Collage in an art journal.

I did one of the lessons from my 21 Secrets workbook a while ago but didn't finish it off. It was called Media Remix and was a lot of fun. We took magazine pages and painted them. I put them together to make a journal and added magazine images for the subjects. For some of the pages I used stencils to cut shapes from magazine pages and stuck them down. It was a fun journal to make and now I am adding details and doodles with pens so I can pick it up and draw/doodle a little when the mood strikes.

Today I am sharing a few of the completed pages. Enjoy.

The painted and stencilled page. I sprayed them with the glitter sprays so they are very shiny and hard to photograph.

This page has little scrapbook gems added. The words were cut out from magazines too.

 These images come from my stash of collage pictures that I have collected over the years. I think these were from the scrapbook industry.

These flowers are from an art magazine. I added outlines as well as a few sketched ones too. This is an easy project to do, especially if you pick pictures that really appeal to you.

Pumice gel on fabric

One of the workshops I did from the Workshop on the Web series was about using texture paste on fabric. I didn't have any texture paste left (my old jar dried up) so I used the Golden Pumice gel instead. I tried it on a variety of surfaces and was quite impressed with how it stuck to everything I tried.

The first surface I tested was craft Vilene (interfacing). I spread the gel through a stencil and left it to dry. It was a little too coarse for spreading but I somehow managed to get it to work. It stuck really well and I have finished it off with some hand stitching.

The next surface is heavy Lutrador.  I added some soft gel medium to the coarse pumice gel to make it more spreadable. It worked great and when I use it again I would do the same, even on canvas. This will be another page in my fabric art journal.

My favorite surface I tried was teabags. I overlapped them to make a larger surface and then applied the gel through a stencil.  Later on I added a machine stitched outline and hand stitching accents. The gel stuck super well to the tea bags and none of it rubbed off when I stitched.

This surface is laminated tissue paper that was stamped and then had fiber paste applied on top (I had used up all the pumice gel). Again I added stitched details.

My final surface was to laminate the pumice gel between two pieces of tissue paper. I really like this technique because you still get the texture of the pumice but as it is trapped below tissue no little grains of sand fall off when you are stitching it. I think for this technique you could even use a little sand mixed into a soft gel medium to get the same effect. I painted the tissue with metallic paint then sprayed on various mica sprays (Moon Shadow mists) to highlight the raised areas. It was difficult to photograph but you get the idea anyway.

Thanks for looking and see you again soon. 

Natural dyeing and basketry.

I have been quite busy lately creating new work from the things I have learned at my textile group. We did a workshop on dyeing fabric using items from around the home. In particular we used some fruits, vegetables, spices and plants. We dyed small pieces of fabric in each pot so we had a sample of the colors you could get. After I got home I realized it didn't appeal to me so I decided to use my samples in a couple of textiles for my journal because I didn't want to keep them for reference. 

I was inspired to do this pattern by my daughter. She used it to paint pretty triangles on her studio wall. I did it as a patchwork. Some of the fabrics here were dyed with turmeric, flowers and eucalyptus plants. I added gold thread for interest.

This pattern was inspired by a quilt pattern I saw. I am did not worry about matching up seams properly because it is small (letter size) and only for my journal.  I used a simple running stitch as an accent. The fabrics here were dyed with blueberries, cochineal beetles and plants.

My final piece from the dyed fabric samples was inspired by a japanese quilt I saw pictures of. I used the circle spiral design but then chose to add a quote. I accented it with a simple running stitch in a circular pattern.

Last month we learned basket making using paper. It is the same traditional techniques as cane basket making but we used paper rolls in place of the cane. There is a great video on Youtube that has the same technique we learned using newspaper.

This first one is what I did at the workshop. The paper used was an old catalogue from junk mail. I painted the rim after I got it messed up so you could paint over the whole thing if you wanted. I liked the colors so I left it plain.  

I was curious what papers would work for this technique so I decided to do another. I use white copy paper and some brown paper that was on a roll from the office supply store. The brown paper was thin like the catalogue and worked really well. The copy paper was a little thick and hard to work with. I also experimented with the shape to see how easy it was to bring the sides in and out. I like the way it turned out and think the brown paper almost looks like cane. I have varnished both baskets and now they are extremely solid. It surprised me how strong they are, even before I put the varnish on.

