Bird and Wildlife Stitched on Fabric

Wow, some of these were a bit challenging to stitch. Fortunately the herons were easy as having stitched them several times, I know their shape fairly well. The Canada goose required some additional shading to aid in identifying it's species. The moose, well I just love it and I hope you do to. These textile cards are for sale at Creston Card and Stationery http://crestoncard.com/ in Creston, BC but I can also create you something similar if you are interested. Just send me an email to egidman@kootenay.com

 

Definitely I am going to be painting some fabric with chickens in mind as I look forward to stitching a few 'chicken' poses. The fox is very different being stitched over a colourful place in the fabric but when I was thinking I would like to try stitching another fox, I saw this fabric and said to myself 'Why not give this a try." What do you think?

'Canada Goose'

'Blue Heron'

'Blue Heron Strutting'

'A Big Chicken'

'My Moose'

'Colourful Fox'

'Red Silos' - not birds or wildlife but it seemed to 'kinda' fit with this grouping.
 

Today is the first day of spring and I will have some spring flowers painted on textile to show you very soon. 

Oh, I almost forgot to mention the 'It's Time for Colour' Quilt show came to Creston this week. You can read about the national project here. http://cqacanadianquilting.blogspot.ca/p/blog-page.html  What a delight to see the some of the  quilts from across Canada come to our town thanks to the Canadian Quilt Association.

Pink in Watercolour and Textile Art

Watercolour Painting Lesson: Two Coloured Background Wash

At our Friday painting group, I gave this lesson last week. Here are some directions if you would like to try it:

• Wet the paper
• When the shine is starting to go off of the paper, start at the top and add a very rich strip of your chosen colour. Add successively lighter strips of colour until about a third of the way down the paper. Keep your board slightly tilted to allow the colour to run down.
• While the paper is still wet, turn your board 180 degrees and add a strip of another colour at the top. Continue as with the first colour. Allow the two colours to move close together in the middle of the paper.
• When you are satisfied with the blending, lay flat and allow to dry completely.
• Add a silhouette of your choice to the top of the background.  
• On this sample piece, I lifted out a few highlights in the water at the end.

For the year end review, I had a look back at some art work in watercolour and in textile for 2014. Here are some PINK samples.

 Some work from the first online art course I have taken. If you have ever thought of taking one of Jane Lafazio's courses, I would recommend it. http://janelafazio.com/online-classes/

Joan, added pieced squares to my hand painted hollyhock squares. I am still thrilled with this wall hanging.

 Click here for more information on painting with dyes on cotton fabric.

 For this watercolour technique I used pen and ink. It has a nostalgic look, don't you think? 

Fabric painting with a Gelli Plate.  Win was the instructor for this fun workshop I took this spring. Click here for several excellent mixed media tutorials http://windinnart.blogspot.com/

I had fun quilting on a 40 + year old Bernia sewing machine.

Over-painting a Mono Print with Watercolour

On Friday after being away from painting for a bit, I found the need to warm up so I pulled out a mono print from my stack of watercolour papers and started adding watercolour paint. The printing of the original botanical print, in brown, was printed using acrylic paint. That layer then stays adhered to the paper and watercolour paint can be added at will. Because the acrylic paint was thinned with mat medium and was in a thin layer, the second layer with the watercolour paint seemed to adhere on top of it well.

For information on making the botanical mono print below, click here .

Mono printing with a Gelli Plate onto hard press 90 lb watercolour paper using acrylic paint as the print medium. This is the mono print I used.

If you would like to see gelli plate monoprinting onto fabric, click here .

I enjoyed the mixed media play time using a mono print to paint on with watercolour. Again, the Gelli Plate mono prints was made with acrylic as the printing medium. Glazing medium thinned the acrylic paint.

The pros I found were:

• the first layer stayed put
• lots of texture could easily be achieved with the monoprint
• it was fun to negative paint around this texture and create new shapes

The cons I found were:

• the piece was rather dark and I had no way of lightening it up without adding additional mediums such as gauche or acrylic paint
• I had to work within the composition of the mono print

Here are sections of the over-painted mono print. I am in love with the texture on the leaves that were printed and the leaves that I created through negative painting. Little things like this can excite a painter well at least it does me.

The whole piece in its entirety. Note the glazing of cerulean blue across the top to suggest leaves in the background. There are likely lots of applications for this technique. What can you think up?

 

December. A month for Christmas Cards

Lots of card making this time of year. Do you make cards? How do you go about it? Below is a sample of how I go about my textile 'winter' cards.

Just a suggestion of a hill of snow and a tree outlined in the front with stitching competes this one. Simplicity can seem sophisticated don't you think?

 



Here is one of two panels of card tops I painted with dyes one day. Not all of them will be satisfactory to make into cards so I will use a view finder to make my selections.

Using a view finder to find a composition I like.

The vertical cards sell better, so I opt for this one.

Log  cabin in the woods - a personal favorite.

A horizon line and a few stitched weeds in the front lead the viewer's eye up the creek, well at least that was my intention.

Geese heading south. These were a first for me and a bit of a pain as the thread had to be broken at each bird but I think it was worth it.

 

'Skaters on Duck Lake'. Thank you to the locals who were sharing photos a week or so ago of skating on a nearby lake. I look forward to stitching more skating figures.

