Twisted Textiles

Just a quick update to let you all know…I’ve updated some of my other sites, and wanted to let you in on it just incase you’re members of the same sites! For instance, I am now twittering and I continue to update my Flickr account whenever possible. Hopefully soon I’ll have new goodies in my Etsy store (- lots of photos to take!) and I’m trying to post more frequently on Craftster. Also, if you’re lucky, you can find me on Facebook as well!
Share your info with me so we can keep in touch!!

If you know me, or are familiar with my art, you may have glanced at the title of this entry and assumed that I have made a skirt out of watermelon rinds. Good guess! – But this time I’ve actually used fabric.

It’s reversible too. The fabric on the other side is a minty green, with hot pink ladybugs. This photo is actually an “in-progress” shot, but since this item is very “Fourth-of-July” I wanted to show it off asap! You can’t see it here, but I’ve put little crystal-like beads on a few of the watermelon seeds to make them look…well…they look like slippery seeds, that’s what! I’ll have to take some closeups of the seeds, and also of the free-motion quilting I did on the image.

I copied and modified the pattern from another skirt (Thanks, Amy!) and I think I’ll be using this pattern again very soon – It’s super easy and very flexible. Lots of possibilities!

This is a detail of a particular Quilted Painting that I’m dropping off today at the Lexington Art League — their annual Member’s Open show starts with a “4th Friday” celebration on July 24th! Each member of the Art League submits a piece to this show, which equals about 120 artworks in the exhibit.

My Quilted Paintings series is largely inspired by dreams, sketches, and mental images that come from reading novels and works of fiction. It’s all fair game…I’m attempting to express in two-dimensions anything that I can squeeze out of my mind-grapes and put into more concrete visual terms.

This particular work was the very first in the entire series, and has a partner piece (entitled Inspired by Fiction, Scene 2) which was purchased in early 2008. I was sad to see these two particular works part ways with one another, but ultimately each image can certainly stand alone, with the ability to be interpreted and valued as a separate entity from the original pair.

These Quilted Paintings have been a fairly regular exercise for me, and definitely a welcome change from more traditional painting techniques. It’s been a little over a year since I started these, and I have many in progess that I’m anxious to finish!

I have been bitten by the purse bug again. Or maybe it’s the change in the weather, reminding me that Spring is already OVER, and I haven’t been on track with my self-imposed deadlines. Either way, be prepared for purses.

Oh yeah—and be prepared for some new clothing projects too. I’m really anxious to hold a new photoshoot with my photographer, and I’m getting on my horse right now, this very minute!

I’m having a wonderful week in my Watercolor Workshop!

Yep…I bet you didn’t know it, but I’m learning how to “pour” watercolor paintings, taught right here in Scott County by Stefanie Vallee. Stefanie is not only a superb artist whose work is widely known and shown, but a wonderful and delightful person as well! She is one of those people that is so full of joy and wisdom that you can’t help but be inspired…I’m so glad to have the opportunity to learn from her. And being around the other dozen-or-so artists in the workshop has been a welcome change as well! She’s also doing a demo and talk on Saturday.

I’m really enjoying the spontaneity…in the new art technique/approach, and also in our class conversations and miscellaneous group adventures around town! I know that I’ll be able to apply this technique to my fabric art in the future.

The image above is a closeup of one of my paintings so far, which was “painted” by pouring color onto the wet paper, no brushes were used so far (except to apply the masking fluid to keep the white parts of the paper from absorbing color). When I remove the masking fluid, we’ll see how I feel about it. I’ve got some pencil marks in there that will have to be removed also (…oops). Maybe I’ll just leave it be, and not use any brush-work at all!

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