Dye Discharge

I am trying a new technique with this quilt - dye discharge.  This is a process where you use bleach or something similar to take the dye out of the fabric to create new patterns and reveal new colours in the fabric. It involves a bit of chance as you don't really know what colours you will end up with. I didn't do any tests with this quilt, I just threw caution to the wind and went for it!  I wanted to harmonize the colours and patterns so I used this method as a kind of  'reverse glazing process'. I could have  'over-dyed'  the quilt to blend the fabrics as well. 

The final result is a much softer colour scheme and a gently, aged look to the quilt.  Following this I added another batting layer to the back and quilted random horizontal lines across the quilt to harmonize the design even more. I then added another complementary border and  beads for interest and texture.  I am pleased with the result and  happy that I had the courage to both drastically and irreversibly takes steps to alter my quilt.  Sometimes it is a happy ending, and then sometimes not!

The finished quilt is titled 'Blue Stratus" and is now hanging at a local museum for the next month.  The size is 34"x43".

This is detail of some of the textures and colours in the quilt.  Can you guess what the original fabrics looked like?  What were the original colours?

Winter Pottery and Art Sale

A big thanks to everyone who dropped by my booth a the Nepean Sportsplex Winter Art and Pottery Sale this past weekend! This was my first time running a booth and it was lots of fun! 

If anything caught your eye or you missed the sale I am posting photos of my work here. I still don't have my web site up and running but it will happen- soon I hope.

These textile pieces are done in a traditional quilt format as I am trying to get way from framing my textile pieces. The glass tends to dull the colours of the fabric and these wall hangings have dramatic impact!  The batik fabrics are an African pattern with gold that really glows under the lights. Very bold and dramatic! There are square gold beads sewn into the black  border around the central pattern. Two loops are sewn at the top of the quilt for easy hanging on regular picture hooks. The hooks will be hidden behind the quilt when it hangs flat against the wall.

African Batik 3.1, 30x39in.

 

African Batik 3.2, 30x39in.

Gone Fishing, 11x16in.,  SOLD

African Batik 3.3, 30x39in.

African Batik 3.4, 30x39in.

Hello Mr. Fish, 14x16in.,  SOLD

Green/Gold Illusion, 34x34in., In this pattern the circles 'move' and the colours 'vibrate'.

 Pink Asymmetry, 34x34in., This pattern plays with light and dark squares moving forwards and back.

Mexican Holiday, 34x34in., This is just a sunny reminder of warmer climates!

"Sea, sand", pastel, 16x20in. framed, This is from New Brunswick.

If you are interested in purchasing any of these pieces just contact me through this site or at my e-mail address: jr_saunders@msn.com

Quilting is Cool!

Quilting is big! Whether it is for a practical purpose or a part of the explosion in art quilts, women and men all over the world are into quilting. They are throwing out the rules and letting their imaginations go wild. Pretty much anything goes in the world of quilting today from raw edge applique to paint to far too many options for embellishment to list.  And, its a lot of fun!

Just in case you are not yet aware of how big quilting really is, watch this video-the number is huge!

Watch CBS Videos Online

Thread doodling and Steam fixing

September is here it's time to get back in the studio. I had a wonderful summer with my husband and kids spending three weeks travelling in Europe.  We saw ALOT, I think we put somewhere between 5000 and 6000 km on the rental van!  Months of careful planning and now it's only a memory and of course lots of photos.  I hope to use some of these for inspiration over the next year.

September allows for a fresh start and this has meant a clean up  of my studio space to remove a lot of unnecessary junk that was just cluttering up the place.  Creativity needs room to breathe!  Now I have one table for pastel work and one table for textile work.  No more fighting!

These are two pieces I am working on at the moment, one in pastel and the other in fabric.

I lay down the fabrics and then sewed them onto the backing in a random sort of "doodling" manner. I am going to continue my "doodling" and see where it leads.

This pastel piece is done on Wallis sanded paper. It started out as a garden scene, but I was unhappy with it so I decided to try washing the pastel off in the sink, toning the paper with an acrylic wash and starting over.  Wallis paper will not only accept up to 25 layers of pastel,  but you can wash it off and paint over it with a variety of wet media.  This was a good time to try it as I had nothing to lose! The pastel does wash off but some staining of the paper remains which is why I decided to tone the paper with an acrylic wash.

Unhappy with my garden scene I decided to just let my imagination run free and this abstract image was the result. I think it has an altered landscape appearance. Of course, while I was in the experimental  mood I decided to also try a new technique for fixing pastel paintings by steaming them. Steam fixing is method I found in The Pastel Journal, Issue No.53 December2007, used by an artist named Dennis Rhoades.  He uses a steam iron with distilled water, holds the iron about 2 inches above the painting and moves it back and forth until the painting is very wet. Then he lets it dry. I still have a bit of flaking of the pastels but it is an interesting method and it does not seem to darken the colours the way fixatives do.

