Street Art Challenge...

The next challenge for our Group of Eight Fibre Arts group is 'Street Art'. It seems this is an especially challenging challenge for the members of our group! After several false starts, I have finally found something that is going to make me happy, and I've come to the conclusion that if every street artist first had to 'build a wall', there might be a lot less graffiti around. LOL

So far I have killed a few spools of thread in the making of this art quilt, from the brick wall to the lettering, there is a lot of thread sketching/doodling going on! 

The reveal for this challenge is at our June 10th meeting, so I've got to get busy finishing this piece before I head off for a week long workshop with Amanda McCavour next week. Fingers crossed (you cross yours for me please...I have a lot of hand stitching to do) I get finished!

I'll tell you about the Amanda McCavour workshop when I get back, but until then, enjoy visiting her website.

Secrets Revealed...

You've seen lots of bits and pieces as I've been working on this piece, from the sketches back in the fall, to the thread sketching and lettering so I'm excited to finally share it with you. This piece was done as a GOE challenge, although I had started the sketches before the challenge was issued.  As soon as I hear that the challenge was 'secrets', this quote popped into my head and I knew what I wanted to do with all the eyes I had been working on!

Presenting...(imagine a drum role here)...Secrets Revealed

GOE is giving back...

I'm so exciting to share this fabulous collection of journals and bags made by the members of Group of Eight Fibre Artists.  For the second year, we have made a collection of journals, and this year some large tote bags, for donation to our local women's shelter.  It is our way of being able to give something back to the community.  There are seven tote bags and twenty-seven journals (with three four more journals to come!).

Update...the last of the beautiful journals have been delivered to me.  I'm now ready to take them to the shelter for donation!

Thank you to my wonderfully artistic friends...you've done another fabulous job this year!

Ann's Rusty Sewer Grate...

I've been working on the next GOE challenge piece, which required us to use the inspiration of a rusty sewer grate that is on a golf course in Mexico.  My friend Ann was busy taking photos of the grate while golfing...is this why she never made the Women's PGA tour???

I started by manipulating the photo in Photoshop Elements so that I could create a unique collage of the many rusty lines in the grate.

 I used machine stitch to create some of the grass, using long free motion stitches.  I also thread sketched in all of the black areas between the grate lines to make them recede further back.







Hand stitch was used to create bolder grass lines in some areas and then I used French knots and some simple straight stitches to further encrust the rusty grate lines.  I intentionally let the rusty areas rise up from the surface to create the 'bubbling' texture that rust creates on metal.

It has been framed in a 12" x 12" frame.

Another Piece of Rust...

The current GOE challenge has me working with rust again, but this time I'm approaching it in a whole new way.

Ann, one of our GOE members took these photos of a rusty grate while she was on a golf course in Mexico (perhaps this is why she never make it on the Women's PGA Tour...just saying...).

I can't reveal too much yet, but I thought I'd give you a peek at the machine stitched grass I've been working on.  I've layered some tan thread under the green to give it the texture and colour of the old, dead grass that's under some of the healthy green grass in the photo.  Instead of using rust dyed fabric (which is too hard to work with right now with the cast and all), I've edited the original images in Photoshop Elements and then trasferred it to a piece of cotton using Transfer Artist Paper.

This image shows a bit of the hand stitching I've started to accent the larger blades of grass.

I'm having fun with this piece, but it's  frustrating me that the hand stitching is causing me pain. I've decided that in the interest of my hand I'm going to have to lay off all hand work until I've healed.  I can't wait to get this cast off!

GOEs Upcoming Shows...

I've finished the promotional postcards for my fibre art group and we're ready to let the world know about our upcoming shows.  It's going to be a busy and exciting year! The images on the postcard are a teaser of some of the pieces that we'll be showing.  I hope you'll be able to come and see us!

From Photograph to Art Quilt...a sneak peek...

Back in April of last year, I took a photograph of a monarch butterfly and I digitally altered it in Photoshop.  You can see both the original photo and the altered one by clicking here.

