Paint, Paint, and more Paint #2

I haven't figured out how to get more than 5 photos per post, so had to split this into two posts. Sorry! The following pieces are all inspired by books I have in my library. The first is (on the left) piece of the same canvas fabric in the previous post that I played with following along with Traci Bautista in "Collage Unleased." I had used her methods before with a friend but we weren't really following what Traci does as closely as I would have liked, so I jumped back in scrunching a dipping this piece of fabric (and LOOK! more circles!).

On the right are some canvas boards inspired by the purple and green canvases I showed earlier. I used molding paste to create texture as a base and again limited my palette, some of the acrylic paint is full body and some are watered down. These will become covers, the orange/yellow will be combined with the painted canvas on the earlier post. Stay tuned for that!

Working out of Mary Todd Beam's "The Creative Edge" I again used paste for texture only this time using a watercolor wash and some acrylic inks.

Here is a close up showing the juicy texture. This will be a great background for a project.

This afternoon I pulled out "Painted Paper" by Alisa Golden and worked with only acrylic inks. This method is her "dropper and dry brush outlines" technique. I LOVE THIS! I'm definitely going to be using more inks from now on. I love that they are permanent and their colors are very intense.

A close-up:

Paint, Paint, and more Paint #1

In between rain drops the last couple of weeks (and when I'm not transplanting things in my gardens) I've been out on the patio painting like nobody's business! I've needed to expand my "artsiness" so grabbed some paints, a few good art books and went to work. These large papers are spray painted using lace cardstock as stencils. For this project I was inspired by Debra Cooper's All About Patterns class over at 21 Secrets Playground (you can still register here). Such a fun class. I loved the spray painting part, but was impatient with the all over stamping part so I just played with the cans. Both Cheri and April have dabbled here as well and both seemed to love it.

Cheri has been growing (among many other things) poppies in her flower garden. They've all bloomed by now and just the poppy pods are left, so I grabbed one and inspired by the current issue of Somerset Studio spray painted the pods metallic gold. (Of course that was after spreading the seeds in MY garden!)

Using left over paint from a project not seen here I rustled up two small canvases and painted them green and purple. They needed white circles and black splotches and voila! So simple, but I really like them.

I hadn't painted fabric in a while so I took a rather large piece of cheapo canvas/muslin type fabric from the local store washed it hoping to remove the finish (didn't get it all out so the paint didn't absorb like I was hoping.... probably have to spring for some synthropol after all... *sigh*), dried it and purposely did not press any wrinkles out. I limited my palette to only 3 colors and black (yellow, red, and orange) on the piece. I wrapped a rubber band around a foam brayer for the black faux snakeskin pattern.

And stamped circles with the plastic center out of a transparent tape spool. Love the circles, they seem to be showing up everywhere in my current art pieces. After the paint was dry I finally ironed the wrinkles. I like leaving them in when I paint, I think it gives character to the piece.

More Quilts and a Sock Monkey

This growth chart is from a tutorial over at Emily's blog. I used the leftover pieces from Dylan's previous Eye Spy quilt for the squares. Dylan will be taking this back home with him so Mommy can write his heights in and I will embroider them on when I go back to visit.

Here is a fuller view of the chart, it is 72 inches long. I just finished Vincent the sock monkey last night. I had purchased the work socks last summer (?) at a flea market in Binghamton for a great price, ran across them while cleaning and sorting so I decided Dylan needed another monkey. The instructions for the monkey are here.

And here is the Sesame Street panel I quilted. The back is all-over Cookie Monster faces in blue. I decided it needed to be flannel and it sure is soft! All of Dylan's presents are here waiting for him. He arrives later this afternoon. It's his first plane ride, hope he does well for the 4 hour flight!

Journal and a New Idea Forming

Although I've been busy making "stuff" for Dylan (currently a quilted growth chart and Cat in the Hat book) I've still been working on my creative ideas. This Accordian Photo Album may have many lives in the near future. It was fun and not quite as, how shall I say this, all consuming as one of my fabric photo books. With just 6 photos and a handful of memorabilia from Dylan's birth and baby shower I created this blue and green fabric Accordian Photo Album which I hope will be making its appearance in other places as well. This page incorporates some confetti from the shower tables and the spine is closed with gift wrapping ribbon from a present. Each page has a button and embroidery to tie them all together visually.

This is how the book looks when fully open:

Cheri "accidentally" left a basket of fabric at my house last week so I pulled out a couple of pre-cut pieces (which, in my defense, looked like they were intended for a book/journal cover anyway, I swear!) and whipped up a little book for her. I quilted the two pieces in a square spiral, added an abstract flower of hand-dyed cotton, sewed some stars and beads here and there and finally added a stamped fabric label:

The "stuff" stamp was carved from an eraser.

The pages are samples of my current obsession with spray painting (which is looking more and more like the subject of my zine for Alma's I ♥ Zines 2011). Cheri plans to use this little book for photos of her cutie patootie granddaughter!