Tuesday, June 16, 2015

A New Project

A couple of years ago a friend of mine passed away. She was an avid stitcher and three ladies in her Embroiderers' Guild spent several months organizing her stitching stash and brought it to a meeting for a stash sale. I picked up this finished piece to remember my friend by and plan to make it into an ornament for my Christmas tree.

I've always loved cable cars!


I also found a project she had worked on that was obviously meant to be a mixed media piece. I picked this up as one of the few in the group that relishes working in mixed media. When I got it home I found that there was no documentation with it but there was a receipt for a tote bag purchased at The Greenbriar in West Virginia. That lead me to the discovery that she had taken a workshop through NAN (National Academy of Needlearts) in 1999 and that what I had brought home from the stash sale was what she had worked on at the workshop.

The workshop seems to have been about painting on paper using transfer paints, transferring the image onto fabric with an iron, and then embellishing the result with thread and fabric snippets. There were two paintings and three fabric images (two are duplicates from the same painting) and one of the fabric pieces has been started. I am planning on working on these and posting my progress from time to time.

Painted swatches and color mixing
Threads and fabric snippets



Two ironed images from one painted piece
A second painted piece with the work in process
I like the way the two "duplicate" images on the left look as though they could be photos of a landscape taken on different days, one cloudy and one sunny. I am going to begin with the piece on the right that is already in process and see where it takes me.

Back to paper art, when I was little I remember one of my teachers showing us how to make scratch paper by coloring a piece of paper with crayons and then covering the crayon with black tempera paint. We then got to scratch our artwork into it and reveal the color in new and surprising combinations. Recently I saw some scratch paper books on clearance and bought several. I gave away all but one as gifts but when I saw this week's Diva Challenge to work with the colors of the rainbow I knew it was time try out my purchase. Eight of the pages are holographic silver and eight are rainbow colored but it didn't say which half of the book was which (part of the magic!) So I wound up doing two since the first one wasn't the rainbow paper.

 Does anyone else see a stylized bunny in this one?
String #161
Tangles Used: Bateek, Box Spirals,
Crescent Moon, and Organza
I gave myself an extra challenge using tangles starting with L, G, B, and T to create a rainbow tile for Pride Week which is coming up next week.
Tangles Used: Lazy Eights, Glace, Beadlines, and Ticking
So much fun! I both can't wait to do more and will be sad to have used them "all up."

6 comments:

  1. You are adventurous with your craft. A great twist on adding rainbow colours to the tangles.

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  2. Nice that you find something in that stash sale that inspires you!

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  3. I like the stylized bunny and your Diva tile is lovely. I don't know how you find the time to engage in as many projects as you do, but I appreciate your sharing them - along with your vast store of knowledge.
    Thanks!

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  4. you are gonna have so much fun with that mixed media stuff! and I love the LGBT scratch board tile. I remember that homemade scratch board from elementary school, too. In fact, the first time I saw storebought scratchboard I thought...why? When you can make your own? But you've done some lovely work here. Good going!

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  5. What a great idea to use these scratch books!! What fun and how sweet the way you are dealing with your friend's work!! :)

    ~ Diane Clancy
    http://www.dianeclancy.com/blog/2015/06/my-diva-colors-of-the-rainbow-challenge-entry

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