer Artist Paper, by Lesley Riley.  This book is a great introduction to the variety of wonderful things you can do with Transfer Artist Paper (TAP).  Lesley's writing is warm and personable and she really clearly explains the various uses of this product.  I was not overly impressed by any of the artwork in this book but I did appreciate the variety of surfaces and techniques demonstrated by each piece.  There are some good basic instructions for editing photos using photo editing software. Lesley covers some of the pros and cons of using TAP on various surfaces so the user will have a good idea what to expect and how to deal with any complications that might arise.  I find it really exciting that you can use other art media such as pastels or pencils on TAP and that transfers can be layered on top of one another for additional effects.  This book will give you some great ideas if you are an artist who is interested in image transfers or is looking for a way to get your own artwork out of your sketchbook and onto another surface.

Messy Work Table Reveal Day!

Here is the post from Lynns blog with links to the participatins artists blogs.  Its so much fun to peek into everyones studio!

Fibra Artysta - Mixed Media Fiber Art: messy work table photo collaboration reveal day! :...: Here we are - time to show off your messy work tables! :) Being an artist is a gift but let's face it, its not neat. And where other peop...

MESSY WORK TABLE photo collaboration

If I actually had any readers they would think I am stalking Lynn Krawczyk!  Really I'm not!  I'm just trying to get involved in the blogosphere and she keeps giving me great opportunities.  Thanks Lynn!  This is a photo of my work table as it looks right this minute.  I'm working on a readers challenge for Quilting Arts Magazine all about your signature color.  You might be guessing that mine is purple.  Pink is actually my favorite color, but almost everything I make ends up with purple in it so I dug out the purple scraps and went to town.  My work table is usually twice as bad as this but I cleaned up a bit a few days ago because I couldn't find anything.  The surface is covered with several pieces of freezer paper that are looking really cool with all the paint and ink and glue.  I love the idea of taking photo's of my work table.  Its such an evolving space.  An artists work table reflects the mood, joy, and pain of the artist.  The frenzy, pleasure and chaos are evident in the piles of media and ephemera.  Imagine years of such photos as a record of where you've been as an artist.  My journal is calling my name right now!  I love my work table.  I'd hug it if I could.  I suppose I could get down and hug a leg, but that might look all wrong, if you know what I mean.  Feeling pretty silly today!

Fibra Artysta - Mixed Media Fiber Art: MESSY WORK TABLE photo collaboration

Fibra Artysta - Mixed Media Fiber Art: MESSY WORK TABLE photo collaboration: Last September Seth Apter hosted an online photo collaboration that I just completely fell in love with. He called it Paper Stacks and t...

Shoe Shots Blog Hop

While reading Lynn Krawczyk's blog I came across a post about a blog hop being sponsored by the Fly Tribe blog.  I've been admiring Lynn's Where I Stand Sunday blog posts and wanting to do something similar but not wanting to be a total copycat!  Here is my chance to play!  I guess lots of people out there are photographing their feet so I won't be alone in copy catting.  This is a pic of my feet in my ratty old slippers in my studio.  The floor is covered with bits and pieces from an art quilt I just finished.  There are so many bits leftover that I plan to try another project using the scraps and I've been sorting them into sizes.  My studio table is not very large so a lot of stuff gets "sorted" onto the floor.  It looks like a bomb went off in here much of the time!  There is comfort and warmth in the slippers and the golden oak floors that make up my favorite space.  Most of my personal time is spent wearing these slippers in this room so it is a fitting first photo of my feet.  (Try reading those last few words out loud.  Several times.  Fast.  Guaranteed to make you laugh).

Collage painting

I recently completed this 9"x12" collage painting.  Can you tell who inspired me?  I'm utterly fascinated by

Lynne Perrella's

work.  Could stare at it for hours.  Her work makes me shake.  That shaking feeling is what made me realize that I wanted to be an artist.  Nothing but art makes me feel that way.  It's like being seduced by a new lover.  Back to the painting....  This actually began as an experiment inspired by one of

Jane Davies

techniques where you dip a pipe cleaner in ink and feather it across the page and then scrape various colors of paint over the top with a credit card.  Great idea!  All my attempts looked like crap.  Sigh.  I put the papers away for a while and recently dug them out to see if I had any ideas.  The I took another look at Lynne Perrella's series based on Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and some ideas took off.  Stencil's and tar gel and t-shirt transfer paper, oh my!  It was great fun and I'm really happy with it.

