Assembly Control #37570 (or "I've Got Something That No One Else Has!")

Meet "Assembly Control #37570"
or, as i like to call it
"What I have that no one else has"...
My friend Cheryl Prater (you know the awesome
mixed media artist..?)
No?
You don't know Cheryl?!
Where have you been?
Go to her blog, her web page and meet her...
then go to her etsy shop
and greet her wonderful one of a kind mixed media art.
But 'cha better hurry, cause I'll bet those things
are going to go fast!

Random Arts Blog

Hi everyone!

You need to run over to Jane Powell's blog

and read her interview with Cate Prato about her new book.

It looks like an awesome book. If I can't win a signed copy then I will surely purchase one.

They are giving one away to a lucky commenter at Jane's blog.

So, GO...

what are you waiting for?!

My friend, Cheryl Prater, has a self portrait in there among other great artists.

Speaking of Cheryl...I did notice that she was back in Blog land after taking a hiatus...

I'm sure that some of you missed her...I hardly knew she was gone...

-inset hearty belly laugh here-

I'm glad she's back and among the undead.

I'm off to finish up my Art Journal page for Random Arts Challenge.

Visit the web site to check it out.

There may still be time for you to join in!

Have a peaceful and creative day!

Judy, Judy, Judy...

This weekend I traveled to Atlanta...
a 2 1/2 hour trip by car

to meet the most extraordinary woman by the name of

Judy Coates Perez.

(hey, is she standing on a box? I look like I'm about 5 foot tall!! Oh, I am...)

She is one of the most generous and talented artists that I have ever met.

I went to Fiber On A Whim for 2 days of classes with her.

The first day was a Mixed Media Fabric Painting Class.

Oh What Fun!

We transformed a plain white piece of PFD fabric .

into a riot of color and texture.

I loved the non-stressful way of creating the most beautiful piece of fabric

I wanted to make a tote bag out of it
but my husband suggested making a wall hanging out of it...
hmmm...
I can solve that dilemma by making more fabric!
Yay! An excuse to get back in to the studio and
Play The Judy Way.
I'll post pictures of my creation (keep in mind it was my first time!).


Oh, and guess who else was there for the first class?


My buddy Cheryl Prater!



(I'm seeing double!)
How much fun was that?!?!

Cheryl and I "met" online and have been talking to each other for a while
so it was great to meet her in person.
She hasn't been feeling too good lately, so she had to leave a little early.

If you read this Cheryl, I hope you're feeling better!


Here are a few pictures of the class.

This was one that Judy painted. Looks great!

And here are a few samples of her work that she brought for us to see. Beautiful!

The second day was even more exciting!

We played with Tsukineko Inks.

Have you ever painted with them?

They are awesome!

I loved the organized way that Judy presented the information...

the way that she led us through exercises

that helped us to gain confidence with using the inks.

I'll post pictures that show the progression of my own work with them.

This is the first one...just getting used to the applicators...
trying to do some shading..

Notice how flat everything seems,

no real shading on the leaf at all..too dark.

Here's the next exercise.

Shading is getting better with the help of a few tricks that Judy shared. Now, try my hand at a flower. Looking better!

Here is the final painting that I did.

I picked a beautiful beetle and, encouraged by Judy, added some bold colors to it!

That was quite an improvement, wasn't it?

I will definitely be using them more, not only in quilting but general art work as well.

I may use them in the piece that I will have hanging in the Pickens County Museum

this October...my art class will have a show.

How exciting is that?

Back to Judy...

Here is more pictures of things that she brought to share with us.

Paintings with Tsukineko Inks on fabric.

Awesome...

I had the pleasure of having dinner with her, Kristin and Jan on Saturday night.

We sat at the restaurant for about 2 or 2 1/2 hours during a horrific lightening storm...

but not as bad as what Judy had when she went back home on Monday...

We had a blast! Great food and fun, entertaining company.

Judy and I met for breakfast on Sunday am as well.

It was so awesome to get to spend so much time with her...

she really is as sweet and fun as everyone says she is!

So, if you EVER get the chance to go to one of her classes,

RUN DON"T WALK

and sign up!

They are well worth the money, the drive...

you will NOT regret it!

Bird Crazy or Crazy Bird...

I had drawn a couple of birds the other night when Hot Flashes had me awake and looking for something to do. The very next day, I saw Birds on Praterposte (http://www.praterposte.blogspot.com/) and it made me remember a Bird Vest that I had made years and years ago. I rambled through my closet and found it! I never wear it but couldn't force myself to throw it out, it's Art, ya know.