I loved the colours in the altered photo so much that I wanted to use it in an art quilt.  I transfered the photo to fabric, went through my stash of fabrics and selected a number of pieces that I thought would work with it, sketched out a couple of ideas on paper, and then got busy with other things...

Finally, in October I got back to it and actually started working with the fabric and the image.  I wasn't happy with what I was coming up with, so again it was put aside so I could let my ideas 'simmer'.  Then came Tracey's GOE challenge for us to finish a UFO...which I turned into a personal challenge to try to finish all of my UFOs (or at least as many as I possibly could).  I've been working at the quilting of this piece for a few hours today, so I thought I'd give you a little sneak peak.  It still needs a lot more machine work and then some hand stitching, but I'm hoping to have it done by Wednesday evening, when our little group meets.

Making Journal Covers

Over the last little while I've been making a variety of journal covers.  Some fit over standard composition books and others are a bit smaller and fit over some hard cover journals I found recently.

 

 

 

Each member of my fibre art group, GOE, is going to make three journals to be donated to a women's shelter in our area as an outreach program so that we can give something back to our community.  It is our hope that these journals will brighten the women's day while giving them a special journal to record thoughts and feelings as they bravely begin a new chapter in their lives.

Here are some of the journals I have made.  Three will be donated and the others will be available at Windows to the North Gallery.

Fibre Content

I'm excited to announce that three of my pieces have been accepted into the "Fibre Content" show. It's a juried show of 100% fibre art. For more details, check out the web page: http://www.fibrations.org.

I hope some of you will be able to see the show!

GOEs Newspaper Challenge

This week, my fibre arts group, the Group of Eight, had our Newspaper Challenge reveal.  I love seeing all of the wonderfully creative and different interpretations we all have when given the same jumping off point.  One member, Judy Makinson, even included some body art!  I love how she puts her whole self into the artistic process!  You can check it out here.

You can read more about my piece (pictured here) and how it evolved, by clicking here.

Breaking News

I'm sorry to say that computer gremlins have reeked havoc on some of the images on my blog and I have not been able to correct the problem.  In this case, the process shots are missing, but I was able to restore the image of the finished piece, and some close ups of the stitching which are at the end of the post.

No, I don't have anything particularly exciting to report other than I've finished a piece I've been working on rather extensively over the last few weeks.  'Breaking News' is the title of my newest mixed media piece.  It started with a cup of tea...

Last summer Doeteke, a friend of mine, was saving tea bags to use in her art and as I was drinking a cup of tea a couple of months ago I remembered this fact and started to save my own tea bags.  Then,  in April, Heather presented our GOE group with a challenge that involved using newspaper and the wheels started turning.

Sorry this image has gone missing and I can't
restore it...computer gremlins reeking havoc!

My first idea was to create a collage using wine labels and an article in the newspaper that talked about Copula's vineyards in California.  I decided to get my colour palette from the tea bags: mostly browns with some reds (from the herbal fruit teas).  I started with a piece of muslin, some acrylic paints mixed with gesso (thanks to something Leah, another friend and member of GOE, had said about a piece she was experimenting with) and my old driver's license, which I used to apply the paint.

Sorry this image has gone missing and I can't 
restore it...computer gremlins reeking havoc!

My next step was to use some matte medium to collage the wine labels (searched on-line and printed 'cause I just don't drink enough. LOL) and newspaper pieces (torn from the article mentioned above).  I then layered on some random pieces of hand-dyed cheese cloth to give it more texture.  So far it was going nowhere and I was feeling discouraged.

Sorry this image has gone missing and I can't 
restore it...computer gremlins reeking havoc!

I pulled out more paint, this time adding various metallics in coppers and golds as well as the original colours I had started with.  I also collaged some of the tea bags on at this point to try to get more of a subtle effect with the wine labels.  The tea bags are great for this because they have some opacity to them.  I was beginning to see hope at this point.  Ironically however, the more paint I added the less of the underlying collage I could see.

I have also been experimenting with rust dying lately and thought that some of the rust dyed fabric would work well on this piece.

