Studio Space

I have spent three days cleaning and organizing my studio space.  I needed to have a nice space to get messy in and now I finally have that.  I have all my messy art stuff, dye equipment and scrap-booking supplies in my basement.  (I am lucky that it has windows all along one side and gets a lot of light.)  I have my sewing room upstairs right next to my kitchen.  I was tired of having everything crammed into one small area, except my dyeing supplies which have always been downstairs.  Now I just have to finish organizing my sewing area and I will be ready to create some more art.  I have to have my all my art making supplies in the house somewhere.  With two little boys at home I can't really go anywhere else to be creative.  I am feeling a little more energized just to have my area organized, so I can find things when want them without having to dig around.

Sister Quilt

Here is my latest project.  This is a small art quilt that I made for my sister.

This is my first attempt using a whimsical style of art.

Weekend Fun

This weekend was my son's fourth birthday.  My family went camping near Interlochen MI, where my girls were attending band camp.  We saw their performance and went to Sleeping Bear Dunes to see the sights.

My son is really into superheros, so I made him a superhero belt for his birthday.

Now he has loops and pockets to hold all his little goodies.

                 Here are some pictures from around Sleeping Bear Dunes, which is along Lake Michigan.

                                           The water below, 400 feet down, is Lake Michigan.

                                           Here is one picture of the band during their performance.

Summer of Color Finale 2011

It has been  a fun ride this summer.  This is my first time following along with an art challenge.  I have enjoyed seeing other people's art and seeing so many different styles.  I enjoy having a community of artists to communicate with.  It has been really amazing and encouraging.  I hope that I can keep in contact with the artists from Summer of Color, because you are a great group of people.

Here is my main work for the challenge.

These are a few of the different projects I made.

This is some of my daughter's art from this summer.

This is a sampling of the dye work that I did for the color challenges.

I hope that everyone can have a great year and keep on creating and sharing.

Summer of Color (Orange)

I used a poem for my inspiration that I learned in an Asian Literature class I took in college.  I can't find the author, but here is the poem:

Red as wine
leaves fall
one by one in the autumn rain.


These fleeting dancers
quicken my heart
and tighten my throat.


Beauty never stays
but memories linger,
the leaves whisper to me.


When I dance my death
will that be beautiful too?


I have been thinking about autumn and all the joys that come with that season here in Michigan.  I used this to create my orange leaves atc.

 I used Shiva Paint Sticks to add color the the leaves on the top.  I want a hint of fall color to tone down the orange.  I dyed the fabric with my dye named soft orange, but it is a really vibrant orange in person.  


I also want to show a page in an altered book that I am working on slowly.  I was trying out some different art materials on these pages just to see how they worked.

Here is my daughter Katrina's art for the week.

Summer of Color (Purple)

I had fun with purple this week.  I want to thank everyone who left comments.  It really makes blogging worth it.

I tried a new technique for this atc.  I made chenille cloth.  I sewed six different purple pieces of fabric together.  I sewed lines across the fabric pieces on the bias.  I then cut all but the bottom layer of fabric between all the lines of stitching.  After that was done I washed it so that the fabric would fray and show the layers.  The fabric is very soft after washing it.  I painted a metal heart charm with fingernail polish to add some shine and sparkle.

I took a very dark piece of dyed fabric in Imperial Purple to make a night scene.  I put a basic tree and hills on the fabric with stitching.  I then took shimmery fabric paint and painted over the stitching and added some silver stars.

My daughter was into silver roses this week.  She made a small card and a fabric atc.

Have fun creating in orange for next week.

Horse shirt

Here is a picture of my niece in her completed birthday outfit.

She is a little horse lover and farm girl.

Summer of Color (Red)

I am finally getting to post my red ATCs for Summer of Color.  Red was fun to work with even though it is a color that I don't often use except as an accent.  I had a beautiful piece of hand dyed fabric that I made a couple of years ago.  I used that for the base and then stamped images on top.  I love dragonflies and I had a stamp of one that I carved earlier this year, so adding something with wings was easy.

This is my daughter's submission.  She didn't have time to sew this week, but she had fun with a dragon stamp and embossing powder.

Summer of Color (Brown)

I am finally getting around to posting my brown week items.  I have had a lot going on this week, so even though I finished early I just didn't get around to posting.
I want to say thank you to everyone that commented last week.  It is nice to be encouraged and appreciated.

