April 25, 2008

More Printed Fabric

Here's some printed fabric that I've been working on this week.I carved 4 different designs from an erasers. The top green and yellow piece is printed using one of the carved stamps. The bottom piece has several layers of screen prints and paint.
This is thermofax screen print. The original was a photo that I took of the ocean and then performed some Photoshop magic on it, see here.

This is also one of my photos that I converted into a thermofax screen. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with all of this yet; but I'm having fun. Here are some of the ATC's I received from fellow artists in April. It's always love to see what designs people come up with. It's such a diverse group of artists, everything from textile, assemblage, painters, knitters (you name it).

Tomorrow, we're having our Fibervision meeting at Andi Perejda's house, then the whole gang is going to the Seven Sisters Quilt Show together. I've been told there are over 300 quilts. It's going to be a lot of fun!

April 16, 2008

Melting Pot Experiments

I finally got some time to play with the melting pot and UTEE. I made fabric beads, dipped them into UTEE, wrapped them in Angelina fibers and dipped again. They came out looking like fire opals inside glass. I had a few leftovers from the April ATC exchange and decided to cut some into 1" x 1-1/2" pieces. I then poured melted UTEE over them and heated them with an embossing tool. Looks like the designs are encased in glass. I'm going to attach pin backs to some of them and drill holes through others so I can attach them to a quilt with beads. Both came out very cool. Mike and I just came back from seeing CATS at the Arlington Theater. It was amazing, I'm so glad we went. Tomorrow night we are going to see a play at the Ensemble Theater. Ah, Life is Good!

April 13, 2008

Writing on Fabric

Last year, Rayna gave me a curved syringe similar to the one she uses to write on fabric. I put it away and never actually tried it. Then Sue wrote an article in Fibre & Stitch using the same tool. Again, it looked intriguing and I knew I would try it someday.
A couple of my thermofax prints didn't turn out well, because the design was too busy, so I figured I would try using the syringe and add a layer of writing on top. What did I have to lose? I was going to throw both pieces away anyways. The first couple of pieces felt a bit forced. I was trying to figure out how to hold the syringe and how hard to press it. And what the heck was I going to write about anyways?
By this third piece (larger than what is shown below), the technique felt pretty natural and words just came spilling out. Every once and a while you can read a word or two, but for the most part, it is illegible. I think it adds a nice layer of texture though, don't you?

Originally, the syringe was used by vets to administrator medication to animals. Some creative person had a "what if" moment, ran an experiment and discovered a great new paint technique.

April 11, 2008

April ATC Trade

Here are the ATC's that I made for our monthly trade. I applied various yarns, thread balls and dryer sheets onto a sheet of stiff felt. I stitched everything down, then cut the sheet into trading cards. I added more embellishment, doodled with my permanent markers and stitched around the outside edge.

Arte y Pico Award

In the past few days, I received two different blogging awards. The first award came from Laurence in France. Her blog is written in French, but has a very cool translator. The second one came from Elis who is a fantastic mixed media artist in Canada. A huge thank you to both of you.
I would need to link to 15 blogs to meet the requirements for both blogs and I'm afraid I just don't have the time to do that. But I don't want to be a stick in the mud, so I'll follow the rules for the Arte y Pico award (that one only requires 5 links)!

Thanks so much to Elis Cooke for giving me the Arte y Pico award.
The following 5 rules are attached to this award:
1. You have to pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and that also contribute to the blogging community, no matter what language.
2. Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his/her blog to be visited by everyone.
3. Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her/him the award itself.
4. The Award winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of "Arte Y Pico" blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.
5. To show these rules.
The blogs I would like to award this honour to are:

Purple Missus

Because I Said So

Deidre Adams

Whiffs, glimmers & Left Ouevres

Michelle's Stitch and Paint

April 6, 2008

Thermofax Prints

My friend and artist extraordinaire, Andi Perejda, make six thermofax screens for me. I'm not sure why, but I only used one of the images from the last post. I'm going to be sending you more Andi. Anyways, I learned a few things along the way. The most important one is that heavily textural graphics do not make good screens; they are just too confusing. I had two images that didn't work out too well, one was a cactus and the other was rocks. They were so bad, I won't even show you. Another important item is the thickness of the paint; thin = bad print! The third thing is that almost anything can be saved! I also did some painting and writing, but didn't get a chance to take photos. Next Post. Here are some of the prints I made today.

Last week I had the opportunity to be a guest at the Magic Castle in Hollywood. It was fabulous! The magicians we saw were top notch and each one has their own unique style. Everything from Red Skelton style to Las Vegas showman. I am friends with the owner of the Magic Castle. Her husband is a retired Hollywood writer and she is a retired costume designer, however, they don't seem to retire well. He wrote the musical Pizzazz and she is designing 180 costumes for the musical. Pizzazz will have its world debut at the Granada Theater in Santa Barbara in June. After that, the show will be on the road for 2-3 years. I'm helping her with the finishing touches on the dresses, beaded fringe, sewing on lace, etc. The costumes are amazing, completely over the top. It's really exciting to be involved with this.

I also went whale watching on the Condor in the Santa Barbara Channel. I saw Gray whales and Humpback whales. It was a lot of fun but the ocean can really churn up your stomach. Mike and I was fine, but my daughter didn't fare too well. I never realized how difficult it is to get a good photo of a whale while your boat is rocking. I have new respect for the photographers who manage to get amazing shots.