Fabric Art

Painting and dyeing on silk has been one of my latest interests. The colorful squares are from fabric that I dyed and the purple background is hand dyed silk that was a pair of pants.

This is a close up that shows the beadwork that I added.

My latest piece is one that I painted, lettered, quilted and beaded. I'm just learning this technique, so there is lots of experimenting to try. The few beads are on the rose petals.

A Mixed Bag

Recently I took a painting on fabric workshop with Judy Coates Perez. Well, my world was enriched once again! She uses Tsukeniko Inks that are applied with a pencil shaped tool or with a paint brush. Her work is stunning. Here is a mushroom that I did in the afternoon part of the class. The background was hand dyed fabric. The outline and the painting were done with a brush. The mushroom is about 7" tall, so one can spend a long time perfecting each painting. So many choices!

OK, I did watch the 49er game, but one can get a lot done during the action. Here is my goat, a happy zentangle face.                                                                           Good day!

Sketchcrawl and fabric

Yesterday I joined others at the Sketchcrawl held in Davis, California. This group was organized by Pete Scully. If you check is website you'll see his terrific work. Yes, he counted the rows of bricks in the building. Pete is the one in the black hat.

My very humble drawing was of the building next to the brick structure which housed the coffee shop.

It was funny, I seemed to find myself alone which is not really the intent of a gathering. But it did help me to gain confidence to sit and draw in public. There were many languages spoken and I could tell when the same set of footfalls changed direction. Davis, which is a small town, is the home of the University of California, Davis campus and it seemed that families were checking out the surroundings. Also, there was a soccer tournament with over 100 teams and players and their parents were strolling through the town.

While walking through the town I visited an artists co-op called The Artery. Currently one of the featured artists is Lillian Grant. Her zentangle type work on huge scrolls of a heavy paper inspired me to pull out my new set of fabric markers and try some designs on a white on white fabric. I have no idea where this project will lead me, but I just had to try it out.

So may toys, so little time!!

Sketch quilt

The quilt that I've titled "Generations" is finished. This was my entry to a challenge presented by my art quilt group. The guidelines were that it should be 15" x 24" vertical and monochromatic. We drew color chips from a bag and mine in a rosy sepia color. I know that most will have an array of colors, but I wanted to challenge myself to using a minimal span of colors. Maybe because of the sepia color, I jumped on the idea to do my grandparents wedding picture. The project snowballed and I also did my parents, my in-laws and on the bottom, my husband and me. The quilt has been quilted by machine and by hand.

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The figures were drawn with a Pitt pen and I brushed on color from oil paint sticks. The close-up is of my in-laws, Betty and Don. OK, there is something "off" in each portrait, but the love is there. In fact, it was a more emotional project than I have anticipated. I kept thinking about how each of the ancestors were married "until death do us part", the shortest was about 35 years. Really, there is no formal picture of my parents, so their drawings were done from a 1943 picture-they were married in 1939. I had on a silly headpiece that you can see was crooked in this picture. How unimportant the clothing-what is important is the marriage. A fancy wedding is no guarantee of a successful marriage.

Later this month, I will be able to see how other met this challenge. I've sure that there will be a wide variety of designs.

Drawing on Fabric

OK, this is my first attempt, but I'm so excited. I'm so happy to have pushed myself.



This is the first stage in a monochromatic quilt challenge. The whole quilt will be 15 x 24". This piece is 7 x 12". All sketches will  be in this combination of pen and oil paint stick. The couple are my grandparents in their wedding picture from 1907. I see some tweaking that needs to be done, so I'll get to it. I could redo the whole piece, but I only have so much fabric. Part of the challenge! There are several more sketches that will be included. BUT, I have taken the first step and it is big for me.