Push Me, Pull Me!

I participate in a group called The A4 Art Challenge Group. Every other month we work to a group theme. The first was The Race is On. My work depict the push and pull of each of us. Aren’t we all pulled in many directions? Family, friends, our choices, obligations, opportunities? My image reflects that race. Arrows in all directions.

I used commercial fabrics but chose to add dots to the background tone on tone fabric via Photoshop and my home printer.

Intention

I love this video. It's short and sweet and very compelling. Perhaps short and sweet makes for compelling. Whatever! Watch it. You will return again and again.

In the Extreme

My last post invited you to attend the MIX Exhibition. Our challenge this year was to complete 3 pieces "in the extreme". Color, Shape distortion and material in the extreme specifically. Several member chose a single theme while others varied this. Each piece was to measure 18" square.

I often find I tell a story with my quilts and these were no exception. Where play golf when in the desert does a really bad job of pruning trees. Due to occasional wind storms they need to keep them low. So, they just top off all the limbs causing them to grow right angle joints. I fondly refer to these as the elbow trees.

In January, the trees were strutting their stuff with gorgeous pink flowers but nary a leaf. I decided they had to be girlies and my She Art series began. To date I have finished three and they were the entries to the MIX Exhibition.

First : She Gives New Meaning to Going Green
This tree begins with distortion due to wind and leans. It seemed the perfect coupling to explore distortion with dye. The shibori technique happens through pole wrapping cloth and then over dyeing. The fine angled lines shibori produces seemed the perfect detail for the fine branching of  tree. Hand embroidery completes the piece.

Next: She Put Her Freak On
This is color in extreme study: acid green and shades of grey. I chose a commercial fabric that resembles a hand dye for the tree. Sort of psychedelic. The arms of this tree make her seem as if she is raising the roof, rocking it. I added tree "bling" to her limbs 'cuz she is going out.

And last for now: She Has a Night on the Town and Nothing to Wear
I chose the color red for "painting the town red" but the tree is made from cloth that resembles a paper bag. I created some patterns in Photoshop and ran portions of the tree branches through my computer (extreme material). She is still a plain jane. Ifinished with some hand embroidery in the center section behind the tree.

More to come...

MIX Extreme Studies

MIX is my small quilt group. Our challenge for this year was to work in an 18 inch square format and study the concept of material, form and color "in the extreme".  Several members chose a single theme for exploration  but in the end, each artist was allowed the freedom to apply the parameters in any way they wished. This produced 21 unique pieces which are hanging in the Community Hall of the First United Methodist Church in Portland Oregon.

If you live near by, stop and get a closer look It will be worth your while.

Week 3 Included Shibori Dyeing

I showed you these greens last week. There were actually 8 pieces, one light and one darker from each of the green mixes. I took the lightest of three and one other and used the shibori pole wrap process to dye the pieces on the right. I was to make a quilt using the shibori pieces but used both in my small piece.

This is the result. There are some trees on the golf course where I play that suffer from bad pruning. I fondly refer to them as the elbow trees. They were beautifully flowering wih pink blossoms at Christmas. I just new they were ladies and decided to bring them to positive life in some of my art.
This one is titled: That Girl...She Gives New Meaning to the Term Going Green

What do you think?

Dye and Design Week 2

This weeks lesson was to mix many colors from 6 basic colors.

Here are a few that I did.  The pink and oranges. I eventually dyed a more red orange that is my preference.

The greens: these were achieved by mixing yucca, evergreen, turquoise and blue with the same yellow. I made a step 4 and step 7 strength for each. The lightest here was the step 4 and the others the darker step 7.

I worked on browns by mixing complimentary colors. Turquoise and orange, orange and black, blue and orange. In each case, it seems that the orange was too strong.

Stay tuned to see what I did next with each of these.

Dot Calm

I've been on circle work of late.

I finished the small piece for the SAQA Invitational. You saw its beginnings last week. I named it Dot Calm. It's machine pieced, appliqued and quilted along with added hand stitching.  I love the combination of grey and a rusty red.  The fabric consists mostly of hand dyed but there is a bit of commercial fabric as well. FUN!

I'm continuing with the Dye and Design class with Elizabeth Barton.