Bird Quilt

There are a couple important regional shows coming up, and I'm well underway to create work that's good enough to get juried in - or at least the best work I'm capable of. I'm focusing on very bright colors, lots of texture, and subject matter that's close to my heart. The bird drawing on fabric is outlined with a brush point permanent marker to get the thick and thin lines. I then colored in it with Inktense water soluble colored pencils and heat set the fabric with an iron. The background is pieced with hand dyed and painted fabric from the studio.

Yesterday's Class at the Blue Twig

Everyone bravely got their hands goopy with acrylic paints to stencil on the details first. When the paint was dry, it was time to spray the loose washes of bold color! I loved my ladies' results - the T-shirts turned out as individual as they are. Peggy's had a dream-like feel of the stars in the Southwest: (it reminded me of what the Native Americans call the "trail of souls"in the night sky). It had some lovely shades of cherry red with gold and teal. Carol's turned into a happy flower garden with soft pastels.Here it is in progress below.

New Large Gelli Print Plate

When can you use red and green paint together without making mud? When you layer each color separately and let them dry in between. I ordered the new large (12 X 14) Gelli print plate online, and could hardly stand the wait until it came. I've been obsessively looking at photos of Gelli prints for a while on Pinterest and debating whether I needed one, or whether I should just continue making plates from gelatin. I love the gelatin plates, but they don't last and I can never get all the bubbles out of them. So, I coughed up the $60 and I'm glad I did. The Gelli plate gives you slightly different results since it's a dryer surface, but I'm liking what I'm seeing so far. There's a complexity and a bit of mystery in the layered prints.