Smelling the Roses

Posted on October 25, 2013 by ruthlane under mixed media

Last quarter, Karen had challenged us at the Felting and Fiber Studio to make a mixed media piece. I showed you my first piece a while back but I just finished the second piece today.

I started this piece with a hand dyed piece of fabric that I stapled to a canvas frame. I had planned on using it for encaustic painting but then realized that the wax would crack on the canvas. Instead, I added some Wensleydale locks to the fabric with gel medium.

I then took painted fabric and made a few rolled roses. These are simple to make, just wind up the fabric and then stitch through the back to hold them together.

I stitched the leaves, turned them right side out and stitched a vein down the center of the leaf.

I painted the leaves with gel medium to stiffen them. The stem is a machined stitched cord.

All of the parts were glued down with gel medium. It was a fun piece and I think I’m going to try a few more on a bit larger scale.

Can you smell the roses?

Eco-Prints on Paper

Posted on October 11, 2013 by ruthlane under Dyeing, surface design

I opened up the package of paper that I put together last week with leaves in between. The photos aren’t the best but you can see a bit how they turned out. I am really pleased with them and need to iron them now. The maple leaves seem to have achieved the best prints. The pages aren’t as orange as they show in the photos.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I spent most of the day today finishing the felting on the third roof piece for the yurt with my friend Paula. Only one more piece of felt left and the yurt will be ready to go. I will be very happy when it is finished!

Natural Dyeing Day

Posted on October 4, 2013 by ruthlane under Dyeing

My local group met today at my house and we did some natural dyeing and eco-printing. Luckily, we had a sunny day and it didn’t get too cold until later in the afternoon.

First we bundled up a bunch of paper with leaves, tied up the packages in cardboard and started steaming the paper.

Then we made a bunch of different dye pots – this one was with onion skins.

This one was walnut dye.

Barberry seeds and leaves went into this pot.

I poured about half a bottle of Turmeric into this pot.

This one has eucalyptus leaves. These aren’t the fresh kind so we weren’t sure what they would do.

And then we had some synthetic indigo.

We soaked the leaves and the silk and wool in vinegar water.

Then we started putting leaves over the fabric. This is a piece of silk that I had started. I added a lot more after this photo.

This one is Louise’s scarf laid out and ready to roll up into a bundle.

Here are the pots all cooking away on their little stoves.

Here’s the indigo pot with some fabric put in and soaking. I’m not sure we followed the directions properly on this but we got blue so I guess that is good enough.

A couple of the cook stoves didn’t work properly so I took a few pots inside and used the stove. This is the Turmeric one cooking.

And the eucalyptus one behind it.

Here’s the only finished items I have to show you. This is wool thread that I put into various pots. The dark blue and light blue are both indigo. The deep reddish-brown is onion skins, the yellowish one is turmeric and the green one is from the barberry. The colors are wonderful and I like them all. I’ll show you some more fabric and the eco-prints once they are done. The eco-prints need to sit for another couple of weeks so we’ll have to wait to see how they came out. Remember, patience is a virtue.

Mixed Media Piece for Third Quarter Challenge

Posted on September 29, 2013 by ruthlane under artist challenges, free motion machine stitching, mixed media

Over at the Felting and Fiber Studio, Karen had challenged us to make a mixed media piece that included something fiber, something metal and something in the paint variety. This is definitely not the way I usually work but I had started a stitched piece that I thought would work. I showed you the stitched part last week. It was free motion machine stitched on to a painted fabric background. After it was stitched, I colored in the flowers with Inktense pencils and then wet them down with a water brush to simulate water colors.

Then I started working out how I would add metal. I tried a variety of rusty metal washers but I didn’t really like how they looked. It just looked like I was sticking them on there because I had to add metal.

I liked the addition of this rusty metal wire better. I guess it had a more organic feel to it.

Then I painted the fabric with a slightly watered down Golden gel medium. I also painted a couple of layers of the gel medium on the wood too. Once that had dried. I use the gel medium straight from the jar (no water added) to glue the fabric to the wood. You can see that the red fabric bled a little bit onto the green background but that didn’t bother me. It took a couple of days to completely dry,

I then stitched the metal piece down to the fabric to hold it in place. I’m happy with the results and I am planning on doing a series of Montana wildflowers like this piece. I also started a second mixed media piece which I’ll show you soon. Thanks Karen – this was a fun challenge!

More Encaustic and a Little Bit of Stitch

Posted on September 20, 2013 by ruthlane under encaustics, free motion machine stitching

I finally took photos of my encaustic pieces that I made last week. It is hard to get a good photo since they are so shiny.

This one is inspired by the ocean.

This one I used a stencil to add some sparkly powder stuff that I always forget the name. Then I did a shellac burn on top of that. You can see where the shellac burned on the right side. It makes it more textured.

This is one of the parchment paper print transfers. It is actually very black but the photo just wouldn’t show it well.

This one is using branches to make impressions in the wax. I showed you some of the steps in my last post.

This photo actually shows the color better (excuse the glare).

This piece I started a long time ago. It is for the 3rd quarter challenge on the Felting and Fiber Studio. Karen challenged us to do a mixed media piece. I want to add some metal. I thought I might use it to attach the stitched piece to the wood. I had considered putting encaustic wax on the fabric but all of my group advised against it, so I didn’t. Perhaps I will cover it with gel medium to make it stronger. I need to get this finished before the end of September. So I’ll have to make up my mind soon.

Ruth Lane Art

Experimenting with Arts Endless Possibilities