The Printed Fabric Bee: Art Nouveau Collection Giveaway

It's the beginning of the month and time for another fabric giveaway from The Printed Fabric Bee. This month's queen bee was Jackie Lams and she asked us to interpret the theme, Art Nouveau.

Had some trouble with this one. I spent hours on Pinterest looking at images. In the end, I decided to do a piece that emphasized lines reminiscent of the period. I also decided to use the painting and resist techniques covered in Issue #18 of Julie B Booth Surface Design News. I go into more depth about the technique in the newsletter but you can get the gist of it here.

First, I ironed torn strips of freezer paper onto the fabric.

I then painted the uncovered areas of the fabric, alternating colors. I made sure I painted along the edges of the freezer paper so that the paint would flow and mix underneath the paper.

I drew designs with blue school glue gel and let them dry.

I ironed on another set of torn freezer paper strips, covering and exposing different areas of the fabric.

Another round of painting.

I wasn't totally happy with the result, so I mixed up a color that was a bit bluer and painted a few areas to better blend the colors.

Here is the finished 12" square and the 6" square for the giveaway.

To have a chance at the complete collection leave a comment on either Jackie Lams' blog or The Printed Fabric Bee blog. The winner will be announced on May 17th. Good luck!

And one more thing...
Two other members of The Printed Fabric Bee were in town (Alexandria, VA just west of DC) for the SAQA conference. I had the chance to meet Carol Eaton and (after too many years!) see Lesley Riley (mentor and friend). We had a great evening along with some other SAQA members and friends (including Judy Gula of Artistic Artifacts and quilt artist, Christine Adams). Lots of laughing and sharing. I got to see Carol's AMAZING fabrics in person (and of course had to buy a couple of yummy yards!). Hope some day we can get the whole Bee together!

The Printed Fabric Bee Mosaic Collection Giveaway

 
It's time for another fabric giveaway from The Printed Fabric Bee. This month's Queen was Lesley Riley. She requested the theme, mosaics and the colors yellow, orange, purple and fuchsia. Here is her inspiration photo:

The Hive got to work and here is this month's very colorful giveaway collection of 6" squares:

After some false starts, I decided to keep it simple this month. On one of my trips to the local dollar store I picked up these foam counting blocks. I found the foam marshmellows at my local Michael's craft store.

Many of the counting blocks were already attached looking like a set of tiles. I reinforced them with masking tape.

I wanted the circle design to overprint the tiles but look like it was actually part of the tile. I used my x-acto knife to cut a cross in the center to match up with the intersection of four tiles.

I used my favorite fabric paints, Pebeo Setacolor. To create the background color, I mixed two transparent colors: Cobalt Blue and Parma Violet and added water (ratio 1 part paint to 2 parts water).

This created a rich violet-blue which I painted on the fabric with a foam brush and then put aside to dry.

Next I mixed up a series of Pebeo Setacolor Opaque colors in cream, orange, yellow and violet. I decided to use a foam brush to apply paint in order to give the prints a bit of texture. I painted the taped counting blocks with the cream, occasionally leaving an unpainted square.The painted tile block was turned over onto the violet-blue background and pressed to release the paint.

After printing the entire background with square tiles, I went in with individual foam squares and the incised circle to overprint colors.

Here is the final 12" square piece for Lesley.

Now for the giveaway particulars...Leave a comment on Lesley's blog or over at The Printed Fabric Bee Facebook page under the picture of the Mosaic Fabric Giveaway. You have until March 15 to leave a comment. Lesley will draw a name and post the winner on her blog and on the FB page. It's really a colorful collection this month. Lots of Spring colors...do you think we're ready for Winter to end?!

New Blues and Other News

The final blue spirals have arrived! Such a visual treat!
Thanks to Lisa Chin, Lesley Riley, Susan Purney Mark and Jackie Lams of The Printed Fabric Bee for this beautiful selection of blue spirals.

Look for an announcement after Christmas about how you can win 6" x 6" versions of all the blue spiral fabrics. To see some of the other photos click here and here.

On the book front, I'm chugging along. Today is the official deadline for the rough draft. Needless to say I'm still writing and trying to finish up the very last of the fabric samples. Fortunately, there's still a bit of time before the manuscript moves onto the next phase...not too much time though. I'll be bringing my laptop along with me on my holiday travels.

