Stranger in a Strange Land

I've just returned from my visit to Savannah (Skidaway Island). Back among maples, dogwoods, and oaks. Back among the familiar.

It's interesting how one has to travel to really see things.

Small wonders

Hidden places

Dreamscapes

I hope I can keep my eyes open now that I'm back home in Virginia.

For those of you following, Searching for Roy G Biv, make a visit to Jennifer Coyne Qudeen's blog for green.

Searching for Roy G Biv (Orange)

A trip to the SCAD (Savannah College of Art) Museum in search of the color orange...a challenge from my friend, Jennifer Coyne Qudeen.

Found the neon sign above by Stephen Antonakas with a great message.

And this amazing ceiling fiber sculpture. It was wonderful to sit under it and look up...reminded me of all the trees with the Spanish Moss I've been looking up at all week.

 

Okay, Jennifer...looking forward to seeing what you found!

Searching for Roy G Biv

Yellow
'Nuf said

Textures Part 2: Trees

 
Tree Textures

Imagine fabrics!

Textures

Inspired by textures today.

A trip to Tybee Island, Georgia.

Barnacle-encrusted pylons under the pier at low tide.

 

A collection of jellyfish. A proud 10 year old boy letting me know that he was the one who gathered them. When I asked how, he picked one up in his hands and touched it to his arm. "See, they don't sting."

 

 

Later, a trip to Bead Dreamer Studio in Savannah and more textures.

Abalone shells.

Bone daggers.

A book recommendation: The Art of Embroidery: Inspirational Stitches, Textures and Surfaces by Francoise Tellier-Loumagne. I can only imagine how she would interpret the jellyfish!

More Birds: Embossed Craft Foam Block

As promised...the craft foam bird block.

The original design was based on one of Katherine's Mexican embroideries. I made a tracing.

I transferred the design to a sheet of adhesive craft foam using a soft rubber brayer.

I then cut the individual pieces out using a pair of small sharp scissors and an X-acto knife.

After pulling the paper backing off the adhesive craft foam, I arranged the pieces on a piece of thicker craft foam.

To mimic the texture of the embroidery stitches, I used a ballpoint pen to emboss the craft foam.

I mixed up some colors using Opaque Pebeo Setacolor fabric paint and rolled them out with my foam Rollrite brayer.

Printing some birds: the background of this piece was a wipe up cloth.

On this piece, I also used a wipe up cloth and overprinted with a hot glue block before using the bird design.

This last design also combines the hot glue block with the bird block.

Tomorrow, I'm off to Savannah to visit my folks.
The blog will continue. I'm looking forward to seeing what surface design inspirations Savannah has to offer.

A Day of Color and Stories

Although I only had one (very dedicated!) student yesterday...it was a colorful and productive day. Here are some photos.

Jennifer brought this mola into class. It was her grandmother's. We were trying to figure out what the figures represent. My guess was moths or butterflies.

Another mola that originally belonged to Jennifer's grandmother. Love these psychedelic frogs!

Jennifer's fabrics

Detail

Detail

Jennifer Burch admiring her finished fabric

I was struck by the fact that a number of Jennifer's fabrics spoke to me as stories.

Last night, I had trouble sleeping as my minding was racing (also could have been the chocolate I ate late). I am back to thinking about a class creating fabric that has meaning...but now more specifically printed fabric that tells stories. I will write more about this soon.