Monday, June 09, 2008

Playing with tea bags and more

The paper on the top left with letters is a kimwipe, the one on the right is a large black tea bag for making iced tea. The white paper below is a tea bag from hibiscus tea, the bottom two dark tea bags I left the tea dry in the bag for several days before tearing it open, I love how stained it became and kind of brittle. It really looks aged. I used a fine sharpie to draw on them.
I painted a bird only using brown paint. After it was dry I glazed paint colors over the bird and leaves. I mixed a little brown in the colors to soften them, I wanted the painting to have a vintage look. After the bird and twig was painted I mixed a diluted brown wash and painted the fabric with it.
The papers are collaged to the fabric with Golden semi-gloss gel medium.
Several of the other images are from decorative wrapping papers, and a scan I made of a page from a children's school book from the 1800's. Then I cut green rice paper leaves and collaged them to the fabric.
I quilted it with wool batting. The areas not quilted are very puffy and look like trapunto. The dark tea bag with the bee really looks leathery and old.

11 comments:

  1. Anonymous1:22 PM

    Oh my gosh......I can hardly breath....Such a beautiful piece of art. I can't believe how generous you are to share the details of how it was created! Thank you....I am just overwhelmed...Wonderful!


    Susan

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  2. Anonymous4:45 PM

    hi judy,

    how about teaching a bird painting class next? you are so talented! i'm always turning to my antique prints for bird and flower images, but you can paint them yourself and they look so amazing.

    and i love all your teabag elements and how you blend it all together, the final piece looks so cohesive. beautiful! thanks for sharing.

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  3. Judy,your works blending paper and quilting are so wonderful! I really like how you have achieved a vintage look with this. Can you tell us how you did the border, it looks like couching.

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  4. hmmmmm, that's something to think about. Thanks for the compliment. In the mean time the next best thing is to wait a little while and buy the dvd workshop that Quilting Arts is going to put out this summer (I don't know when). But the image that is on the workshops button on my blog is the painting I did for the dvd. The workshop will be called painting fabric for whole cloth quilts. In that workshop I spend time showing how I make smooth gradations of color with textile paints, probably one of the biggest challenges for people using paint also I cover glazing and painting fine details.

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  5. Hi Karen, it is couching. When I make small quilts I trim them to size and do a straight stitch along the very edge. Then I take multiple yarns and couch them to the edge of the quilt with monofilament in the top and regular thread in the bobbin, twisting the yarns as I go.

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  6. Hi Judy!
    How did you like working with the kimwirpe? I've since done several collages using them and they hold up pretty well with a lot of paint, gel medium and water/glue mix. Your piece is beautiful as usual! I can't wait for the color class and the classes in Atlanta!

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  7. Carol, I ended up not using the kimwipe in the final collage, not because there was a problem with it, it just didn't end up getting used. It will be held over until I do another mixed media piece. I think the one thing that I found different is that it is a little easier to draw on the teabag. The kimwipe is a little tissue like and I feel the tip of the pen sort of catch when drawing, but not too badly.

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  8. wow! i love the birds...i have about 10 feeders so my backyard is sort of a bird wonderland. i love their songs too. i would love to take a bird painting class...what a great idea!

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  9. this is very interesting (and by the way many thanks for your long comment in my blog. it helps me to see what people think about the theme of the poll!). I am collecting tea bags to do something with them some time. they are really full of possibilities!

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  10. by the way, do you know this site at Etsy?
    http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=12353537

    this is a friend of mine selling tea paper bags tissue.

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  11. I really love this!
    Thanks for sharing your technique :-)

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