I am making this chicken for a challenge project. I was given the image of a tea set and was asked to find an image within it. What I saw was a Chicken. Hmmm. Where to find a suitable chicken? Fortunately, my doctor has chickens in her yard, and gave me a good picture she had taken of her favorite. From the picture, I made an outline and then went to work on a stylized version. The resulting hen is made up of about six different fabrics pieces. An interesting bird. I’m not sure where I will go from here, so we’ll have to wait and see. However, I decided the the red chicken needed a friend, and I created the black and white one. Take a look.
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High Fiber Diet, a fiber arts group to which I belong, hosts a challenge each year for its members. This year’s challenge is called, “View from Above.” I based my effort this year on scenes of farmland I have viewed many times from airplanes flying back and forth across the country. For my stylized interpretation, I used paints, discharge dying and stitching. The resulting piece will be traveling for a year with the High Fiber Diet show.

I am now closer to finishing my chain ring piece and it now has a biker and some texture. I have painted and stamped all over the fabric. My husband told me I really needed some chains on the piece, so I asked him to take one apart so I could make a stamp out of the links. If you look closely you will see (more…)

With the Talkn’ Trash quilt, it was fun to see how many throw-away items I could use. I began with a trash heap, and went from there. In the quilt, the cart is carrying additional refuse to add to the pile. I used plastics, paint, wool, plastic  bags, and used a mesh onion bag to hold the trash, something… (more…)

Reaching Out (30″ x 45″) is the finished piece of quilt art work that came out of the hot weather we had back in July. I expanded parts of ginkgo leaves and a pitcher for this design. Using a fusible interface I created the leaves and pitcher. Next came the challenge to put all the parts together. I used paint and stamping on the background fabric before adding the leaves and pitcher to make it more interesting. This quilt is now hanging at the Lake Oswego Library in Portland Oregon for the month of October as part of a group show for Tactile Expressions. Tactile Expressions is a contemporary fiber arts collective.

The Global Art Project (www.globalartproject.org) is a challenge given to the members of OWCA Oregon Women Caucus for arts. They asked us to make some sort of art on an 8″ x 10″ surface. Each person will create a work of art expressing their vision of world peace. The contribution can be in any medium — visual or literary art, audio or video tape – which can be sent from one person (or group) to another.

The purposes of this project is to create a work of art expressing your vision of global peace and goodwill to exchange with another person or group. OWCA will be making 10 copies of each artist work and selling them to raise funds for the project.

The artwork will be displayed in the Janovec Gallery in Portland, Oregon April 1st through 22nd 2010. They will be bundled up and sent to Tucson to be matched up with a group for exchange. OWCA will then receive a show from another group (somewhere in the world). This art can be displayed or distributed to all who sent artwork out. Each artist will be able to keep one piece.

This is how I started my piece of art work. I used a wax paper place-mate from a pub, a plastic part of the caution sign they use for construction, a symbol from the web and some fabric flowers.   Click here then scroll to the bottom to comment

I used the checked place-mat as the background and then treated it as quilt art. I fused the flowers to the background along with the other parts.The plastic “caution” part could not be fused as it will melt. I used machine stitching or quilting it hold it all together. A checkered ribbon was used for the border. This is what I ended up with as the finished piece of quilted artwork.

In the past 2 weeks I have been on several long bike rides. This got me thinking about a bike type piece of artwork. Now would you think of using bike parts in an art quilt? I did. I took a bike ring and put it in the scanner and made a copy. Then I used photo shop to change the shape of the bike ring. This is where I started and will continue to see where it goes. I am excited about this venture.

August 8, 2009

I have been playing around with NOTAN a dark and light or positive and negative design principle. The word Notan is a Japanese word, but the idea has been around for thousands of years in China. Notan really is fascinating. This design idea came from a modified Notan. You can take a simple circle or any simple shape, cut through the shape a few times and turn it into something amazing. When you cut up the shape just separate it slightly to see the new design. I have taken a simple shape, put it into Photo-shop and stretched it into a different shape, then cut it. Below is a sample of what it can do.

Here is a book on the subject I find interesting.
Notan, The Dark-Light Principle of Design
by Dorr Bothwell and Marlys Mayfield

Welcome to my new blog. July 29, 2009

The weather here is a true heat wave for the NW. It has keep me inside and I am getting some artwork done. I am thankful we have air conditioning. It has cooled down somewhat but has a way to go. I have made some progress on my project. Here is a quick look.