Textile Cards are for Christmas

Season's Greetings and Wishing You the Best in the New Year.

My hand made textile cards are available locally in Creston, BC at Creston Card and Stationery and the Cresteramics Art Store. As they fit perfectly into a 5 X 7" frame, they make a card and gift in one!

This was my favorite winter season card created this year. The hand dyed fabric with the soft mauves and little blue seemed so perfect for this winter skating on a frozen lake scene. When you are free motion stitching, you are never quite sure how stitched images are going to turn out because it is a little tight seeing beneath the sewing machine foot. I love the 'free spirited' look of the figure in this textile card. 

I started this piece about two years ago when I was teaching a Quilt Group a 'Painting on Fabric' workshop. Instead of completing it as a pot of poinsettias as it was originally intended to be (only the largest bloom was done), I just decided to paint an overall design of blooms. You can see below how some were cut to create cards. Boy was it hard to make the first cut into this fabric. 

This was the original hand painted textile that was reproduced for our Christmas Cards this year. Thank you Rook Designs of Creston, BC for the printing.

Soda soaked fabric painted with thickened dyes ready for 9 cards. Note below, the bunny I stitched on one of them. Do you have any other ideas for additional 'simple' images to be stitched on this dyed background? I think I have two left.

Textile cards for the winter season.

Art Show This Weekend

The Images Art Show & Sale is happening in Creston, BC this Saturday and Sunday. If you are able to attend, it would be great to see you there.

You are invited to the Creston Images Art Show and Sale.

I am so pleased to be showing with the other artists.

I will be exhibiting 19 watercolour paintings. See a few of them below.

Plein Air Paintings

'Fallow'

This started as a plein air painting one day when Ute Bachinski and I were painting at Brunhams' Greenhouse. After painting the beautiful flowers in front of the greenhouse in another painting, I turned 180 degrees and painted these plant stalks.  They were adding such structure to the landscape, I couldn't resist them.

Landscapes in Pattern 

Using stencils was so creatively invigorating that I will be looking for opportunities to try more stencilling. I started this painting on location in Lister and finished it one day when I was painting at my friend's studio.

Clothesline Series

'Miner's House' 

Clothesline Series which I began in order to draw attention to energy conservation.

'Life with My Human' Watercolour Series

The following paintings are three of a series that I am highlighting at this Art Show. The series started in 2018 and aims to capture the uniqueness of the relationship between each pet and their owner.  A portion of the profit from the sale of commissioned paintings in this series will be donated to a local animal charity or agreed-upon animal charity of the purchaser’s choice.

'Behind the House, Across the Street'

This painting is looking down the Devon Street trail, that the Rotary Club developed last year. Three different home owner's planted flowers to enhance the trail. Thank you to all developers and maintainers of the trail. And a special thank you Barb, my neighbour and her dog for posing. 

'Running Partner'

This beautiful dog and his 'Mom' share a love of going for a run and/or walk together. Living where they do, they visit some pretty spectacular scenery.

'Waiting for a Breeze'

Bruce has many adventures with his owner and this year learning to ride on a sailboat was one of the them. Sailing on Kootenay lake, what could be better?

Textile Cards

At the show, there will be some of my Christmas and winter themed textile cards. I was in the dye pots last week and tried painting cardinals for the first time. The process starts by painting with dyes onto fabric. Later in the process, I thread sketch some details. 

Cardinal's all in a row. They will be cut for individual card tops.

Here are six night skies painted with dyes. You can just see the 'plate' pallet with the dark blue dye on it. Note the lower left card in the photo below. Can you see which one got a rabbit thread sketched on it? Even though I often paint a few images at once, they are all created with variety.

Textile cards for the winter season. In the Creston Valley, people often skate on Duck Lake and that's where I draw my inspiration for the skater's from.

The textile cards make a gift and card in one as they fit perfectly in a 5 X 7" frame.

Watercolour Painting for the 'Trails for Creston Valley Society'

Recently the Creston Trail Society was fund raising to purchase a riverside property for a park. In the initial stages of fund raising, when I offered my artistic services, the Society members asked me to create a painting that could be used as a poster to track the fund raising efforts. They had a few specific things they wanted which I incorporated. The right side was left quite bare to accommodate the fundraising numbers that were to be added. The painting was copied and laminated which worked very well for adding on slips of paper with amounts of the goal to be reached and the fund raising efforts to date. 