I've posted some pictures of it. I saw the directions in a magazine but cannot remember the name of it...sorry! I did use my own modified vest pattern and, as usual, changed up the birds as well!

This is the front. I made it out of a soft muslin fabric. I fused the everything on and then did a little free hand embroidery on the edges. I attached and secured the fabric flowers with buttons. How cute was that?

And the back. I still love those long legged birds! I have a star on the back and a sun on the shoulder. I have a close up of the sun farther down.

Close up of one of the birds on the front. I love this button. I added seed beads for some of the eyes. What a crafty gal!

This is one of my favorite bird and flower combinations!

This is the left side of the front. The tallest bird was an All Star Basketball player in 1995...

And this is the Sun. It is located directly over the right shoulder.

Hope you enjoyed my little trip back to 1990's garment sewing!

Katie Kendrick- Artist Extraordinaire

Do you know Katie? Have you seen her art (http://www.katiekendrick.com/) or read her blog (http://www.joyouslybecoming.typepad.com/)? Have you taken her classes? One very smart lady (http://www.praterposte.blogspot.com/) told me to SELL MY SOUL ( I decided selling my body was just easier) to go to Katie's class... Sooo my husband insisted (Who I am to argue with that man?) that I go, and like a good little wife, I did. And I am so very glad that I did! What an awesome time I had! She is so talented, so generous with herself and the knowledge that she has. I met so many talented women, painted a cool picture of a "delightfully frustrated" lady (we will call her Katie Girl from here on out) and just generally Had A Blast!
I met Kristi Steiner. Ohhh and I believe that I am going to go to her Retreat this September (http://www.kristinsteiner.com/). It's called "Believe in Yourself Retreat" and I hope that my good friend Paula will go with me. I'm in the process of begging her right now.
And even though I had "talked to" (via email) Jane Powell, owner/operator of The Best Shop Around (http://www.randomartsnow.com/) I got to meet her face to face. She is just as cool as I felt that she would be. We actually had quite a few things in common and had a really great talk over lunch. And yes, Cheryl, I gave her a hug from you!
There were 12 people there (including me but not Katie) and they were all awesome. And very talented. Oh, wow and you should have seen what Meg Fowler created...I wanted to take it , and her for that matter, home with me. I will post some pictures. I failed to get everyone's name but there were 2 people there from Alabama, some from Georgia, NC, SC...all to see our beautiful Katie. Does everyone that meets her love her or what? A lot of them were staying for the 2nd class but I had to go back down the mountain. I was just pleased to have one day with all of them.
I love, love, love Random Arts. It is the coolest store around. If they had a quilting corner, it would be The Perfect Shop. Oh, and chocolate...but you can get that fairly quickly outside the shop...so we'll let that pass for now!
Happy Father's Day to all you wonderful men that are Dad's.

Paper Fabric Collage

I started out in the studio on Friday working on my Fiber On A Whim project. I did get the netting burned and it is a really cool effect. It looks like an underwater scene now, complete with the fragmented underwater vegetation. I hope that blogger will allow us to enlarge the image, you can really see the effect of the burned netting. It also was quilted with Iredescent thread, bluish black color. The netting has a shimmer to it as well...making the entire piece really cathces the light when you turn it. I plan on adding some beads to it as well.

You know, I started out planning a 5"x7" piece with a grid , like a game board...I have gone about as far away from that as you can. Perhaps I'll keep the underwater one and just work on the original design...we'll see.

Anyway, here are pictures of the 5"x7" piece, along with a practice piece.

Now what happened after I burned the netting is possibily a mystery to even me...and I was there! I somehow got side tracked and began working on fabric paper...similar to what Beryl Taylor demonstrates on the QA dvd. As usual, I strayed from the directions and did my own thing...I really did start the whole thing like she said. But then I thought...hey...this would look good without the paint on top of it all...and you know this would look good without the tissue paper...and I ultimately ended up with a really awesome fabric/paper/found item collage. Here are pictures...oh yeah, I used Ranger Ink Distress Ink refill with Perfect Pearls mixed in a spritz bottle to color the background. I also sprayed it lightly over the top. The entire piece has a shimmery look. TYhe bark is from a tree in our yard. My dh had pruned a few trees and we were moving the limbs to a "burn pile" (yep, Cheryl, that's from the "burn pile incident" story!) and I saw the loose bark on the ground. I knew immediately it was going to go in a piece of artwork! So, here it is.

