Monday, January 6, 2014

Ice Garden...

On December 21st, south central Ontario was hit with a wide spread ice storm, resulting in trees, branches and hydro lines down all over the area and beautiful young trees split beyond survival. This of course left many people in the cold and dark of a blackout, some for only a short time...others who have still not had their heat restored!

We were relatively lucky in that although we lost power for 70.5 hours, we have a gas fireplace in our family room and a gas stove in our kitchen, thus giving us one warm room to camp out in, as well as the ability to make coffee and hot food.

Although the cost of such a storm is astronomical, today I want to share the beauty that is also a part of nature's fury. So, grab a hot drink, sit down and enjoy the tour of my ice garden...












Friday, January 3, 2014

It's Hop Time Again...Today I'm Hopping With StencilGirl and Kae Pea!

I'm playing along with another talented group of artists in a blog hop featuring StencilGirl designs by Kae Pea, and Rubbermoon Stamps (You might also want to check out Rubbermoon Arts blog.).

This was a fun page to work on because I had no clear direction I wanted to go...but I knew the elements I wanted to add.

I used the GE2520 stamp of four different full moon faces, and everyone knows the moon is made of cheese, so I started with an old dictionary page, some yellow paint and this 'bubbles' stencil designed by Patricia Baldwin Seggebruch.  I applied the darker yellow paint, let that dry, then put a thin layer of the light yellow over it.  While that was still wet, I put on the stencil and used a baby wipe to remove much of the lighter yellow inside the stencil.  That left the wonderful 'Swiss cheese' effect you see.  I stamped the stamp image with black StazOn ink and quickly added black embossing powder before it could dry.



I love the texture and shine that this gave the stamped image!  I tore these moon faces out, leaving a bit of the yellow text paper around the outside.

On the remaining scraps of the painted dictionary page, I used Kae Pea's 'peacock feather' stencil and various blue and green paints to create some feathers for collaging.






With all of the various papers ready and a page that already had some overspray and stencil blotting on it, it was time to start collaging the background.











Additional paint was added, keeping to the blues, turquoises and greens that remind me of peacocks.  As you can see, I continued using the peacock feather stencil, more for texture at this point.

That step done and dry, I pulled out the 'feature' elements (those moon faces, the word "Art" I had made months ago and never used, and some additional 'peacock feathers'). Using my black and white Liquitex paint pens, a finer black Pitt pen, and a white Signo, the doodling began. Here are some close up images:

   
And the finished piece:























Great news...StencilGirl has a giveaway! 
All comments left on the hop are eligible for the giveaway so 
the more blogs you comment on, the more chances you will have to win. 
Have fun and GOOD LUCK!

The giveaway will close on Friday, January 10th at 11:59PM Central Time. 




Blog Hop Order:

StencilGirl Talk
Linda Kittmer-You are here!  Thanks for visiting!!!
Julie Snidle-Next stop on the hop...


Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Happy New Year!!!




We hope you're recovering from your New Year's Eve festivities...








And we wish you a very Happy New Year full of wonder and joy!




Have a safe and 
happy 2014!








Monday, December 30, 2013

Beginning a New Piece With Silks...

I've been wanting to get my embellisher out for a while, and I finally found some time. I'm starting a new piece in which I'm using dupioni silk and I have plans for lots of fun hand stitch.  I just love that richness of the silk, and these colours are really speaking to me right now!

 I'm using my embellisher (I have a 12 needle Babylock).  One of the things I love about the 12 needle is that even if I break a needle, I can keep working without having to replace it for a while because I still have lots of needles working for me.  Yes, this has happened a few times. LOL






I'm also thinking about couching down some twisted strands of silk to add more dimension and interest.  So far, those pieces are just lying on top, being auditioned, but I'm liking how they look.  I'm excited about having a new 'hand project' on the go so I have something to do while listening to TV!

Thanks for dropping by today!

Friday, December 27, 2013

'Celebrate Who You Are' is finished!

