Abstract Painting

A recent Lifebook lesson, by Jenny Doh, was on abstract painting. We were trying to get out of our heads and just paint what we felt.  It is a fun way to paint without planning first and just letting the painting happen.  I painted these three pages.

I really love abstract painting and want to practice more.  These paintings are just playing around with mark making on a small scale.  I want to try some large paintings too.  It is harder to get something that I love with this style of painting.  I guess I'll just have to paint more.  Now that my youngest is done with school for the summer and my other boys are almost done, it hopefully will be easier.  I won't have to follow a strict schedule.  I can let them play and I can paint.  I'll let you know how that goes.

Have a great week.
Janelle

Weekly Pattern Wednesday

Lynn Krawczyk invited people to play along and create a pattern every Wednesday and to share them.  Here is the invitation if you would like to play along too.

Here is the first pattern that I created.  It is just a little warm up. Practicing making patterns is a good way to increase my personal symbol library.  Hopefully practicing these patterns will help me to stretch and improve my other art work.

You can go here to see the other patterns created for the first week.

Janelle

The Beginning of a Quilt

I have been working on the sunflower quilt that I started in April. I have finished painting the quilt top and am ready to move onto thread sketching. I plan to thread sketch and then add the batting and some hand stitching and other embellishments. Finally I will quilt it and get it finished.

It is nice to work on this project little by little rather than having to rush.  Spring is such a busy time with all kinds of events for my kids and gardening to do too.  My oldest daughter became a nationally certified EMT this spring.  I am proud of all she has accomplished as well as the rest of my sweet kids too. It is a great time to be a mom and an artist.  I am enjoying my time as both.

Here is the painted top.  Adding thread and embellishments will bring it to life and make it a lot less flat.       

My daughter took pictures of me while I was working on it, so I thought that I would share one.

I had some leftover fabric paint that didn't want to be wasted.  I started adding surface design to these two small piece of fabric. I'll keep adding to them when I have leftover paint or feel inspired. 

Have a great weekend,
Janelle

Silk Painting

It has been really busy here the last two weeks.  Last week I spent two days in a silk painting workshop with Nancy McKay.  It was a wonderful experience and I learned a lot about silk painting.  I would recommend that anyone who has an interest take a class with Nancy.

This week my oldest daughter came home from her university for a few days and my youngest celebrated his birthday.  Around all this activity my family was dealing with colds and tummy bugs too.  All in all I have had two great weeks and hope to continue on with a lovely spring season.

We used crepe de chine 12mm that had been treated with sizing to better control the flow of the dyes.  We used H. Dupont Dyes which bond to the silk fiber when they are steam set.  The colors are beautiful and easy to use.  Here is one place that you can buy these dyes:  http://www.dharmatrading.com/dyes/dupont-silk-dyes-french-silk-dyes.html

This first piece was the practice piece that I did to get used to the process and how the dyes would work. 

In this workshop we drew our sketch onto the silk and then painted it.   This girl is the first one that I painted.  I love making whimsy style girls.  Now I want to stitch on top of her to add texture and depth and to modify areas that I don't like.  I love how the stitching really adds to a textile piece. 

I also want to add stitching to this sunflower. 

We dyed a silk scarf in class as well and steam set the dye in the microwave.  This was a shibori style that was wrapped and tied with a string to create a resist.  I love these colors and the process. I could happily make many more of these scarfs.    

Textiles add so much to our daily lives.  I love manipulating fabric to create beautiful items and make the environment even more beautiful.  I hope that you too appreciate the beauty of textiles.  Have a wonderful end to the week.
Janelle 

Sunny Sunflowers

I started a new quilt this week.  I am painting sunflowers. We had a couple of nice warm days and then it got cold again. I decided not to wait for the summer flowers to show up, but to make my own flowers.  I love sunflowers of all kinds and have planted bright sunny yellow ones and also the autumn colored flowers.  Maybe I should try planting them again this year, when it finally gets warm.

I am still working in my art journal and have completed a couple new pages.  This page was just about playing with a couple of techniques.  My journal is getting really full, so the pages are harder to photograph.  That's okay with me though because I love having full chunky journals.    

This page is from a Lifebook lesson.  It was fun playing with gold leaf.  It adds a lot of shine to the page and I really like shiny on my art journal pages. 

My art quilting group learned about fabric painting this week. I sketched the flowers out on cotton fabric before the meeting.  I have been working on painting all week.  I still want to add some more details to the flowers and I need to paint the background too.  After all the painting is done I will start thread sketching and then quilting.  I'll keep sharing my progress.   

Have a great weekend and live your life creatively.

Janelle

Art Journal Groove

I have finished a couple more lessons from Lifebook that I wanted to share.  This one was all about celebrating your favorite things. It is always good to remember the things that make life good.  The background for this page was created with watercolors that feel chalky when they are dry.  They do make a nice soft look and were good for this page.  

The next three pages were lessons from Lifebook also.  They were all quick exercises in intuitive painting without worrying about the end results.  The point was to tap into your inner child and have fun with the process.  They all has time limits as well.  They were painted at 15, 10, & 5 minutes respectively.

This first one was a finger painting with the addition of a few more tools.  I used my basic acrylic paints. 

This one is painted with Golden acrylics with a brush and a rubber painting tool.  