Sorry this image has gone missing and I can't 
restore it...computer gremlins reeking havoc!

I cut several random circular pieces (freehand so they wouldn't be perfect), and I started laying them on top of the painted piece, auditioning their placement.  I settled on a gentle curved path that rose up from centre left and then curved down toward the bottom right corner.  The piece was looking too monochromatic at this point so I added some bits of a sheer black fabric to break it up a little.

I then grabbed a paint brush and some white paint to give it some pops of accent colour.  I started by painted the three circles near the centre left and then I created another random pathway, using straight lines and adding a few square shapes.  I also did some stamping using an old potato masher.  As I was adding the white I was sort of wishing I hadn't because it was just too glaringly bright.  

Seeing as the paint had for the most part obscured the newspaper and wine labels, I wanted to bring in some more newsprint (Remember the GOE challenge!) so I started tearing narrow strips and collaged them overtop of my white painted lines.    It was perfect to knock back the starkness while still keeping some accent.  A few more teabags were collaged over the potato masher stamps to knock them back a bit too.  By the way, at this point, the vineyard article was long gone and I was using newspaper from the front page of the paper.  That's when the name of the piece came to me.  Breaking news.  I was literally breaking (or tearing) news stories, and I was seeing words about killings, blood, etc.  That and the random areas of red paint, the footprints (or are they finger prints?) created by the potato masher stampings, and I began noticing 'evidence' appearing as if at a crime scene.

The next step was to layer it with batting and a backing and take it to the sewing machine for literally hours of intensive thread sketching/quilting.  I used a coppery red colour thread to highlight some of what I now saw as blood stains, as well as doing the pebbling effect on the rust dyed circles for some added texture.  A gold thread was used to bring out some of the areas that had been painted with the metallic paints, and the rest was stitched with a subtle taupe colour to create texture while at the same time pushing those areas back a bit.

Here are a few close up photos showing the stitching.  Click on them to enlarge, if desired.

And finally, here again is the finished piece, trimmed and ready for hanging.  I photographed it on a black background so that you can more easily see the shape of the finished piece.

GOEs Recent Activities

I'd like to invite you to drop by the Group of Eight Fibre Artists' blog to see what we've been up to.  We recently shared our Steampunk Challenge pieces and I posted photos on our group blog.  You might also be interested in seeing the ATCs we made for our April swap.

Steampunk On My Mind

Sometimes things just all line up and everything works out.  2012 is off to a great start.

My friend Leah set Steampunk as the theme for the next challenge for our GOE group.  When she sent the email, she included a link for a very funny Youtube video called Just Glue Some Gears On It (And Call It Steampunk).

While I was doing sketches and gathering ideas and materials to get started on this challenge, Lisa posted the theme "Metal" for this month's ATC swap.  Well, Steampunk and metal just seem a perfect match so I was off to the studio to play and these are the ATCs I made today.

Before adding some actual metal bits to the ATC, I started by using TAP to transfer images of gears on the background as well as the photo of the guy from the youtube video onto the copper sheeting.

And for my GOE friends, no this in not my challenge piece~just a warm up.

GOE (Group of Eight Fibre Artists)

Back in 2006 my friend Heather and I started up a fibre arts group and this afternoon I set up a blog site for us.  Come on over to the GOE blog and see what my fibre arts group is up to.

GOE Banner

In 2006, my friend Heather and I began talking about the need for a small fibre art group that would help us grow as artists.  There were no such groups in our area, so we decided to talk to some of our like minded friends and the "Group of Eight" Fibre Arts Guild was born. We were a small group of quilters no longer interested exclusively in creating traditional quilts.  We wished to expand upon stitching and incorporate other non-traditional materials in our work.  While members have come and gone since then and focuses have changed, we remain passionately devoted to all forms of fibre art - art quilting, beading, hand stitching and embroidery, surface design, mixed media and various paper arts.

Last year we joined ONN (the Ontario Network of Needleworkers), so I decided to make the banner you see to identify our group.  Notice the wonderful loopy font.  I thought it was perfect for our group since some of us are a little 'loopy' ourselves!