The painting was also used on the cover of the 'I love Creston' magazine!

The poster on the table of one of the fund raisers.

The painting continued to be used for additional posters even after the property was purchased. The graphic designer did a great job in adding the texted to the scanned painting.

Another great poster.

The painting was also used for 75 Thank You cards.

And the local bakery made a cake for a celebration at the purchased property. What a great project to be involved in. Look here for more information Trails for Creston Valley Society 

InkTober - Border Collie Sketch

October is a great month to start daily sketching. To participate in InkTober, simply complete an inked sketch daily or at least as many days as you can. There are word lists created for ideas each day or use your own idea. You can find a list here InkTober 2018 Word List . Feel free to share your creations. 

Embellishing with Hand dyed Velvet

Dyed Rayon Velvet

Rayon dyes vibrantly with Procion Fibre Reactive Dyes and is easy to do. For the two sample pieces I did, I simply painted liquid dye onto soda soaked rayon velvet. 

This is my first time embellishing my Textile Cards with rayon velvet pieces. 

Cattails are naturally fuzzy so the brown velvet was perfect for them. I definitely need to dye more brown velvet. Do these colours speak to you of autumn?

Hand Dyed Fabrics Embellishing Textile Cards

Recently I tried embellishing my textile cards with additional fabric. Creatively invigorating! It was a technique I tried for the first time over the last three weeks. Why did I do it? Perhaps it was that large box of beautiful, hand dyed fabrics that are either too small or not quite suited alone for a card top. Or was it just time, after years of  free motion stitching details onto my hand dyed fabrics, to explore another method of adding details? Possibly a little of both.

Life with My Human Watercolour Series: 'Behind the House, Across the Street'

The Images Art Show is in November in Creston, BC and I am working on a dog series for it called 'Life with My Human'. The watercolour painting below is the sixth of this series. I am happy with it not only as a part of this series but also as it showcases a trail our Creston Trail Society www.crestonvalleytrails.ca  has recently developed. 

Life with My Human Series: 'Behind the House, Across the Street'

watercolour 10 1/2 X 13 1/2"

by Eileen Gidman

New Watercolour Series: Life with My Human

Thank you everyone who gave me suggestions for a title for this Dog Series I've been working on since January. All the ideas resulted in the title, 'Life with My Human'. It is a watercolour series which attempts to show the bond between a dog and it's owner, by painting a specific activity they do together. 

At my friend,  Win, http://windinnart.blogspot.com/, suggestion I left the title without the word dog in it so I can branch out to other pets too. 

The photos I saw of this dog, made me think that 'Bruce' is game for any adventure with HIS human. Even though you can see he is a mature dog, Bruce is still willing to try something new. Here is Bruce, this summer, co-piloting his owner's new sailboat! I wonder what he is thinking? "Where's the breeze?"

Sold

Series: Life with My Human

'No Breeze'

7 1/2" X 10 1/2"

watercolour by Eileen Gidman

Dog Series: 'We Walk the Beach'

'We Walk the Beach'

10 1/2" X 14"

by Eileen Gidman

Adventurous Dogs

WATERCOLOUR SERIES: THE LIVES DOGS LEAD

Watercolour by Eileen Gidman - SOLD

'The Sheriff and the Bandit'

Painting on Location at Valley of the Swans

The Creston Valley has also been known as Valley of the Swans. Fortunately a friend alerted me that there were Trumpeter Swans feeding in the farmer's fields on the 'Creston Flats'. This was the first time I was able to see them so close. The first day I went to see them, it was sunny and the water sparkled and the geese appeared so very white.

Watercolour by Eileen Gidman 7 1/2" X 10"

The next day, I went back and set up for painting on location. It wasn't as bright but I wanted to capture what was still in my mind from the day before.

'Painting Miss Daisy'

'Miss Daisy'.  I've tried to capture the personality of this very loyal dog. A few of the characteristics I've tried to portray is her love of adventure; her intelligence; and her keen awareness of her owner's whereabouts.  

'Miss Daisy' watercolour 10" X 11" by Eileen Gidman

A photo of Miss Daisy and owner receiving their painting.

