Still Inspired

I was really enthusiastic last week when I started my Art Quilt for our upcoming fundraiser. After having put almost 24 hours into it, I don't have much to show. This week I realized that I will not be able to get this quilt done in time for our fundraiser. I will continue to work on it steadily and will try to get most of it done but it will certainly be incomplete come November 19.

Even though there is only a tiny portion of it done, I really like the colours I chose and think it will be really beautiful.

The bottom section which will be the water and land portions are the most detailed and time consuming sections to sew. That is what I've started on and once those sections are done, the rest is the sky which will develop a lot faster.

When Deadlines Inspire Me

My church is holding an Art/Craft Exhibition and Sale in support of a refugee family that we are sponsoring. The date for the event is November 19 and I don't have anything ready for it. That is less than a month away and so I have been working diligently trying to plan an art quilt that I can place in the silent auction. I went through my photo file and selected a photo. I did a watercolour painting of it enhancing the colour a bit, decided how big I wanted it and today I finished plotting the pattern and gathering fabric. That was about 7 hours work.

I am pleased with the design and the colours. Hopefully I have plotted it correctly. Now I will have to spend every free minute on it if I am going to get it done on time. Sometimes you just need a deadline to inspire you.

Here's my watercolour from which I will choose my fabric colours.

Fabric choices

Pattern

2016 Wild Women's Booth Lake Canoe Trip Art Cards Completed

Last week I completed 15 watercolour and ink art cards. Most of them have been sent to the canoe trip participants so I thought I'd post them here for you to see.

Booth Lake Tent

Paddles

Misty Morning

Booth Lake Campsite

Rugged Shoreline

Paddle

Tattler Lake Ranger's Cabin

Kevlar Canoe

Tattler Lake Canoes

Kitty Lake Ranger's Cabin

Sunny Rest Spot

Canoe at Rest

Tranquility

Rocky Shoreline

Early Morning Paddle

Wax Inspirations

I just enrolled in a new art course. This time it is not an online course but one that the Toronto District School Board puts out. It is a course in Batik, that is, dying fabric using a wax resist. I love Batik fabric and have done many of my art quilts as well as more traditional quilts using this kind of fabric which was produced commercially. So it made sense to me to enroll in this course and learn how to do it myself.

I truly enjoyed the first class I attended although, it is a lot harder than I thought. I will need lots of practice. The course goes until just before Christmas so I will have lots of opportunity for that. It definitely helps that I have some knowledge of how to dye fabric.

I brought 100% cotton fabric that had been washed but not dyed as well as some that I dyed at home.
The wax we used was bees' wax into which we put wooden and wire implements to use to stamp the wax onto the fabric. My stampings were not perfect and I dripped a lot of wax here, there and everywhere. But it was fun and I kind of like the results.

Here I waxed the un-dyed fabric and so I will dye over the wax with one or many layers of different colours.

Some of the implements used are old metal cookie cutters, metal lids, wooden seed pods, wire, wooden block stamps.

These are done on fabric I dyed at home first with one coat of yellow dye and then put wax on top.

Below I waxed the yellow dyed fabric and then over dyed it with red and some spots of blue. All of these pieces still have the wax on them which will stay there until I wash it out.

The fabric below is a piece I tied in knots and dyed by dipping one end into red dye and the other into blue dye and then painting the blue and red together in the center. This one still needs to be waxed and then I will dye it again.

I'm sure some of this fabric will find its way into my art at some point. I'm excited to begin to use. it.

Rusted Fabric Inspiration

Way back on June 2, I blogged about Scavenging for Inspiration. I had been collecting rusty bits, nails, washers, etc. on my neighbourhood walks and I was going to lay them on a piece of white cotton to let them rust a little more and dye the fabric. Well, it took a long time to see any results so I decided to take the whole thing inside and leave it in water instead of letting the rain do the job. I don't think we had enough rain this summer.

Recently I took it all apart and let the fabric dry out and this is the result I got.

For all that waiting, I thought it didn't look like much. Just a piece of dirty rusty cloth. I started cutting it up into 4 X 6 inch pieces for some quilted cards and the inspiration began to flow. Below are the cards I made from the fabric. I even embellished some of the cards with the rusty metal that made the marks.

New York City Inspiration

I spent last weekend in the city of New York. It was my first visit to the city and although it is similar to Downtown Toronto, it is also different. Although I was disappointed that we didn't see many local artists and small galleries, possibly because we were in the wrong areas, I did see lots of street art.

New Jersey near the Path Station to New York City

New Jersey

New York City on our walk to Time Square

There were several of these types of sculptures. Very colourful!

Outside a church near the new World Trade Centre

A tiled ceiling at the Bethesda Terrace in Central Park

Relief sculpture on a bridge in Central Park

A street artist making a snowflake design by pouring coloured powdered chalk from his hand.
Central Park Mall

Tiny brass sculpture perched on a subway station entrance

Spray painted on the street

Mural on a building on 10th Street near the High Line

I did get to a quilt shop in New York. There was construction happening on the street in front of it so I don't know how anyone gets to it unless they are walking. I bought some really cool New York City fabric.