My first quilting adventure

A couple weekends ago I took a workshop with an artist named Bergen Rose. The workshop was called "Transforming Fabric with Digital Image Transfer Techniques." Such a great workshop with a lot of different techniques covered. Bergen's work is beautiful - combining paintings, photographs, transfers and fabric - a perfect combination for her pieces. You should check out her artwork at the Fountainhead gallery in Queen Anne, Seattle or her online shop at mochimochifiberart.com.

Anyhow, I tried a number of the transfer techniques with varying degrees of success. My goal this week was to actually finish one of the pieces. Whether it was good or bad, I just wanted a finished piece from the workshop to hang on my wall. This piece is pretty simple...I printed a 6 image grid of dahlia pinholes I took recently onto silk organza. I then applied free-motion stitching to a quilt "sandwich" (backing, batting, top fabric). I attached the organza to the quilted part using 2-sided tape. I then attached a sleeve to the back so I can run a dowel or a piece of bamboo through it and hang the piece.

I think any self-respecting quilter would have a minor heart attack to see my quilting technique but I don't care. I like the way it looks with the silk over it...almost like the flowers are on the quilted part.

I'm very excited to try out more daring things with the transfer techniques I learned and my trusty Brother sewing machine (thanks to my pal, Darcy).

The whole piece, front side.

Detail of a few of the squares.

The reverse.

Recent encaustics

I spent Wednesday afternoon in the garage working on some encaustics. This first piece is something I've been working on for a while...I'll add something and hate it so I remove it. The only thing consistent was the blue ground (which you can now only see through the photo) and the photo. I actually broke into the color wax I've had squirreled away (I found a $20 electric griddle that seems to work well) and tried to lay in some color to the surface. I think the transfers show up really well over the color (the map is a sailing route in the South Pole and the circle is some sort of medieval distorted view of the world as 6 spheres). I'm not sure what it means yet but there's something about journeys and identity in there.

With the next piece, I drew with charcoal directly on the board and then applied the medium on top of it, hence the smearing. I then framed it with the reddish brown and applied metallic watercolor to the surface. Unsure about meaning with this one either...knots? Being bound up? Charcoal squiggles? I like the look of the smeared charcoal so I think I'll play around with that some more.

This last piece is just a first step. I was listening to a story on the CBC about flying squid and went looking for pictures of squids in flight. I found a photo of one in the air (about 1 foot off the water from what I could tell) and messed with it in Photoshop to turn it into a black & white line-drawing-like figure. I then transferred it directly onto the board using nail polish remover (ugh! don't get me started on how nasty that stuff smells). I then applied a layer of medium and a thin layer of the metallic watercolor. Not sure where I'm going from here, but it definitely needs color.

Flying squid