Feeling Creative

I always say there's nothing like a deadline to stir up creativity, and I'm scheduled to participate in  two shows this Fall, which is right around the corner! If you talked to me yesterday, you would have heard how anxious I was about this, but I feel much better today, having broken through the creative block I had been dealing with.

This morning, I spread out my materials - my hand painted fabrics, roving, etc. - and propped up a piece of foam board with the beginnings of some landscapes pinned to it.

I worked on the two top landscapes simultaneously, concentrating first on the lower one. I do love purple and green together, so this one had me excited. I audition many fabrics as I go along and lightly tack the pieces to some white flannel, which I use as the base for my landscapes. So, I started with this...

and proceeded to this point...

Here's a higher contrast photo, where you can see that I draped the dark green sheer fabric in the foreground and ironed it down, but not entirely flat. I'm happy with this technique which I had been wanting to try. I need to mull over this now and decide where to add details with roving, threads or beads. And I need to decide where and whether to add trees, so I'll just sit with it for a few days.

The second landscape started with this orange/pink fabric I had painted some time ago. I really just wanted to experiment with it, but it seemed to come together pretty quickly (meaning, in about two hours with auditioning fabrics, etc) and I went out on a limb and added some bits of wool roving and hand dyed cheesecloth for texture, then finally, a setting sun. Or is it dawn? That will be up to the viewer!

I'm happy to have started this journey, which will be going on until November.

Thanks for reading, and hope you're having a lovely week!

Now to clean up my mess for the day!!!

Painting Fabric

Yesterday a thunderstorm broke the heatwave we've been experiencing for the past week, and today was breezy enough to spend some time painting fabric on the porch. I want to work on landscapes for a while, so I prewashed some textured cotton fabrics from my stash and went at them with my Setacolor fabric paints. I painted a few layers on this one, using brushes and a sea sponge for stippling.

I love the textural fringed edges!

I took a few minutes to use leftover paint for some leaves...

                                     

                                                                  and a potential rose!

These will be backed with fusible interfacing, trimmed and appliquéd. As always, painting was a lot of fun and I hope to get to those landscapes soon!

Hope you've had a great weekend!

Joyful

I'm wishing everyone who reads this

a very joyful Easter,

a very happy Passover

and a very beautiful spring!!

Have a lovely day!

AEDM Day 2

                

After the Rain

This is a piece of fabric art I had fused together a few years ago, but never stitched. I used some of my hand painted fabrics, commercial cottons and sheer fabrics for the background trees and yellows on the grass. It is backed by thin craft batting, so when I stitched it all down today, it took on a bit of a quilted look. I love the way trees in Autumn look after it rains. The colors of the leaves intensify and the trunks become nearly black with moisture. 

Hope everyone is having a great week!

AEDM-Day 8-Lavender Landscape

I'm getting into a pattern of working on something one day, then posting about it the next. So this is what I worked on yesterday, Sunday.

It was a quiet day, as my poor hubby has the flu, so I spent much of the afternoon in my studio while he rested. I had previously painted this piece of linen with Pebeo Setacolor textile paints. I like the way the grayish color of the linen subdued the colors I used and the result was very soft.

I found a piece of lavender cross stitch fabric in my stash, liked the texture with the linen, and fused the painted piece on to it. Oh and I had trimmed the linen and frayed the edges.

Next, I did some loose machine stitching to suggest details in the earth and sky.

Finally, I added more machine stitching, some hand embroidery and then trimmed the whole piece. Although I thought about leaving the ends of the threads floating free, neatness prevailed and I pulled all pieces through to the back!

Here is the finished piece,

and a closer view of the stitching.

(click on photo to enlarge)

By the time I finished, with the time change this weekend, I looked up and saw the sun setting outside my window. It felt good to complete something!

Hope everyone has a lovely week!!

Companions

Angus and Rosie are getting to be great companions.

They often cuddle up on the same cushion,

watch all the action on the street out the front door,

and even sleep side by side in identical beds!!

I'm hoping to show some new fabric art soon. This piece of fabric I painted a while ago

is tantalizing me! I've been pretty busy, but hope to make a fall still life in the next few days.

Hope everyone is having a lovely weekend!

Painting on fabric

Today was a good day for painting fabric, but not the best day for photographing it!

I wanted more landscape colors and I decided to try a different 

approachwith Setacolor transparent paints.

I used a faintly printed sepia cotton fabric as a base,

 which I figured would give texture and a warm undertone.

I always know that whatever I paint will be cut up into pieces for collage,

so I usually try out different techniques in different areas.

I started with these smooth and swirly strokes, then dried and heat set this piece.

Next I added more color, then dried and heat set it again.

Finally, I added more color and gave it a final ironing.

It's a very overcast day here, so the photos don't really show the intensity of the colors.

What I was attempting to do by heat setting between steps was to preserve the brush strokes 

of a step, then layer over it with more brush strokes, instead of 

having each layer of strokes blend in with the next.

I painted a few more pieces of fabric, but I'll wait until tomorrow to photograph them.

Hopefully the light will be better!

Eventually these pieces will be used in ladscapes - I promise!

Dreamy Skies

Yesterday I did some fabric painting, using Setacolor transparent paints. I enjoy doing this so much, I feel like I should do it every morning to set a wonderful mood for the day! But, of course it's not always convenient!

I was concentrating on painting skies for some new landscapes, and I started out using some prewashed cotton white-on-white prints. Putting a wash of transparent color over the subtle print, for me, makes a dreamy and whimsical sky. The reverse side of the fabric is even more subtle.

You can click for more detail.

Of course, I had to play with some salt, for a dramatic effect!

                                       

Combined with some earthy fabrics I had painted previously, the new pieces should make for some 

interesting landscapes. Time to start cutting and fusing! 

A Wee Collage

As I walk outside on these sunny days, I feel a huge swell of gratitude for the sun, the blooming flowers, and the textures I see all around me. I've started making some quick collages to express my emotions and find it to be very freeing. I'm usually a representational kind of girl, sticking to realistic pictures, but my scraps of fabrics and threads, tumbled together on my worktable, are calling out to me to let them play together in an abstract way! This little piece has handpainted scraps, paper fabric and some commercial fabric too!  OK, this is fun!

AED Day 13 - Fabric Art

Here is my bit of fabric art for the day - a simple landscape made from scraps of hand painted fabric and a bit of machine stitching, mounted on some pretty scrapbooking card stock. I may add some stitching around the edge but this is it for now!
Hope everyone has a lovely weekend!

Getting Unstuck

commercial fabrics overpainted with Setacolor transparent paints

Do you ever feel really stuck as an artist? This has been my feeling for the last two months or so.

Perfectionism always rears its ugly head when I'm feeling blocked, preventing me from even attempting anything new. Will I fail? Will I produce something terrible? What will others think?

These are some of the thoughts that plague me.

For me, being preoccupied is the problem and, although it is certainly unavoidable at times, it does break the flow of work, which can be hard to get back in to.

I've decided to take the bull by the horns and have committed myself to two hours of studio time each day. It can be done in chunks, or in one continuous swoop, but two hours it will be.

I know that this will get me back into the swing of things. It will be my priority and I hope to be sharing some new work with you. Today I began my journey, changed up the format of my blog and started a new picture.

Feels good!

Have a lovely Sunday!

Warmly,

Judy