A couple of weeks ago I was playing with a product called DeColourant, as well as exploring a technique for adding text to a quilt which I picked up from Laura Kemshall.  You can read about that here.  I went on to add machine stitch to that little quiltlet, which you can see here.

Today I'm ready to share the finished art quilt with you. I created a separate slightly larger quilt, on which I mounted the 'quiltlet'.  I then added a few little elements to each side, which I fused in place and then used hand stitch to embellish them further.  A bit of hand stitch was also added to the top left and bottom right corners and then button stitch around the edges to create a binding.

I'm really happy with how it turned out, and I must say I love the way the initial piece of hand dyed fabric informed my choices for the background colours.  I don't think I would have thought of using that rusty tan colour with purple, but I really love how it all works together.



Thanks so much for visiting today.  It's always such an honour to have you visit, and I love reading your comments!  

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Merry Christmas...


























Those flashing Christmas lights are especially meaningful today.  As a result of the big ice storm, we were without power for over 70 hours, so we're thrilled to have it back in time for Christmas!  It came back on yesterday evening, so we did have to postpone our family Christmas Eve (we always host my whole family for Christmas on Christmas Eve...a German tradition...which will now take place this weekend instead), but Christmas Day festivities with our immediate family are back on for today!

I hope you and yours are having a great, warm day too!

Monday, December 23, 2013

Holidays Greetings and a Promised Reveal...


Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all! Whether you celebrate Christmas, or other festivals of light, either now or at other times of the year, I hope you are enjoying time with family and friends this week and also taking time to be good to yourselves!


As promised, I am sharing the finished the little art quilt, titled "Heartfelt Celebrations", which I started last week. If you're interested, you can see the process I used to make the heart itself in this post here.  I will be sending this little 10" x 7" art quilt to the SAQA 2014 ANNIVERSARY TRUNK SHOW.



To create the background I used the same treated muslin as described in the earlier post.  I then used Neocolor II to create patches of various blues and greens.  I continued layering, using some oil sticks.  I recently discovered Kama Pigment Sticks and I really like how they go on the fabric, as well as some of the fabulous colours they have.

Black text was added using a Traci Bautista Graffiti Glam stamp with StazOn ink.  The remnants of the light blue background, from when I originally made the heart, were torn into thin strips and then machine doodled into place using the same tiny circles, and leaving the frayed edges loose. The final step was to add a bit of black acrylic paint in areas around the edges, as well as under the narrow strips and parts of the heart to create the shadow. And of course, it needed a few dots...alway need a few dots ;o)

I had a lot of fun layering the various elements to create this piece!  This may lead to a bit of a series...


Friday, December 20, 2013

Christmas Lights...

Last weekend, we ended up with a lot of snow, and although I'm not a really big fan of the white stuff, it does make for some really pretty photography, especially when the trees and bushes are decorated for Christmas.

This is the same cedar tree, shot with and without the flash.  I love how the flash captured the falling snow, but the shot without the flash gives more depth and colour to the lights.

















In these shots, I love how the colour glows through the deep snow...later, the bit of heat from the bulbs caused the snow to melt away leaving interesting holes.


Thursday, December 19, 2013

I'm Featured on StencilGirl Talk Today...

Today, over on StencilGirl Talk, I sharing the beginnings of a new art quilt I have in the works. Here's a little sneak peek...I hope you'll pop on over and see what I'm up to.

Thanks for checking in today!
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Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Machine Doodling 'Celebrate Who You Are'...

Last Friday I posted about how I created the beginnings of this piece which I've called 'Celebrate Who You Are'. Today I want to show you the next steps in this on-going 'work in progress'.

Using an off white thread, I stitched the lines from Sue Pelletier's Loose Woman #1 stencil over the image on the fabric.  I intentionally used a very loose stitch line, going over each line two or three times, to create a very 'imperfect' doodled line in keeping with the text on the piece.
 I outlined the text boxes and loosely traced over the text.


Here are some close up images of various parts:



And the finished focal piece in it's entirety.  I plan to mount this element onto another quilted piece, and then add some hand stitch and maybe some beading.  Hopefully I'll be able to show you the finished piece in the near future!