This is my first brown piece.  I decided to use all the colors of hand dyed brown fabric to make a collage.  I used pieces of old watches for interest.  The green watch part is my bold color.

This is the next brown piece that I and my sister have been working on for my niece.  She loves horses so we are making her a horse shirt for her fourth birthday.  This is a great way to use brown with a bold color. 

 We put a small applique of cowgirl boots on the back of the shirt.

The next two items are my daughter's submissions. 

 A friendship bracelet made from brown and pick yarn.

Her first ATC.  The saying by Dr. Seuss is:
You know you're in love when you don't want to fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.
Have a fun time creating for red week.

Zoe

Here is a small wall quilt that I have been working on for a couple of months off and on.  I made it for a friend, who really loves her dog Zoe.

 Here is what it looked like before I quilted it and after the thread work was done.

 Here is what it looks like after the quilting.

This is the first time that I have done a mitered binding.  It was quite an experience putting it on.  It should be easier next time around.  The fabric I used for the border is some of my hand dyed fabric.  Making this quilt was an enjoyable experience all around.

Summer of Color (Yellow)

I enjoyed seeing everyone's pink pieces.  There was so much variety and so many wonderful art pieces.  This challenge has been a great inspiration to me.  Once again I want to thank everyone for all the great comments. This week I made two atcs.  I took my inspiration from all the flowers blooming at this time of year.  I love seeing all the flowers during the summer. Here are my yellow pieces:

 The idea for this atc came from a flower that is blooming in my garden right now. I first made a pale yellow background using wax pastel crayons.  Then I thread sketched the flower in black and added color with wax pastel crayons.  I had to add a bit of orange as well as yellow because the two go so well together. I added some ribbon on the edge with gold in it for my metallic accent.

For my sunflower I used the same method as my first atc.  I added some colored fabric scraps to the edges.  I wanted it to look like a window that you can see the flower through.  I added gold paint to the middle of the sunflower to give it a bit of metallic.
I got the idea for both of these atcs from Quilting Art Magazine.  I loved the article from the latest issue about thread sketching flowers and adding fabric scrap borders.
Here are some pictures of yellow flowers that my daughter took this week.  Enjoy a bit of my summer.

Now off to find inspiration for brown week.

Summer of Color (Pink)

I finally have time to post for Summer of Color Pink week.  I want to say thank you to everyone for your comments and encouragement.  It is nice to find out that people like my art.  It helps me to keep going and to improve my work.  This challenge is great for giving me inspiration and new ideas.  All the varied art is wonderful to see each week. 

I did two different projects for the pink challenge.  One piece was paper, water soluble wax crayons, and beeswax.  This was my first time using beeswax in art work.  I wasn't completely happy with the results, but I know some things to change in the future so it will work better.  I found out that I really love the way beeswax smells.  I will try it again, I'm just going to change my methods a little.

 The next piece that I made was another fabric ATC.  I used some of my snow dyed fabric for my ACT.  I used water soluble wax crayons to write the words and draw my shore before I stitched over them.

Here is a picture of the larger snow dyed fabric.  I love the beautiful patterns that snow dyeing produces.  I did put a picture of this up already, but since it was taken inside the fabric looks much darker.  Here is a picture taken in the sun.

My daughter also wanted to make a pink piece this week and play along with us.  She made a card for one of her friends.

Now for yellow.  I already have some ideas.  Have fun creating.

 

Pink

I am working on two pieces for the Summer of Color Pink challenge.  The fiber art that I am making is going to come from a piece of snow dyed fabric that I made last winter.  Here is a look at the fabric a bit early.  Come back next week to see what I did with it.

Summer of Color (Green)

Here is my entry for Kristin's Summer of Color week two.  I made another fabric ATC this week.  I didn't have a lot of time this past week, so I kept it simple.  I plan on mixing things up a little so I don't do the same thing every week, but this week that didn't happen.  I think of growing things trees and flowers when I think of green. What better to go with these than a fairy, so I used a fairy stamp that I already had and fabric paint to add her under the tree.  I did all the painting on a piece of green fabric that I dyed earlier.  It had a bit of citron in the fabric, but when I dyed the batting the paint flowed a bit farther than I wanted it to and it covered up most of the citron.   Next time I won't paint the batting at the end of the project.

I colored in the fairy using NEOCOLOR® II  Watersoluble crayons.  Next week there is a bonus for using wax in for the pink challenge.  Maybe I will be using these again, but I also want widen my wax exploration.