Monotype printing on fabric

I was playing with mono printing on fabric recently and decided to use the images to make journal pages like I do in my art journal. I used stitching in place of the doodles I would normally do but then still added quotes as I love to do. I used any fabric paint I could find in the colors I needed. Some were Lumieres, and others were Jaquard fabric paints.

This was my first mono print using a girl stencil I made some time ago. When it was dry I used a swirl stencil to add more pattern. The blue dots are Quality Street chocolate wrappers. When I ironed them under a non stick sheet they wrinkled up into an interesting stiff material that was easy to stitch. A good excuse to eat chocolate in my opinion. I outlined the images with machine stitching and hand stitched the quote.

This mono print was a little more complicated to do. I started with a previously printed piece of fabric and did the mono prints on top of that. The trees and top section were done first then I put more paint on the printing plate and used torn paper to mask the sections I didn't want to print. I printed each layer separately. It is hard to see with this photo but the quote was hand stitched in two colors for interest. I added a few wools and cottons as well.

When I do mono printing I usually get two prints. The first one is printed normally then after I removed the masks from the plate I spritz it with water and do another print on different fabric. This time I used plain white fabric and the colors are much brighter. I decorated with hand embroidery and stamped words this time.

The center of this wall hanging is the second print I got when I did the landscape above. I liked it so much I decided to make this art quilt. After the quilting, some of the patterns didn't stand out enough so I used paint to extend the central image and high light the quilting. I also used stencils on this one to do extra circles and some scrolls.

I made the branch using gold wire for the leaves. I covered it with fabric strips but it didn't look like a branch so I wrapped strips of brown painted Lutrador over the top of the fabric and used a heat gun to melt it and make it look like bark. The gold leaves became almost invisible against the wall so I used alcohol ink to make them darker.

Embellisher machine...ooh what fun!

 I recently bought an embellisher machine. I didn't think I needed one but after seeing what other people in our textile group were making I wanted one. I got a Babylock machine and it is great fun to use. I love that it is so easy to operate and experiment with.
What does it do? Instead of sewing it punches fabrics together like felting. It doesn't have any threads so there is no tangling and once you have finished you can add any decoration you like.

 This page for my fabric journal shows the first few experiments I did. The top left is a piece of felt with some wool roving added, then I started to experiment and see what else I could stick on there so I added knitting wools and ribbons. Later on I added hand embroidery. The one below it is the same but I used organza to make a blue sky. The top right purple piece was an experiment with a variety of fabrics to see what would stick down. Anything thin was easy to embellish. The dragonfly was done later with puff paint.

Next I wanted to try a project so I went through my magazines and found this one in an old Cloth, Paper, Scissors. It has some painted fusible web and cutout felt circles. I added a few gold charms that are actually part of a necklace I no longer need.

A couple of weeks ago I did an embellisher workshop at my textile group. We did the same sort of landscape that I had done with my experiments. I wasn't too impressed with my piece when I got home so I cut it in half. This side I added some more wool in the sky area and used machine embroidery to add a lot more detail. It is much more appealing to me now.

This side of the embellished piece was done differently. I embellished on some organza to make the sky bluer then added a few clouds. I put more color into the ground and blended the landscape more. When I was happy with that I added hand embroidery. I like this side the best. Sometimes when I do workshops I find I don't always like what I do. When that happens I sleep on it and usually make changes the next day. I don't see the point in hanging on to something if you don't like it. Either give it away or change it. There is no rule in art that says you can't erase/undo your art. You are the boss.

This final piece from the embellisher workshop is various types of fabric (mainly silks and chiffon) stuck to a piece of felt. It was great to try lots of different things to see what would work. I didn't like the thicker silks like Dupion. Later on I added machine embroidery, a few braids and cords then hand stitching. I have made it into a book cover to fit one of my art journals. 

A fabric art journal

 Since I rediscovered my love of textiles recently I have been trying out a lot of new to me techniques. I don't have much free wall space in my house (does any artist?) so I make the projects letter size so I can put them together into a fabric book like an art journal for textiles. That way I can put them on a book shelf and they take up much less room. Later in the year I will show how I put it together but in the meantime here are some of the pages I have already completed.

 I was lucky enough to be given a large box of embroidery thread recently so I did a couple of tapestry canvas pages to use up some of the thread. This one has a few charms attached. They came from old earrings my daughter was going to throw away.

