Monthly Archives: March 2011

Design Focus Friday – Color

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This is one of my favorite color schemes. I love the rich jewel tones and the way the yellow pops against the red and the purple. Do you have a favorite color scheme that you like to use in your work? What do you like about it? Where do you get your inspiration for your color choices?

 I get most of my inspiration from nature. I love to take photos in the garden, on my walks in the woods and when we visit the beautiful places in Northwest Montana like Glacier National Park.

You can always find wonderful colors if you look closely. It always amazes the number of colors you see in tree bark. I have so many photos of tree bark that I have found with different color palettes. I could work from those photos as sources of inspiration for years to come. Where do you find your color inspirations? I’d love to see some of your favorite color choices. Leave a comment and share your favorite color palettes.

Next month we’ll be talking about value!

End of the Quarter

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It’s hard to believe but we’re already a quarter of the way through the year. I thought I would do a little update on my fiber art plan for 2011. I am pleased with the amount that I have accomplished.

  1. I took the Hand Stitch Level I class in February.
  2. I have sent in my work for consideration to a gallery in Missoula and will hear back from them by April 1.
  3. I entered a fiber art piece in two exhibitions. I have heard back from one and was not accepted. I will hear back from the other at the end of March.
  4. I have been blogging more frequently and have continued with the Design Focus Friday series. I have also done a couple more tutorials which were well received.
  5. I have been thinking frequently about my word for the year “choice” and have tried to make conscious decisions that take me in the direction I want to go on my fiber art path.

I made a decision recently that is going to change my plan for the year considerably. I am not at liberty to discuss the details but it will involve lots more felting activities and a 6 month deadline. I’m going to be very busy over the next 6 months and as soon as I can, I will let you in on the details. I won’t have a lot of extra time on my hands so I will have to cut down on my blog reading, commenting on others’ blog posts and even posting to my own blog. I will finish out the Design Focus Fridays but I’m not sure I’ll get much else accomplished on the blog. I hope you all won’t desert me. I’m really excited about this project and in a couple of months, I’ll be able to tell you all about it. So stay tuned!

Design Focus Friday – Color

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Playing with Dye-na-flow paints again, I made the color study above. I mixed each of the colors that I had with all of the other colors. I also started mixing some complementary colors together to see what kind of greys I could achieve. I will be keeping this chart for reference so when I use Dye-na-flow again, I’ll be able to mix together with confidence.

Here are the two I did when I had my local group over. I used the differing primaries for each sheet. And I added some black and white for shades and tints. There is so much experimentation you can do with color, isn’t there?

 I thought I’d also show you what else I’ve been doing with color lately. Here is the scarf that I screen printed over oatmeal. I really like how this one turned out. It’s a deep orange over a “fall” multicolored scarf which was mainly yellow but also had reds, browns and oranges. This one is going into the shop.

 Here is the screen print through the blue school glue screen. This is after the screen had already been used about 8-9 times. Do you like the mix of colors?

 I probably wouldn’t have chosen these colors but Louise was mixing so she picked the colors. This is the screen that was done over loose shredded paper. It is interesting how the colors moved around as I kept moving the screen and adding different colors at different points. I’m not sure what I’ll do with this fabric but I’m sure something will come up.

This is my monochromatic hand stitch homework for my recent class. These are all actually green threads although the color is slightly off. I am using chain stitch as a filler. I still have the upper right hand corner to complete. I’ve been following some of the dye lines on the fabric so it gives it a very organic feel. I’m not sure in which direction this piece will end up. I’ll have to decide once it’s finished.
That’s what I’ve been doing with color this week. How about you?

Screen Printing Party

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We had a screen printing party at my house last Friday. I always get so busy I forget to take photos but luckily Carole remembered. Thanks Carole! Here is one of my scarves that I had already discharged some circles. I added a deconstructed break down screen that I made from an embroidery hoop. It worked fairly well but the resulting print didn’t end up dark enough for my taste once rinsed out. I’m on the left and Louise is on the right.

We also tried writing on the screen with thickened dyes. This is supposed to say “Dear John” but somehow spelling escaped me. We also tried using blue school glue on a screen, screen printing over oatmeal (every one’s personal favorite), screen printing over shredded paper and deconstructed breakdown printing.

Here we are printing the Dear John screen. This was my least favorite fabric. The writing needed to be much smaller. The syringe I used had quite a big hole so you got big squirts of dye. But it was an interesting process.

Here are a few pieces drying. Most of the screens shown here came from the blue school glue screen except the one in the lower left corner. That was done with oatmeal. The oatmeal was done on a piece of fabric that Carole brought and it all washed out (which is really sad as it turned out beautifully). I also screen printed again on Saturday with a member of the group that couldn’t make it on Friday. But alas, no photos. I’ll show more of the results in a later post. We had a great time and we’re going to come up with more ideas for screen printing experiments.

The Story of the Traveling Pages Tree Book

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It’s finally complete! I finished construction on my tree book for the The Story of the Traveling Pages Swap. I was still missing two pages but thought there was little chance I would receive them. I guess if I do I can decide at that point what to do.

I am pleased with the results. It was a bit of a pain sewing the sticks on but once I figured out what I was doing it worked out pretty well.

I used a button thread to give strength. I sewed a few stitches on the edge of two pages to hold the pages together and then I added the stick and did a sort of lasing technique (ala Girl Scouts).

And I really think it’s amazing how different the pages all are but how well they went together. I put them in chronological order by month.

I went a little overboard on the front and back twigs but I really liked the “twigginess” of it.

Here’s a photo of the book nearly closed.

So what do you think? Didn’t it turn out great? Go check out the Traveling Pages Book Swap blog to see how everyone’s books are turning out.