More Mixed Media on Fabric - Papers

Tweet

Here's another group of my mixed media examples. The focus here is obviously papers. Papers are easy to attach to fabric/quilts and the attachment can be done many ways. The most logical choice for me, and what I always try is stitching it down - either by hand or machine.

This first example is a recycled brown paper bag, a Dairy Queen bag to be specific. I save all of my brown or white paper bags from purchases, cut them open, iron them and keep them clipped together. Sometimes, really I should say often, I paint them first. The brown bag below was painted with Lumieres (my 'go to' paints) and then foiled. I hadn't tried foiling yet and I like the look.

click for closer view

This example is a much smaller version of something I saw on the blog of Sue Bleiweiss on July 15, 2010. I love the work she does and have been following her blog for a long time. When I saw her example and the gorgeous one on her website, I was working on my little 7"x7"examples for the presentation and thought it was the perfect thing to try out and remind me to send the group to Sue's blog for more inspiration. I believe I used Misty Fuse to attach the bag to the fabric before stitching. But usually I will use medium to lightweight fusible interfacing to iron to the back of my painted paper bags to give them some stabiity before I stitch into them. Works for me every time.

This is papers attached with gel medium and then stitched. There's always more than one way.

closeup

I learned about Misty Fuse from one of Sue's classes I think. At least 2 years ago. For this sample I used tea bags that I had my boss save for me; rose petals from the bridal section at either JoAnn's or Michael's and candy foils that I had someone save for me from Dove chocolates. I love using Misty Fuse. In case you didn't know, Misty Fuse has a facebook page and they do giveaways on there from time to time.

And of course Tyvek, you know, the stuff they make postal envelopes from. So along with saving tyvek envelopes you get in the mail, which I know you can buy from Joggles, have fun at their site, they have a lot of cool stuff and a lot of great classes.This tyvek I painted and ironed between two pieces of parchment.

Next installment - metals.

Mixed Media for Fiber Arts: Experiments & Examples (part 1)

Tweet

Everything interests me! I am a creative. I make quilts. I make beaded jewelry. I make wire-wrapped pendants jewelry with metals. Over the last couple of years I have had an increasing desire to combine these mediums on/with fabric. These ideas have been fueled by my membership in the Mavericks, a contemporary art quilt chapter of the Arizona Quilters Guild. This creative group of men and women love to create with fibers and fabric and think outside the box on a regular basis.

I did a presentation to the group about my experiments with combining different media with quilting. Below are some shots of my examples using various papers, Golden Gel Mediums, and metals. For this post, I will focus on Gel Mediums. These experiments were all done using Golden Gel Mediums because that's what I happen to have. My guess is that other brands are equally good, so experiment away. Oh, and, have fun!

Vintage Glitter Glass glued w/
gel medium to fabric

Extra Coarse Pumice Gel - applied

 thru a stencil.

Extra Coarse Pumice Gel

colored w/ Lumiere

Extra Coarse Pumice Gel 'plain'

 Closeup - Tar Gel over
 magazine cutouts

Clear Tar Gel sample.

Glass Bead Gel 'plain'.

Glass Bead Gel - colored with Lumiere

Papers collaged with Soft Gel
Gloss Medium - closeup

Soft Gel Gloss Medium -
collaged papers

Next Mixed Media post - Paper - recycled, commercial, from around the house.

Molding Paste - colored & plain

Thanks for visiting! Feel free to share your questions, comments, reactions . . .

If you want to link to a blog post or website to share work you've done with gel mediums, especially on fabric, use the Mr. Linky widget below (I'm just trying this out for the first time so if it doesn't work, let me know in the comments) Thanks!!!!

Creative Living: CoOp Review - Bountiful Baskets

Tweet

Happy Independence Weekend everyone! This is a 'happy customer' review.

 Links appear at the bottom & click on any picture for a closer view.

Part of nurturing my soul includes giving it the kind of fuel that keeps it running better. I am on a mission to eat more fruits and veggies. So when I heard about the fruit & veggie coop Bountiful Baskets, I had to try it out. This all volunteer effort apparently takes place in about seven U.S. states.

Tuesday (6/29) I selected my preferred location based on their list, which also included pick-up times. I looked at their offerings for the week, the regular $15 basket plus extra choices of blueberries, cookies, breads, etc. I then  paid my $15,  for the 50% fruit and 50% veggie collection. And I also paid $20 for 12 pints of blueberries (I love blueberries!) I also had a choice of an organic basket instead of the regular for an additional $10. Since I didn't know quite what to expect, I went for the $15 this first time.

So,

Magnificent!

Tweet

My best 'One Moment' this week. 'OM' is the 'one moment' weekly meetup coordinated by http://www.alamodestuffblog.com/ . When you get to the bottom of this post, click on the OM icon and go check it, you can join us too! The purpose is to share what makes you pause, smile, slow down . . .

On one of the last few cool (you know, around 89 degrees) early evenings in the Valley of the Sun, I went to the park the other day right after work to keep myself from taking a nap. Of course, I knew the exercise would make me feel better too. Well, my reward on this day was a peacock, actually two, that spread their feathers.