This page was painted wet into wet with Twinkling H2O watercolors.  They have a beautiful shimmer that the photo doesn't capture at all. These are my favorite watercolors and are so fun to use. 

I created this page using my church bulletin after Divine Mercy Sunday last Sunday.  I used a stencil from Artistcellar that went perfectly with the subject.  It is done with modeling paste and the colors from the background colored it slightly.  

I have been having fun painting in my journal.  I am getting close to finishing this one.  I'll probably be making a new journal this summer some time.  I love filling up these journals, it is so relaxing to have a safe place to practice and process life stuff.
Have a wonderful weekend,
Janelle  

The benefits of happy

Hello Everyone,
It is finally starting to get warm here and feel a bit more springlike.  The warmth makes me happy, that and my hubby has been home for his spring break this week.  Spending a week together while the kids are at school most of the time is always nice.  Being a teacher he doesn't get to choose when his vacations are, but at least he has enforced breaks.  Life has been feeling good lately.  I'm trying to dwell on the happy instead of the rough things that we face.  I don't ignore the bad parts, but I'm trying not to worry and just take each day and really see the good parts. 

I hope that you too can focus on all the good that comes your way and be happy.  Sometimes that isn't easy, but I think that we benefit so many ways when we don't dwell on the negative all the time.

I have been working on some more journal pages lately.  I think that they show that my mood has been pretty good.  I love using colors and subjects that make me happy.  These are all from Lifebook lessons, so I didn't choose the concept.  I did choose colors and themes that have meaning to me though.  I love taking a lesson and personalizing it.  

I gave my happy puppy a nice bright background.  I mixed browns, greens, and gold for the ground. Most of the background was finger painted.  I still love the feel of finger painting like I did when I was a kid.

  

This one is all about my inner and outer world.  I made a collage that had meaning to me and I used a face that I had painted previously.  I made a color copy of a painting.  I think that if I would have used a bigger face it would have been easier to paint over it.  Next time I will do that. 

This is my favorite lesson.  It was interesting using more black and white and a less shaded face.  I also love the pops of bright color.  This one was just fun to do.  I still want to work on the 3/4 face, so that I can draw them better.  I feel that I am making progress on my faces. 

How does your mood affect your creativity?  

I hope that you can have a great weekend and be happy.

Janelle     

Beautiful Yarn

I can teach you how to dye gorgeous fabrics and also unique yarns.  I dyed some skeins of cotton yarn recently, so that you can see the possibilities of creating your own beautiful yarn. The process is the same as for dyeing fabric.  I am using fiber reactive dyes for plant fibers; cotton, rayon, linen, hemp, bamboo, etc.  I also love dyeing threads, ribbons, lace, doilies and many other fibers.   

This is the class that I teach at the local museum.


Try Dyeing Fabric
2 Saturdays: April 25, May 16
10 a.m.—1 p.m.
Instructor: Janelle Marks
Cost $35 / Member $30

Are you a quilter or a knitter? Learn how to dye and decorate your own fabric and yarn to use in your creative endeavors. Price is per workshop. Supply list provided.
http://ellasharpmuseum.org/?page_id=643

I am also available to hold a class for individuals or groups. Just send me an e-mail to set that up. 

Do you crochet or knit?  What are your favorite things to make out of beautiful yarns?

I would love to hear from you.
Janelle

Coloring Like a Kid

This week the art quilting group that I participate in, tried another technique.  We got to color like kids with crayons.  It was a fun technique to play around with.  Instead of coloring on paper we colored on cotton fabric.  We used wax crayons and colored pencils.  I drew free-hand on my square of fabric with a graphite pencil.  I did look at some drawings of flowers for inspiration.  Inspiration is a wonderful thing.   

After I drew the design, I colored it in with crayons and a bit of colored pencil. I used a hot iron and paper towels to melt and remove most of the wax while leaving the color behind.  I found quite a few tutorials about the process on-line if you are interested in trying it yourself. 


Now for the pictures. 

Next time I use this method I would make sure some things worked better.  I ironed freezer paper onto the back of the fabric for stability, but it had some bubbles in it.  The bubbles created some lines while I colored that I wasn't too happy with, but it is fine for a first try.  I also want to keep improving my whimsy faces, so that they look even better.  Practice, practice, practice I must do.  If you see a lot of faces here, you will know why.  

I want to turn this girl into a small quilt.  I have the perfect fabric picked out for the edges, from my snow dyed stash. Hopefully I will have her done by the end of the month.

Have a wonderful weekend,
Janelle 

A visual View of the week

I have been working on more pages in my art journal this week.  I do enjoy working and experimenting in my hand made journal. I have also been making gelatin prints.  They are so fun to make. I love the feel of drawing and printing on gelatin.  Now that I have all the prints I have even more paper for collage or backgrounds.  You can never have too many painted papers!

This page has a heart gratitude book.   I made pages for my family members and wrote notes on each page.  All the pages are decorated differently.  This page is from Lifebook.  

On this page I sprayed Dylusions ink and dropped acrylic inks and sprayed the page with water.  Then I created flowers from the blobs.  I wanted to experiment with glazes and negative painting. It is a fun process and one that I will come back to again. 

Here are a few of the gelatin prints that I made. 

I hope that you enjoy the visual view of my week.
Have a great weekend,
Janelle