Apparently Degas used a variety of techniques- underpainting, various fixatives and steaming methods, he applied liqiufied and powdered pastels and applied pastels  with a brush-  to create his paintings. There are many more  new tricks to try out this year!

And that's all for now. Happy painting!

What I'm Reading

Edith Wharton by Hermione Lee I just finished this book after having purchased it in June as a holiday read. Dense, but very readable, it provides wonderful insight into the life of this famous American author of “Age of Innocence” and her many other novels about American society in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Growing up in Old New York society, followed by extensive travels through France, Italy, Germany, and Britain, fluent in French and then living for many years in France as an expatriate during and after WW1 provided her with a wealth of inspiration for her novels. A very prolific writer, she also wrote many short stories that were serialized in magazines. She was a great friend of Henry James and many other writers of the time as well as an avid gardener creating lavish landscape designs at her different homes in New England and France. She challenged conservative social norms by writing about social issues like divorce, adultery and sex. If you are at all interested in the ‘writer behind the book’, you will find this a fascinating read!

Finished!

Wow! It has taken more time than I wanted to finish these three pieces. Life just kept getting in the way. They are part of a group show at a community sports complex so I decided to frame them behind glass to protect them from 'little fingers'. I prefer them without glass as the colours become muted and not as bright but caution prevailed.

Each piece incorporates fabric, wool, beads, Shiva oil sticks and pastel into the mix to create a range of different textures.  Though inspired by photos the style is abstract. I have developed a new method to finish  the edges that I think looks tidy but is not too obtrusive. Each piece measures 14"x18" and is framed with a matt border and final sizing of 20"x24".

'Silver Moon' has an analogous colour scheme of blues, pinks and reddish tones that are meant to suggest a nighttime scene of sand, water, landforms and sky.

'Summer Day' has a more complementary colour scheme of greens and pinks with a dash of blue and yellow in the sky.  I wanted to convey the feeling of a bright sun shining over green fields.

'Leafy Canopy' depicts the heavy green canopy of leaves over a green carpet.

All three pieces have a flatter profile than  'Red Sky", a previous textile piece. This is in part  because of my desire to avoid so much needle breakage by reducing the number of fabric layers.  I have also used grey wool as a base fabric. This has created a softer feel to the work. Summer holidays are fast approaching so my time to work will pretty spotty, but I plan on continuing to experiment with various fabrics and techniques. The goal is to find an approach that integrates the different materials in a harmonious and practical way without an excess of needle breakage. I will also work with different images and styles.

Fresh start

I am back at it and starting fresh. Though I am attempting to maintain a similar feel and style to the "Sea" piece, the subject matter has changed to trees and and palette to  green and gold.  I began by layering strips of fabrics in various  green hues, slashing through them to create texture, felting them down and then adding wools and the wool roving or "dog fur" as I fondly refer to it! The natural coloured wool roving softens the greens and creates a woven appearance. 

I am constantly breaking  needles with this felting process even though this time I am taking care to felt only a thin layer of fabrics and wools.  I might rethink the process again when I have finished these pieces to reduce the amount of felting required. The needles cost $14 for 6, a bit pricey to break on a regular basis.

This time I will work hard  to not as they say "over work this piece!"  Deciding when to stop is always a challenge when creating any kind of art. It is very easy to go too far and lose the freshness and charm.

Anyway, I am posting photos of two pieces along with the previous "Sea" piece for comparison.  The first photo also includes a selection of fabric paints, Shiva oilsticks , threads and beads I am considering for addition later. At this point each piece measures 14" x18" without a border.

 

Dead ends, Detours and Play

Sometimes you just get  detoured off the main road, possibly to a dead end.  These photos illustrate my detour into a folksy, cutesy direction with two of the pieces. I rescued the last piece before I completely lost my bearings!  Perhaps I just needed to get that out of my system before moving forward.  This really is the value of play, to be able to explore different possibilities  and just see where your imagination takes you. Funny how an image will appear seemingly out of nowhere. 

Anyone old enough to remember the stories by Thornton W. Burgess such as The Adventures of Jerry Muskrat or Reddy Fox will recognize Old Mother West Wind and Mr. Sun as characters from his children's stories.  I have a special fondness for Folk Art and these pieces demonstrate this love. 

Both pieces are heavily felted giving them lots of body but making it more difficult to add decorative stitching. I have discovered that it is best to limit the felting to the base layers only and then use the regular sewing machine to apply other wools and fabrics later. The felting process destroys the fabric  and a new base layer must be added so the sewing threads have something to catch onto.  At this point I am going to put them aside and return to a simpler more abstract vision. I have one of the original three pieces to work with and am planning on creating three more in a similar style.

Perhaps in retrospect I should have resisted my urge to play but I think I needed to give in to a bit of silliness and  explore different avenues of expression. As my children will attest to, I am a little crazy about mazes, particularly corn mazes in the fall, and enjoy  following a new route even if it leads to a dead end!