September Highlights II

I am happy to report that I had two unexpected sales in September. At one of my salon/critique group meetings early in September, I brought one of my fabric collages that I just finished stitching for critique. I was planning on mounting it on wood, but I did not have time to do so before our meeting. To my surprise and delight, Barbara Amyx told me she wanted to buy it when it was finished. However, she told me not to hammer any nails into the wood. I delivered this piece to her at our next meeting. All of the fabrics in this collage are ones that I have dyed and/or painted. I have also started work on some more. I will post pictures when they are finished.

Most of the wood collages I make have nails hammered into them. Below is a picture of the one that was awarded the Judge's Purchase Award in 2008 at Tubac Center of the Arts.

Barbara and two other painters rent a house in Tucson and use it as a studio. In September, they invited a group of artist, collectors, and students for a light lunch and networking. I wore one of the silk scarves I had dyed. One of the attendees went home with it wrapped around her neck!

Building A Repertoire of Techniques

I always enjoy learning new techniques and I am always looking for something new to try. As I mentioned in the last two posts, I have now added printing on a gelatin plate to my repertoire. I first tried printing with a gelatin plate in October. I made a large plate and used it for several days. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I incorporated some of the fabric pieces I printed into two collages. The first one is complete and the second one has a few more embellishments to be added.

Another technique that I added to my repertoire several years ago is using an old credit card to scrap paint across fabric. I just put blobs of paint around the edges of the fabric and then start scraping the paint and mixing the colors. The results are always serendipitous. I usually finish by dropping blobs of gold metallic paint randomly over the fabric and using a multi-use spreader/scraper from the hardware store to create accents. The first example is on some polyester satin (one of my fabric fabrics to paint on) and the second one is on cotton with one of my desert spirit people silk screened over it.

Recently I visited Claire Benn and Leslie Morgan's web-site and in the pictures of Claire and Leslie was one of Leslie using a credit card to spread thicken dye on the top of fabric. I guess I will be trying that soon. I can hardly wait.

WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE TECHNIQUES?