  This second canvas I did was an experiment of different tapestry stitches. I used an embroidery book to find them. I also added a bit of metallic thread this time.

 I recently came across zipper felt art on the Internet so decided I wanted to try it. There are lots of different ways of doing it. This was my first experiment and the dress zip was glued to the felt then I hand stitched it to make it more secure. I added embroidery and a tiny bit of quilting. This will be the cover of my journal when I make it.

This was my second experiment using a jeans zip for the flower and a thinner dress zip for the leaves. It was harder to bend the jeans zip and I probably won't use one again. The dress zip was about 4mm across the teeth, the jeans zip about 6mm. Again I glued and stitched it.

 My final piece of zipper felt art was a new name tag that I can wear to the textile group meetings. I had bought instructions from the inventor of this technique but it used a lot of hot glue so I chose to do it my way instead because I don't like using hot glue and getting it all over the place.

I cut the felt out in the shape I wanted then just hand stitched the zip to it. You can see  how I just stitched between each of the teeth. It didn't take long and has held together nicely. I did add an extra piece of felt on the back so I could stitch on the brooch backing.

My final share today is these whimsical birds I made. They come from one of the lessons for the latest issue of Workshop on the Web. I was happy I got to use these giant cotton reels I bought some time ago.

Textile challenge piece

I have been busy lately doing a lot of textile work. Over the next few weeks I have a lot to share.

Today I am sharing my finished wall art for my textile groups 2nd life challenge. We started last year collecting 12 items to be recycled into a piece of art and putting them in a bag. We were also allowed to add one new thing. At our December meeting we put all the bags together and then got to choose one that was not our own to use in our work. We also had a lucky dip to select the theme for our piece. I was lucky and got Music as my theme. It was a very broad theme. 

This was the bag I chose. I thought it looked interesting with the cardboard roll sticking out the top. It was fun going through the bag to see what we had to use. Some bags had very unusual items to use in an art piece. One of the rules of the challenge was that we should use 1 part of each of the 13 items we received in our finished art work.

This was what was in my bag. At first I was perplexed to how I could use this lot in a textile art piece, especially the mint tin which was quite hard to cut up because the metal was so thick. In the end I used tin snips to cut that into rectangles.  

I used all 13 items in my finished art work. Most of them have been altered in some way to make them fit into my theme and colour scheme. Here is what I did:
1. Cardboard roll - I cut it down the middle to flatten it then ran it through an embossing machine. I painted it green. You can see it in a couple of places, one is under the harp.
2. Ribbon - I applied texture paste through a stencil and when dry painted some blue and other pieces gold.
3. Foam crown - I removed the circles and stars then cut the last piece into a rectangle. I used texture paste with a circle stencil on the shapes then gave them a coat of dimensional magic to make them look shiny. The rectangle was run through the embossing machine and painted. It is under the beads at the top,
4. Ring pulls - these were flattened then heat embossed with pinkish embossing powder and threaded onto a ribbon.
5. Popsicle stick - cut into 3 then I used a wood burning tool to write sing on one piece. The other two pieces were given a coat of puff paint then painted. I really love that effect.
6. Black cord - I used my sewing machine to zigzag variegated thread over the black changing it completely. I then cut it into pieces and used it in a few areas.
7. Oval earring - The lower half was used to make the mandolin and to top is used like a button just above the mandolin.
8. Mint tin - I ran the tin pieces through an embossing machine and then painted and distressed the metal. They are the pinky/gold pieces in a few different spots.
9. Pink flower beads - I used alcohol ink to color them brown.
10. Bread tag - I stitched a piece of fabric paper and stuck it to the tag.
11. Clothing tag - I applied copper foil over the tag and used it under some beads at the top of the piece.
12. Christmas paper - I used the paper to make fabric paper which is the background and also some of the smaller backgrounds throughout the piece.
13. Self covered buttons - I hammered them flat and painted them to make them into records.
I also painted all the fabrics I was given and used them as backgrounds. The fake leather piece became my guitar and the sheer fabric became my beads and ribbon.
I added machine stitching and embroidery to tie everything together and make the piece attractive. The whole thing is mounted onto a piece of embossed felt that I had in my stash. It was quite a challenge and I am happy with the way my art finished up. If I didn't tell you would you know it was made mainly from a pile of junk?