Creating Cards for Spring

Making Textile Cards

My Favorite for Spring

Looking for some new cards for spring? I have a new selection at Creston Card and Stationery, in Creston, BC. You can always contact me if you want something specific. 

Do you want to make some textile cards yourself? Below you will see the start of the process. Click here  or Click here for two other posts about the process of painting with dyes. 

Here the painted dye is wet. I am painting on soda ash soaked cotton which reacts with the dyes so their bond becomes permanent with the fabric.

Sometimes I put the thickened black dye in a bottle with a nib and draw the image first. You can see the bottle in the upper right corner of the photo below.

Oh the excitement of applying the thickened dye to fabric. I find it easiest to work on few card tops at once. That way if I am mixing the red dye I can apply it to several sections while I have some mixed up. You have to work fairly quickly as the setting of the dye relies on moisture so you don't want the fabric drying out. After the dye is applied I then put the fabric in between two pieces of plastic to cure 24-48 hours at 70 degrees F or above.

A length of fabric that has been rinsed, washed twice with Synthrapol which is a detergent that helps keep excess dye from moving to other areas and staining it. I like to iron the pieces dry. Mostly because I can't wait to see how they've turned out!

Another piece of cotton was painted with dyes in a way that may suggest landscapes. I like to use up the little bits of mixed dye colours that I have left over when painting the specific images such as in the photo above this one. Let your imagination run wild.

A window cut out of card stock can be used to choose the composition.

Heavy interfacing is ironed on the back of the fabric where I will be cutting the card top. I use 4" X 6".

Here is a sample of a length of cloth with the interfacing on, now ready for cutting out the card tops. Did you note that two of the corners are lacking an interfacing backing? They didn't make the grade and were culled out. On one the black dye bled into the yellow of the butterfly. This happened as I was too impatient to let the black cure overnight before adding the yellow dye. I managed to get away with it on the larger butterflies as I stayed away from the black line as much as possible. Reminder to self, plan to sketch out images with black dye and cure overnight!!!

This one turned out much better and with additional free motion stitching it should be a card that someone will like as it reminds them of spring. I was quite please with the sky in this one. It was a very light mix of blue, having a lot of the thickener (sodium alginate) in it. I sponged it on. It reminds me of those breezy days in May and June.

Upcycling Shirts

Upcycling Shirts

At the Art Barn  recently, a course was offered about upcycling shirts called 'Fashion Sewing with Stitch + Eco Designs' by Darcy Wanuk . I took it and I am so glad I did. What great fun it was with Darcy giving us mind expanding ideas for sewing. Her eye for design was exciting to see in action as she worked with each one of us individually. I would highly recommend Darcy's courses. Please check out Darcy's site Darcy Wanuk .

Hand Dyed Fabric in Clothing

Since that day, I have upcycled two additional shirts but added my own hand dyed fabric as accents.

For those of you who hand dye fabric, paint on fabric or collect interesting fabrics, I thought you might be interested to see what I did. 

Upcycle Shirt 1

Back of the shirt with some hand painted pansy fabric.

Front details.

Sleeve detail.

Upcycle Shirt 2

Auditioning fabrics

Note the fabric with the lamp post, which I originally thought was going to be my main added fabric, actually didn't make it into the shirt. I felt quite disappointed at this, but in the end it just didn't fit in. 

By the way the lamppost scene is in Gibson's, BC. I did some sketching when I taught a 'Painting with Dyes Workshop' at Carola's Quilt Shop a few years ago. The Sunshine Coast of BC is a very scenic place. 

Hand painted fabrics that were rejected for this project.

Decisions had to be made somewhere. I wish Darcy had been there to help me!

Cutting the square fabric in half!!!

For the front and for the back I needed long pieces so I cut the mostly square fabric in half and after auditioning several colours, pieced it back together with the mauve shirt fabric I had from cutting the lower sleeve off.  I have only one very small piece of this fabric left.

Making a long piece of fabric.

Shortening the sleeve and adding some hand dyed fabric as a facing.

 

Back Inset.

Front details including tab and button to pocket.

I know it's fun to sew hand painted fabrics in quilts and such but I hope you like this idea and give it a try.