Lynn Krawczyk

I was a happy winner of a fat quarter of fabric designed by artists Lynn Krawczyk.  She recently opened a Spoonflower shop and did a fun blog hop where five lucky people won some of her fabrics.  I received a fat quarter of her Coffee Cup Stain design and it's really wonderful!  So much detail and the fabric quality is really nice. This picture is kind of washed out unfortunately.  You can't really see the fabulous text patterns in it.  Lynn is such a talented artist and a great blogger too.  By the way she did give me permission to post a picture of the fabric.  She's so nice!  Here is a link to her Spoonflower shop:  http://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/fibraartysta

A new mixed media book

I signed up to be part of the C&T Publishing Creative Troupe and one of the great benefits is that I get to read PDF versions of their books for free as long as I post book reviews. Check it out! What a great opportunity! I've been considering writing book reviews for a long time now, seeing as I have a huge library of art books! Here is my first review for C&T Publishing:

More Fabric Art Collage by Rebekah Meier is a treasure trove of techniques that will appeal to any mixed media artist. Many of the techniques presented in this book have been around for a while but the author does an excellent job of explaining the techniques in simple terms that will make it easy for any artist to get started. She does not address the problems that can arise from some of the techniques, such as getting fusible adhesive on your rubber stamps when embossing Fast2Fuse, or completely disintegrating your tyvek when ironing it! The techniques are presented in such a way to help you get started and to inspire ideas, but they are not in depth examinations of the process. The author suggests several ways to upcycle items found in your home or art studio, such as paper towels, aluminum foil, dryer sheets, soda cans, waxed paper and scraps left over from other art projects. With these ideas nothing goes to waste although you risk finding yourself wanting to save every last scrap that you might otherwise throw out! The author covers a really nice array of substrates/foundations, texturing mediums, and other art supplies such as transfer paper, and Rigid Wrap, and Mul-tex. There are numerous ideas in this book for using lots of techniques together in one cohesive piece of art which will appeal to all the technique junkies in the mixed media art world! All in all this is a very inspiring book and would be an excellent resource for an art group looking to work on a book study. The artwork shown in this book is a bit more sophisticated than that show in her previous book and is very inspiring. Rebekah Meier uses these techniques to create artwork that is layered, interesting and feminine. This is a book to return to again and again for ideas and inspiration.

Quandary

I completed these three mixed media paintings several months ago.  They are large....19 x 23 inches.  The base is heavy bristol paper and I've painted and collaged the surface.  There are some slightly dimensional elements too.  Here is the quandary..... how do I mount them for display?  I can't afford to frame them because they are so big.  They need a deep frame because of the dimensional elements.  I've been reading about mounting works on paper and the experts seem to think that gluing them down to a support devalues the work.  I don't even know if these are good enough to worry about devaluing them!  There is new art district developing in my neighborhood and they are putting out invitations for artists to display their work.  These three pieces are among my few finished works of art and I'd like to see if they would be accepted for display at one of the venues in our new art district but before I can do that I have to get them ready for display.  I'm considering gluing them to masonite but then I wonder if I should use some kind of varnish to protect them?  They have a few layers of gloss medium already but some of the collage elements are just plain printer paper which is not archival and I'd like to protect it as much as possible.  What is an affordable and reasonably professional way to finish these pieces?

Sketchbook

Here are my completed flower drawings from my earlier post.  As you can see I drew a few more flowers and then colored them.  You can't tell from the pictures but I used my Twinkling H2Os for the top page and in real life they have a lovely sparkle!  For the bottom picture I mostly used my new Intense blocks.  I got both the H2Os and the blocks for Christmas and I'm having fun playing with them.  I decided to draw flowers after seeing Alisa Burke demonstrate her fabric flower doodles on the video that came with her book Sew Wild.  Now I'll have to try doing that myself.  Stay tuned!  I was also really inspired by Jane LaFazio's sketchbook pages.  She makes simple things look so appealing! Drawing intimidates the heck out of me but I have to say that working on these pages was intensely pleasant.  I really got into the zen state while drawing and painting and for once I don't hate the results.  While looking through an older art journal for some image transfer experiments I did a while back I came across the following page:

These silly creatures were created after reading Carla Sonheim's book Drawing Lab.  After doodling around with paint I found these two creatures but they are going in somewhat different directions.  Nonetheless I decided to decorate them and add shadows.  The blue one has iridescent paint and ink on it which is kind of over exposed in the photo.  The wings are white and the spots are pink.

