African (and a little Latin too!) Influences

Detail of fabric by Deborah H.

Today I taught a small group of students. It was a combo of both my African Influences and my Latin American Influences classes. In both those classes, I have students "jump off" from traditional textiles from those parts of the world.

We spent the morning painting fabric backgrounds and then created a number of different types of print blocks. I always have my students print a sampler to test out their block designs before working on some final fabric designs. Here are the samplers:

Sampler by Deborah H.

Sampler by Cynthia B.

Sampler by Wendy R.

And here are some final fabrics.

Fabric by Deborah H.

Fabric by Cynthia B.

Fabric by Cynthia B.

Fabric detail by Cynthia B.

Fabric by Wendy R.

We all agreed that it would have been great to have another hour to print...or maybe even another entire day!!!


Thanks for a great class!

Artful African Fabrics

Fabric by Barbara H.

Yesterday, I taught my African Influences, Textile Inspirations class.

A colorful array of fabrics!

It was a day full of color and fun!

Fabric by Barbara H.

Fabric by Barbara H.

Fabric by Barbara H.

Fabric by Mitzie S-M.

Fabric by Mitzie S-M.

Fabric by Mitzie S-M.

Fabric by Pam D.

Fabric detail by Pam D.

Fabric by Pam D.

Thanks, Barbara, Mitzie and Pam for a great class!

Working on Peace

Detail of Yellow Challenge Fabric.

 Here is a sneak peek of the YELLOW Challenge fabric. Yes, the Search for Roy continues tomorrow. Hope to see lots of YELLOW out there.

I've been continuing to carve the Peace Alphabet blocks for A Letter A Week 2013. It's helped a bit to focus on Peace during another difficult week in the U.S.

I feel a deep connection to Boston. I moved to the Boston area in 1979 right after graduating from college. I met my husband in Cambridge, Mass (on the other side of the Charles River) and we bought our first house in Billerica. My Mom's family is from Boston and I still have cousins who live in Medford.

On the news, I heard a mother whose 29 year old daughter had died, say..I just don't understand...

I don't either.

Learning from My Students

African Shields by Kathy R.

Yesterday, I taught another session of my workshop, African Influence: Textile Inspirations. In this class, students look at fabrics from Africa along with motifs from books and then create their own fabrics.

Assorted print blocks by Maria C.

Maria C.'s block sampler.

Kathy R.'s block sampler.

Sylvia A.'s block sampler.

I had three very three industrious students who were up for experimenting. I joked with my students that I always learn at least one new thing every time I teach. Well, this time I learned two things!

First, I managed to leave the bottle of Sienna Brown transparent fabric paint at home. No worries, we started experimenting with mixing up some browns from the paints we did have. It made me realize that I really have to plan a play date in the studio just for color mixing. I need to get out of my color rut and see all the various subtle color combinations I can mix. The great thing about needing to mix up browns is that the students showed no fear and started mixing up all sorts of interesting colors!

Kathy R. burlap and moldable foam blocks.

Maria C. with carved block.

Maria C. with moldable foam block.

Sylvia A. with carved and craft foam blocks.

I learned the second new thing, while I was demonstrating how to work with moldable foam print blocks. I like to show students that by laying objects of different depths onto soft upholstery foam, you can get all the different objects to emboss in the block. I decided to try an experiment by laying textured shelf liner down on the foam first and then some small pebbles and a piece of chain. To my surprise, all the textures embossed, including the shelf liner! This led the students to try their own experiments with designing with the shelf liner. Here are a couple of the fabrics created with this technique.

Kathy R. with moldable foam block.

Maria C with moldable foam block.

I was very pleased with how the day went. I feel energized to get back to experimenting!