If you are in Creston, BC you can see a selection of these cards for sale at Creston Card and Stationery. Happy December!

Mono Printing Backgrounds for Watercolour Painting

Preparing for 5 days of plein air painting, I thought I would mono print some backgrounds before leaving home. Sticking to neutrals as the watercolour paints will add the color, I monoprinted some leaves.

1. First I placed a thin layer of acrylic paint on the gelli plate surface using a brayer to even out the layer.
2. Secondly I laid down an arrangement of leaves. With the maple leaves I added some marks simulating branches.
3. Next I laid a piece of 90 lb Arches hot press paper and rubbed on the back to transfer the image.
4. If the shapes seemed to stark in contrast I removed the leaves and pressed them into the white shapes.
5. Then I laid another paper on the gelli plate to get the reverse print. Magic happened.

These may be to dark for the backgrounds I envisioned painting landscapes on but they are intriguing nonetheless and I am looking forward adding other media to complete them.



Mono printing with a gelli plate. Maple leaves.

A small section of the second pull of the maple leaves giving a 'ghost' print.

 In the dark area between the leaves, I pressed down lace in several places to remove some of the colour and to add texture. First print.

Second print

Same technique as the above but with burnt umber acrylic paint

 

Second print. This one has enough white space, I may be able to add a landscape in the background.

Textile. Do these prints call out to you, as much as me, to be printed onto fabric? I can't wait to try it. Over dye after? To many ideas to sleep well at night!!! For a post on gelli printing on fabric click here

Painting with Dyes on Rayon, Lawn and Mercerized Cotton



Apple hand painted with dyes onto a fine 'Lawn' cotton fabric.

The fruit and berry series,  were painted with Procion Fiber Reactive Dyes from Dharma Trading mail order which you can find here .  I first mixed the powders into liquid concentrates and painted with them without adding any thickener. It is a little tricky to get used to painting with them, but the colors remain so vibrant that I have been experimenting with technique and different fabrics.

 

Pears on 'Lawn', Mercerized Cotton, and Rayon

LAWN FABRIC: I have been using the 'Lawn' fabric extensively for textile cards and like it for use with small projects that get ironed onto interfacing for free motion stitching. Lawn fabric accepts the dyes very well and rarely is there any failures. However, because of the looser weave, there is more spreading or bleeding of the dyes when you paint.

Red Currants on Painted onto 'Lawn' fabric

MERCERIZED COTTON: When I paint with thickened dyes, I use the excellent quality Mercerized Cotton from Dharma Trading Co. Go here to for more information. When using the unthickened dye concentrates on this fabric, it also works well and there is less bleed out from your brush strokes. What I don't like about this fabric is it's slight off white colour.

 

Apple hand painted with dye concentrates onto mercerized cotton.



RAYON: It really is more watercolour like in the way it moves on the fabric. I pressed the rayon onto iron on interfacing after painting and rinsing so that the stretching issue was minimized.

Apricots hand painted onto 'Rayon' fabric. The colours mingled well together.

Another example of dye painted 'Rayon' used with black and white commercial cotton in a quilted piece.
 

Some of my work is on the 'And Then We Set It On Fire' blog of Friday, Aug 22! They have some great ideas this week about creating texture with fabric and you can check it out here.

Cloth, Paper, Water: 3 Friends, 3 Mediums

If you are in Creston, BC July or August 2014, be sure to check out the 'Cloth, Paper, Water' art show at the library for Art Walk.  I am pleased to be showing with two other artists Laura Leeder and Win Dinn. You can also check out Laura's work here http://www.lauraleeder.com/  and Win's work here http://windinnart.blogspot.ca/ 

 

 



Win Dinn, Val van der Poel, Laura Leeder hanging the work.

There usually is a bit of nervousness as you hang an art show, as least there is for me. Each artist busily works away, alone, in their studio painting for months and then the day of 'true' comes when you have to,  get to, share your creations with the world.  

 



Thank you Val van der Poel, organizer for the art shows at the Creston Valley Library. Thank you Val for coming out to help us hang the art show for Art Walk. Val is currently showing at the Creston Chamber of Commerce and you can see her work here.  http://mellowood.ca/art/index.html

 

My (Eileen Gidman) textile paintings on the left and Win Dinn's mixed media paintings on the right.

My (Eileen Gidman) 'Rhododendron' textile painting on the left and Laura Leeder's water colour paintings on the right.

Laura Leeder, Win Dinn and me, Eileen Gidman
'Tomatoes on Textile' by Eileen Gidman on the left
Mixed Media by Win Dinn in the middle
Water colour by Laura Leeder on the right

This is what you will see as you enter the library. Art show hanging challenges: not only is that wall orange, it is also curved! I am also in another venue in Creston, but that will be for another post.

It is always relieving to have the art show hanging behind you so you feel like you can take the time to do something else sometimes. I had the pleasure of hiking in a new place, 'Parker Pass' on the weekend. Yes, we were so high that there were patches of snow still and because of that the alpine flowers are just coming out! If anyone knows that name of that flower, could you put a comment or send me an email at egidman@kootenay.com Thanks.

Note the four shades of blue in those distant mountains

Alpine Flower