I also worked on another collage. I was trying different tissue paper pieces, thicknesses and colors. I did use the Kimwipes also...they held up just fine as long as I didn't brush it too many times with the glue/water mix. Oh, I guess I didn't tell you how I actually did the pieces, did I?

Well, I started out with a piece of plain muslin or PFD fabric. I then mixed half craft glue/half water. I applied this to the fabric with an old paintbrush. Then I arranged torn papers on the piece. Most of the time there was enough glue to hold them down without adding more , you've got time to move them around also. I preplanned one of them but the other ones evolved as I went. I placed torn pieces of handmade mulberry paper here and there, adding pieces of other handmade paper as I went. I applied a thin layer of the glue mix over this. I then applied either tissue paper or kimwipes over most of the piece. I wanted to see how the fabric paper (or paper fabric?) would respond to being sewn after it dried. I liked the effect of the thin tissue paper, you can still see the color of the paper underneath it. The kimwipes behaved about the same way. The thicker tissue paper changed the color of the underlying paper a bit more but was very nice to work with. It didn't move around or scrunch it when I painted the glue mix over it. I'll try sewing it later today...it will be interesting to see how it does.

Here's a picture of the last one that I did yesterday.

Fiber Art Alliance

Well, today I am going to Asheville NC to the Fiber Art Alliance group meeting. I mentioned in a previous blog that I had been encouraged to go by Patsy Thompson and Gen Grundy at the MQS event. So here I go !

Anyway, I asked my son to take a picture of me so I could post one on the blog...what an hoot that was ! I'll post a couple , not because they are good pics of me but for a couple of other reasons.

In case you didn't notice, that's me in the front. What I wanted you to see is behind me...the "love you" wall hanging. I made it as a Valentine's Day/Anniversery "card" for my husband. It has beads all around each color of background fabric and I also made loop fringe along the bottom edge. It's amazing how quickly you can create something when you "see" the finished product in your head. I was working so feveriouly that an onlooker would think I was possessed...and perhaps I was.

Anyway, here is another one that illustrates my "cool" hair...thanks Cheryl Prator's mil for that complement!

As you can see in this picture , I have random stripes (and strips) of VERY white hair. It may be beyond white (can that be?!?) as the doctors told me it had "lost its pigment"...what a horrid thing ...to lose ones pigment. I was just thankful that it grew back , no matter what the color!

Here is another that shows just one of the many doilies that I have made. I haven't crocheted any in a while...I did crochet snowflakes this past Christmas though.

Speaking of my son, Will (who is 19 and an awesome artist) . I'll post a couple of pencil drawings that he did. I swiped them from him , as I never know what he does with his "stuff". See if you can guess who they are...

He drew these about 3 years ago...not too shabby for a 16 year old just doodling around.He will probably choke me if he finds out that I posted them...but it won't be the first time he's been upset with my behavior , now will it ?

While at the meeting yesterday (and yes, I began the blog yesterday - Tuesday- but am finishing it today - Wednesday) some of us met for a brown bag lunch and had a bit of "show & tell". Gen had told me about the group doing this , so I had taken a few things to share. Below is a teeny tiny fiber art piece that I made to go in the kitchen. It's hanging right above a black wrought iron herb rack . It measures ablut 3 1/2" x 5".

My husband made a cabinet for our new microwave (I told you he was very talented , didn't I) and had to cut a hole in the front of it for access to the venting system. He was going to just build a door to cover it but I suggested that perhaps we could do something besides a simple door (plus it seemed lot a lot of trouble for a little cabinet door!). Here is what we covered the hole with...

Please excuse the pictures. These have been aken quickly or were already in the computer. I'll try to do better in the future. Anyway, you can see where the teeny tiny quilt came from...I had not been pleased with one of the small panels on this wallhangiong , so I just made another. This one measures about 23" x 8". As I said , it was "made to fit" the opening in the cabinet. I the black background and completely quilted it/ added binding too. Then all of the small panels are also completely quilted and bound and then added to the background. It's a awesome way to make a really interesting wallhanging. It cam from Jean Well's book "Portraits From Nature". This was also my first attempt at free motion quilting. I loved how the background turned out.

Nuff for today. I think I'll ride to Rock Hill with my husband .