I hope to do a bit of posting here as well, if time allows. It's been so strange to be out of the loop with my blogging friends. I miss stopping by all your blogs to see what you're up to...I have A LOT of catching up to do!!! Hope that you are all enjoying (or have enjoyed) your holidays for this time of the year. Hope too that you're taking good care of yourself...maybe a little bit of pampering and are not too stressed out by the holiday madness.

January will mean the reboot of Searching for Roy G Biv (the colors of the rainbow). Jennifer and I will announce a date soon. January also means I'll be back to writing Julie B Booth Surface Design News. I must admit that writing my book, Fabric Printing at Home, seems a lot like writing numerous newsletters! If you haven't signed up for it, the sign up is in the top right-hand column. It's free, comes to your mailbox monthly and has a fabric printing project inspired by kitchen materials. You can view past newsletters as well. I've been pleasantly surprised that in my writing absence I've had over 30 new subscribers! So somehow the word is getting out there...which makes me happy and grateful!

So...look for lots of announcements in the coming weeks...now back to book writing!

Web Wisdom

Under the magnifying glass for a bit of stitching (aka DOing).

A bit Web Wisdom today...

Recently, I signed up for Lesley Riley's 52 Pickup. I have a button for it in the right hand column. It's 52 weeks of weekly emails from Lesley with words of wisdom, jump starts for creativity and multi-media. For those of you who don't know Lesley, she's been my art coach and mentor over the last couple of years. Her business is called, Artist Success and she's been a tremendous help to me. She motivated me to create my home studio, to start my newsletter and most recently to write and submit a proposal for a book.

Today, I received my first week of 52 Pickup. The theme was less thinking, more doing. I laughed because, of course, in the two years I've worked with her, this has been MY issue! There have been many times that I've thought and thought as a form of procrastination...instead of getting into the studio and doing and doing and learning through the doing. She also passed along a terrific quote from Martha Graham which is now hanging in my studio:

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares to other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open--Martha Graham.

Think about it...

After reading this I headed down to the studio for a bit of DOing!

200th

This is my 200th post! I can hardly believe it. I started blogging just over a year ago. Looking back at those early posts, I feel like I've come a long way...especially from that first posting the day after the remnants of Hurricane Isabel hit our area. The highlight (if you want to call it that) was my photo of a dead raccoon!

I have two people to thank for getting me a bit more up to snuff in the blogging world. One is Lesley Riley, my coach and mentor, who said that I needed to get back to blogging on a very regular basis. The other, is the woman I like to call the Blogging Qu(d)een. That is none other than Jennifer. She kindly answered my often simple and sometimes bizarre technical questions. She gently reminded me about blogging etiquette. And she has continued to be a cheer leader and frequent commenter on this blog. Thanks Jennifer for all your help.

 To celebrate getting this far on my blogging journey, I am offering a little gift. It is a Peace Flag. It was one of my sample flags from the Flags for Peace Project. I hand painted the background cotton fabric, hand printed the flag and added some hand painted details. The flag is ready for hanging with a little sleeve at the top (that was hand stitched). The size of the flag is 7" x 10". For those of you new to this blog, the symbol on the flag is a hamsa (sometimes called a Hand of Fatima). It's a protective symbol. This particular hamsa has great meaning for me as it was one I designed for a good friend, who recently passed away. You can read more about it here.

To win this special little flag, all you have to do is leave a comment at this post. I will be doing a drawing for the winner on Sunday, October 14th.

Thanks to all who have been following along. I've enjoyed your comments, observations and encouragement. It's wonderful to make new friends and to share what is closest to our hearts...art!

Now back to the studio to do some more printing....

Book Proposal First Steps

Printed with incised foam using different tools*.

 Just had my monthly call with my art coach and mentor, Lesley Riley of Artist Success. I've worked with her on and off over the last couple of years. She has pushed and prodded and I've sometimes resisted but have always come to the eventual realization that she is moving me in the right direction.

Printed with incised foam using different tools*.

My goal with her has always been to write a book. I wrote a rough draft of the book proposal and Lesley and I went over it today. She was really happy with it. I'll just need to do a bit of tweaking here and there. I'm nervous and excited! I'm looking forward to tackling the final proposal and getting it off.

Printed with incised foam using different tools*.

I know that this book will be a lot of hard work. I know there will be times when I'll wonder why I ever thought I wanted to do this. But I also know, in the end, I will be happy because it's been a desire of mine for a very long time.

Step one ...completed!

