Name This Piece of Art Cloth

Last year I applied several layers of deconstructed silk screening and a little sponging on a piece of Kona cotton. 

 

Yesterday, I used some of my new spiral screens to add another layer over the above cloth. What do you think? Any suggestions for a name?

Spirals

I love spirals. For some reason they speak to me probably because they are timeless. I started with them to build up my inventory of stamps, stencils, and silk screens to add images to art cloth. About a year ago, I spent about an hour just drawing shapes with charcoal. I could not figure out what to do with the spirals because of their odd shapes. Recently, I told myself odd shapes are interesting - duh!!!

First I sprayed the charcoal drawings with hair spray to seal them.Then I traced the basic shapes of several of the spirals and glued the tracings to black paper. The spirals were cut out using a utility knife. These were then scanned into the computer, printed, and then silk screens were produced using a thermofax machine. 

While cutting out the black paper, it occurred to me that the original charcoal drawings would make exciting  silk screens. They were scanned into the computer and the stamp filter from Photoshop Elements was applied to them to make the marks that comprised the spirals more distinct. I reduced the size of these spirals, to add  variety in size in the complementary motifs.

I finished with two screens that contain several different spirals all reduced in sized to fill up a large screen.

More Playing With Color

Wednesday, I dyed again. The first dress was for a friend who wanted bright. So I just poured yellow and fuchsia dye over it.  

Then I proceeded to over dyed pieces that I had dyed last week. The next one is a crinkled peasant blouse that was originally dyed yellow and over dyed fuchsia. Again the back was prettier than the front. I finally figured out why! When manipulating the clothes I was putting the back on the outside - DUH!!! 

Also in the fuchsia bath went a rayon dress that had first been dyed in orange. I was so excited to take the pictures, I did not iron it first.

Then I dyed a cotton farmer's dress that was suppose to be for me. It was first dyed yellow and then over dyed violet. I was expecting a different result because I previously dyed a silk scarf this way and got a beautiful color combination. But that was several years ago and silk dyes differently than silk, etc. The results are wonderful; the only problem is that I am a winter and I look awful in the finished garment. I guess someone else will be wearing it.

Playing with Color

 I over dyed a blouse that an artist friend had bought from me. Originally it was a light turquoise. I told her that if she would want me to over dye it, I would. She took it home for awhile and then decided that she wanted more color. I over dyed it last Friday and took it over to her studio/gallery this weekend. She was all smiles!!!

 

For the past three mornings, I have been putting clothes into their first dye baths. These will be followed with over dyeing. One afternoon last spring, Cheryl, who is now a very good friend, and I spent several hours twisting, stuffing, tying and clamping the rest of the clothes blanks I had purchased from Dharma. Instead of my normal very symmetric manipulations, we laughed and manipulated the clothes in different directions. I think I will continue to do this. What do you think? 

First was lapis and avocado:

Cotton Dress

Cotton Leggings

Back of Cotton Leggings

 I think the back of these look better than the front. 

Rayon Sundress

Back of Rayon Sundress

Again the back is more interesting than the front. Is there a pattern here.

Rayon Crinkle Blouse

Next came Havanna Brown and Chino, two new dye colors that I used for the first time. They are now at the top of my list of colors. I love that some of the colors they are composed of separated and dyed the fabric different colors. Most dyers would be very unhappy with this, but I love results that are serendipitous.

Cotton Leggings - Havana Brown

Cotton Sundress - Chin

I think I will over dye these last two with turquoise.

So Long Overdue

I know it has been many months (over half a year) since I last posted a message. Please forgive me. I was dealing with some illness in my family. I am glad to be back in my studio ready to create.

During this long dry period, I had some quite interesting and positive adventures, so of which I plan to share with you over the next few posts. I met Cheryl Todd, who was the owner of Sweet Stuff, a boutique in Tubac, AZ. I brought in some of my dyed silk scarves for her to sell and she asked me if I sewed. I replied in the affirmative; and followed that with a proclamation that I would not sew any clothes for other people. However, I told her about the stock clothes that Dharma sells to dye. I brought in their catalog and I ordered some pieces to try. Below you will see three different items: a crepe de chine open poncho, a pair of cotton leggings, and a rayon closed poncho.

 

New Wood Collages

In November I finished two wood collages using only fabrics I dyed or painted.

They were included in my application to be juried into Central Arts Gallery, a co-op in Tucson. They are in the process of moving the gallery to a new location, so I will probably not hear from them until early next year.

While shopping two weeks ago in Tubac, AZ, I visited a new store, Sweet Stuff. It is filled with wonderful treasures, including lovely flowing garments. I asked the owner if she was interested in selling hand-dyed silk scarves. She now has a collection of my scarves for sell and next week we will be talking about me dyeing some dresses for her. The owner is Cheryl Todd, a former ballerina and psychotherapist. She is a lovely person and I am thrilled to work with a her.

Sweet Stuff is in a little plaza containing the gallery of an artist friend, Roberta Rogers. Her watercolors are beautiful. When I visited Cheryl last week, Roberta was painting outside in the plaza that is surrounded by their establishment which they share with another artist Peter Chope. The scene of Roberta painting in the sun shine was very picturesque. Next time when I visit their charming plaza, I will bring my camera.

Inspired

My fiber artist friend, Barbara Schneider, has just started a daily blog. In 1997 and again in 2007, Barbara created daily visual journals. Just click on Barbara's name to view her new blog.

She has inspired me to challenge myself to blog daily. I am hoping that putting this in writing and out to the universe will help me fulfill this commitment. The only exceptions will be when I am out of town. because I do not own a laptop computer. I beginning this week to give this project a beneficial initiation.

This week I am working on creating a small wall hanging as a class project. It depicts a picture I took of Antelope canyon . This is the same picture I used as inspiration for a post card I created last fall. Below are pictures of my photo and the quilt top of this project. All of the fabric, except the white organza, was painted using Seta Color paints. Tomorrow, I will quilt it. I think the floor should be quilted with ovals that will be free motioned. This is something I will need to practice a little before proceeding. The rest of the quilting can be done very slowly using my walking foot. I have perfected sewing very slowly with my Pfaff, which is almost 30 years old. Sewing slowly with this machine has become a meditation.