Artist Trading Cards

Last December I got together with a few friends to work on Artist Trading Cards (ATCs).  This is my first set!  A year or more ago I was playing with collaging in my art journal with colored tissue paper, some of which I had stamped with black acrylic paint.  I no longer recall why exactly, but I ended up tearing the pages out of my journal and cutting them into ATC sized pieces.  I also cut up the smaller bits into inchies that I have yet to use.  Sometimes it seems so insane to cut or tear up papers I've spent a long time working on but I so often find that the resulting bits are much more interesting than the whole.  Months after all that I came across these 18th C. images of women with these amazing (and frankly, really ugly!) hair styles.  Did you know that women actually wore things like live birds in their hair during this period?!!  Ping!  I had to use these images on those backgrounds.  The women are printed on cheap watercolor paper because I thought the texture was nice.  They took me forever to cut out and the whole project languished until my friend put together the ATC party.  The lovely damsel's are edged with gold pen and glued to the background with Collage Pauge.  There are three sparkly pink and gold stickers on each card.  After gluing some pretty scrapbook paper to the back I ran each edge through a puddle of gold acrylic paint to color and seal the edges.  Finally I coated the fronts with gloss medium to seal the ink jet ink and make sure it all stayed glued together.

Here's a picture of my work table covered with the tissue paper I stamped with acrylic paint.  It looks so cool when used in collage.

So here is a sticky, and probably tacky, question.  What to do with my ATCs?  Trade them, right?  I got to peruse my friends collections of trading cards and frankly most of them stunk.  Cheap color printouts and bad kitch that I don't want.  What do you do if you go to a ATC swap and someone wants to trade for one of your cards but they have nothing you want?  I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings by saying their work isn't good enough, but I do want to collect art that appeals to me.  Also, while my cards may not be the worlds greatest, they took me a lot of time and work and I want to trade for equal value.  From the collections of cards I've seen it seems like a lot of people get into it more for the social aspect than the art aspect.  After thinking about this for a long time I've more or less decided that the actual trading part of making ATCs is probably not for me.  I really enjoyed making them though!

I drew something!!!

I never draw.  It's one of those things I have immense resistance too, which is a good indication its something I should be doing!  Years of never being happy with with my drawing have left me with a huge fear of drawing at all.  Couple that with damage to my cervical vertebrae and fibromyalgia, both of which make drawing physically painful, and its a recipe for intense avoidance.  Lately I seem to be going through quite an artistic slump.  Its not that I lack ideas, its just that all my ideas seem to bog down somewhere in the process and turn into messy disappointments.  All my of projects  for over a year have fallen flat.  At them moment I'm looking at art books for exercises that are not intimidating and might yield something I'm happy with.  Last weekend I spent some time looking through Alisa Burke's book Sew Wild and was inspired to try drawing flowers.  I've been saving this old calendar with lovely photos of flowers for this very purpose so today I dug it out and tried to draw some.  I was not aiming for really lifelike renderings, so much as looking at the flowers with a doodler's eye.  I like that - Doodler's Eye - sounds like a disease or a strange desert island!  I think next time I sit down I will color these in and try to make more cohesive pages out of them.  But I feel oddly light and carefree about just having sat down to draw.  And I don't hate these pages!  Yea!

Serendipity Papers

This is the freezer paper on top of my worktable.  I just love the randome marks and colors left behind from other projects. Someone coined the term "serendipity papers" to describe this sort of thing.  I'd credit that person but I've read the term in several books and don't know who said it first.  I'm thinking about ways that papers like this could be used in future projects.  Printed out on silk and stitched, used as a background for digital collage..... I also save all my paper towels which come out so beautiful sometimes.  Unfortunately I get caught up in worrying about using paper towels in various art projects because they are not archival and are not overly durable.  This is just one of the many ways I contrive to let the Resistance Monster have its way.