*You can read more about how I made these fabrics by reading the most recent issue of Julie B Booth Surface Design News. See the Newsletter Archives in the right hand column.

Petulance Pays Off

I don't normally post on Wednesdays but as the "juices" in my mind are flowing...I thought I would write today.

I've been re-working this blog with the help of Lesley Riley, my art coach. I worked with Lesley for the first half of 2011 when I was just starting the Conant Grant project. Her first words to me were, "You need a space of your own to work in." Well, I was dragging my feet as I thought about all the work it would require to get the space I'd chosen (a "catch-all" room) together as a studio space. I "hemmed"; I "hawwed"...I was petulant. How was I going to get rid of that huge old oak desk? But Lesley kept pushing...

A friend up the street mentioned "Freecycle". No sooner had I posted the desk, then I had a reply and off it went to a new home. Getting rid of the desk got me "unstuck". From that point on I was able to get rid of the clutter, get a contractor lined up to fix the ceiling and add better lighting, get a good working table together and add shelving. I have been grateful to Lesley ever since for her insistence and pushiness.

So back to the blog and to the "marketing"...

 Lesley says I need an online newsletter in addition to the blog. That I also need to get involved in "Pinterest"...that I need to be as focused on the marketing as I am on the art making. Well...I could feel the petulance swelling up in me last night! I was "ticked"! I was "pissed"! How am I ever going to get all this done? When am I going to make art? When am I going to write my book?

This morning I woke up with a new attitude. "Hey", I thought,"this newsletter thing might be okay. I've been focusing on the kitchen for my resists...I could be focusing on the kitchen for surface design in general".

I peered into one of the recycling bags this morning and suddenly it became a surface design treasure trove. I could see print blocks and stencils hiding in that brown paper grocery bag...heck...the grocery bag even had my mind spinning!

So now I will be sitting down and putting my thoughts on paper for the newsletter. It will be all about the surface design "treasures" hiding in the kitchen. I hope to have readers looking in their pantries, opening cupboards, gazing in the drawer with the plastic wrap and foil...and peering into the recycling bag!

I guess petulance does pay off!

Fresh Start

It’s Groundhog Day and like Punxsutawny Phil, I’m emerging… from a month of weekend workshops. It’s time to get back into the swing of this blog. This past month included the Power Point presentation for my grant project on kitchen resists along with two 2-day workshops. All were very successful, I’m pleased to report. I’m even more “psyched” to get back in the studio and get onto more resist explorations. But first is the big “dig out”, as I’ve written on my calendar. Time to sort through the piles in the studio, get organized…and clean the house (ugh!). It’s also time to clean up this blog. My two blog “angels”, Lesley Riley and Jennifer Coyne Qudeen have been making helpful suggestions and I am now on it! This blog will have a slightly new look with more of an emphasis on my work with resists. Starting with today…a bit of spring…blue glue gel resist with washes of Setacolor Transparent fabric paint and stenciled and printed with Setacolor Opaque fabric paint. Can you figure out the order of the layers? (Hint: The layer that “pops” is actually NOT the top layer.)

In the Studio

I’ve spent the last week working in the studio. My husband was up in NJ all week. My son is back at college. So I was able to spend three full, uninterrupted days working on my grant project: “Kitchen Resists”—using common household materials as fabric resists. Since I’ve gotten through the black and white samples of about 60 resist recipes, I am now focusing on some color samples. I’ve been picking out some of the more successful techniques within each resist and layering some on top of the other. These are the 8” x 12” samples. I also plan to do more ½ yard samples or perhaps some scarves, in which I combine different resists. As you can imagine…I’m really “into” layering when it comes to creating painted and printed fabric. I’ll have more examples of layered fabric in future posts. In the meantime, here are a couple of photos showing how things are looking in the studio.

Some of the color samples in process

Organizing the resist samples in folders

I’m learning some important things from this project. One is that even though it can be tough to keep interest up in a long term project, I see that I’m capable of “plugging along” even when things have occasionally gotten boring. If it weren’t for the grant, I might not have explored as many resists nor taken the time to try as many techniques with the different resists. Another thing I've learned is the importance of being organized. My art coach, Lesley Riley (Artist Success) was a tremendous help with that in the earlier stages of the project. I’ve broken the project down into manageable steps; I’ve created a schedule that I’ve managed to stick to; I have all my samples in labeled folders and all the folders are grouped into resist “types” (see photo). I will soon be photographing everything for the grant presentation. So, more photos to come!