I was in the section of the park with two rows of grapevines, taking pictures of how the grapes were progressing.  I spotted one gorgeous male that had his wings spread and his back to me. He would not turn around. Ok. I've never seen the back spread of a peacock. Remember, you can click on any of the photos for a larger view.

OM (One Moment)

Tweet

Thanks to A La Mode Stuff 's challenge to notice those 'moments' and fully appreciate life, I am paying more attention. Here are some photos from two different opportunities to notice the small and beautiful things . . . taken at my favorite park in Glendale, AZ

They have the most wonderul rose bushes at Sahuaro Ranch Park and I couldn't resist taking photos during my walk on Sunday

And yesterday, late afternoon with the wind blowing and rain clouds in the sky I went for a walk to clear the work day out of my head. These grapevines caught my attention and

A Breath of Inspiration

Tweet

Today I had a chance to step away from the pressures of my currently stressful life and breathe some creative air. A few hours with some creative friends . . . ahhhh. We played with fabric paint and fabric crayons and both rubber stamps and deeply carved wood stamps that Julia and Brian picked up at the Tucson bead show.

Such an enjoyable time. I've come to realize that the more stressed I am, the more I need to do things like this. It quiets my soul. Thanks to Julia, Brian, Gerri and Gayla!

Creativity - Related Points of View

Tweet

I love thinking about, talking about and trying on various perspectives that I run across regarding creativity. I believe we are all creative and since I tend to cruise the blogs of creatively expressive people, I see a lot of creative things to think about.

One definition of creativity I ran across recently here : “Creativity is simply looking at something that has always been there and seeing something that has never been seen before”.

I like this and it makes sense to me. Probably makes sense to my friends who consistently declare that they are ‘not’ creative. I believe we need and use our creativity in so many ways to get through life, that some of us are simply blind to it.

One thing that has me currently immersed in the creativity conversation is participating in an online discussion group focused on reading Julia Cameron’s “Walking in This World”. The book is geared towards artists but can easily be applied to any life. The group is being led by my friend Quinn McDonald and you can read about this group on her website. I am enjoying the experience of having this conversation with other creatives.

The peacock photos were taken at Sahuaro Ranch Park in Glendale, AZ on one of my weekly walks as suggested in Julia Cameron’s book. I find their colors very inspiring. (click photos for a larger view)

Here are some interesting and provocative posts related to creativity that you might enjoy, discovered during my blog cruising:

Busy-ness & Creativity: Productive Flourishing blog, someone I follow on Twitter

Mildly Creative Blog post on starting/finishing I follow Ken on Twitter and love the insightfulness of his blog. And his sketches encourage me to do more of that myself.

Creative Every Day blog There is no specific post I want you to see here, I just love this blog and love  that she encourages people to think of the many ways they are creative every day. I have decided it is smarter for me to sign up for these challenges in April, after my final grad class is complete. Until then, I will simply visit and enjoy and think about what I would do with the themes she posts.

Creativity & Chaos & Creative Business/busy-ness Rebecca Prien's blog

Mildly Creative – “My Inner Delete Button – 7 Things I’m Trashing from my Life”  We all need to delete things from our lives from time to time.

Creativity and Anger – A QuinnCreative blog post from 1/26/10  You can also follow Quinn on Twitter.

Keep living creatively and remember that I welcome your comments.

Rosaland

(Links throughout the post are in bold lettering)

Shibori Surprises

Tweet

Shibori - comes from the Japanese word Shiboru, meaning to squeeze or wring out (as in gathering and binding). This is a centuries old set of methods for resist-dyeing fabric, and sometimes paper. I believe this is where we got tie-dyeing from.

Four of us gathered on a Sunday afternoon in September to try out some Shibori techniques on silk and cotton fabrics. Oh my goodness - it was so much fun. One of our group members, Brian, is quite knowledgeable about Shibori methods and we had a great time trying out some of the various techniques like folding and binding and pole wrapping following his expert guidance.

Marbles, Silk Habotai, Dupioni Silk and Chiffon (Click on any photo for a bigger view)

The surprise of this technique is the most fun part for me. Those of you who create, especially if you dye fabric, know that there are no gaurantees that you'll get what you're expecting. For me it's easier to simply be delighted with what appears. Hence, Shibori surprises.

Creating resist patterns in the fabric is the point of Shibori. The patterns made with rocks were done by tying them into the fabric. The little white dots in the purple closeup were resists marks made with wax.

Arashi Shibori - we wrapped some of our silk pieces around pvc pipes of different sizes and then tied them with twine. The little bundle of fabric in front of the two poles is a scarf, folded, banded & dyed.

This is chiffon.

This purple scarf is a silk rayon scarf that I bought from Dharma.I could not have been happier with this piece.

Remember that folded up little bundle -

Here are some of the other pieces we did that day using clamps, wax, etc.

These blue pieces are actually a poly-cotton blend and had already been dyed blue. The dyes we were using do not adhere to polyester fibers which is why they are so soft.

That's it folks, at least for now. Thanks as always for stopping by and feel free to leave any comments, I love them. It feels good to be blogging again. I'm sorry I was away for so long.