Aloha! Grab your grass skirt and let's paint all the way to Hawaii!

This is so exciting, I want to invite you to come along with me for a surface design painting adventure on an island hopping Quilt n' Cruise to Hawaii. Linda Poole, Joan Shay and Lisa Erlandson will also be teaching on the cruise.

The ship leaves port from San Francisco October 4th. The next 4 days at sea offer a great line up of classes, then the ship stops each day in Kauai, Honolulu, Lahaina and Hilo, then 4 more days for classes before stopping for a day in Ensenada and docking back in San Francisco the next morning, October 19th.

We are going to have a blast, all skill levels welcome. Look at what we're going to do:

Surface Design 101

Learn about different textile paints while creating unique, textured fabrics to use for art quilting or as a base for other mixed media techniques. A few of the methods we’ll explore are shibori and scrunching, working with sea sponges, layering translucent washes, creating texture by relief and working with a variety of brushes.

Make your Mark

Begin the class by designing and carving your own rubber stamp and foam stamp.  Then explore mark making by printing with your new stamps, wood block stamps, stamps from home, thermofax screens and quill pens to create beautiful stamped and painted fabrics. 

Heavy Metal Play Day

Spend a day working with craft metal and discover a variety of ways you can add flash to your mixed media projects.  

Each student receives a metal tool kit courtesy of Walnut Hollow, and learn multiple embossing techniques to create beautiful designs with dimension and texture on aluminum and copper metal.  Several methods for enhancing metal with color using alcohol inks and markers will also be explored in this fun and relaxed class. 

Painting Hawaiian Flora with Textile Paints

Using native Hawaiian floral imagery, learn how to paint fabric with textile paints, using an original design of your own or one provided in class. Students learn techniques for creating smooth gradations of color, glazing paint with textile mediums to create more visual depth, covering large areas with even color and avoiding blotchiness, control paint bleeding, working with freezer paper masks, and painting smooth lines and fine details.  

We will also discuss how different paints affect the hand of the fabric, and how to baste painted textiles for quilting. This is an information packed class geared to help students gain confidence painting fabric for art quilting. Students will have a variety of images to choose from or may work from their own designs.

How Can You Resist?

Explore the art of using resists to create beautifully textured painted fabric, while working with a variety of inexpensive items commonly found around the house or the local office supply.

Painting Hawaiian Fauna with Textile Paints

Using birds, insect or animal imagery native to Hawaii, learn how to paint fabric with textile paints, using an original design of your own or one provided in class. Students will learn techniques for creating smooth gradations of color, glazing paint with textile mediums to create more visual depth, covering large areas with even color and avoiding blotchiness, control paint bleeding, working with freezer paper masks, and painting smooth lines and fine details.  

So grab your partner (or not), and come spend two fun filled creative weeks immersed in color, texture and fabric. Check out all the details so we can go try some Spam sushi!

But Where Are All The Martians?

Well, it's very exciting that the Mars rover Curiosity has landed with newer high tech equipment ready to beam us back some new pics of the Martian landscape, but my guess is it's still going to look a bit stark.

I made this quilt after the first rover landed on Mars in 2004 and all the photos showed a barren rocky landscape. I prefer thinking of Mars as depicted in 1950's B movies with sexy Martian ladies and crazy carnivorous life forms.

Do you think we'll get anything more exciting to see this time around?

I'm leaving in on a jet plane...

I'm on my way to Sacramento to spend a few days with my parents and check out neighborhoods for potential places to live. Then I'm flying to Southern California to spend a day with my gal pals Leslie Jenison and Jamie Fingal and teach at International Quilt Festival, Long Beach. By the way I still have a few spaces in each of my classes.

I am so looking forward to seeing all my quilting friends in beautiful sunny southern California!

Get Inked in Long Beach!

Wow! It's four weeks until International Quilt Festival, Long Beach. Would you like to immerse yourself in color by learning how to paint fabric with acrylic inks?

Saturday I'm teaching a fun new class 10 Techniques with Acrylic Inks.

Spend a day filled with fun and relaxed exploration, beginning with creating colorful textured backgrounds

exploring mark making with different kinds of stamps 

and drawing with inks using quill type calligraphy and ruling pens.














We'll explore layering imagery with color and marks

cutting masks with freezer paper.

And painting in a transparent watercolor style.

This class is going to packed with lots of tips and ideas of ways you can work with these versatile inks on fabric. I'd love to see you there!  

Click here to see student work from the first inks class.

To see two art quilts painted with acrylic inks check out these step by step blog posts about making 8 of Cups and Black and Bloom All Over.

Painted ipad Bag

I have been wanting to buy a case for my 'new' ipad, but have held off because I read the ipad 2 cases didn't work with the new ipads because they moved the magnet that puts it in sleep mode when you close the cover and there aren't that many options in covers for the new ipads yet, so in the mean time I've had nothing to protect it when I'm not using it and need to transport it.

I decided to sew a simple bag from canvas with a piece of thick wool felt sewn into it as a cushioned liner. I had no intentions of doing anything fancy, just a simple temporary bag that was purely utilitarian. This did the job and suited me just fine... for a few days.

But the lure of that blank canvas was too much.

I pulled out a few printed tea bags, abaca paper and matte gel medium and glued a few images down.

Then I painted a layer of clear gesso over the whole bag. Gesso is a way to prep the canvas for paint and clear gesso would not cover the printed images the way white gesso would.

Using acrylic inks, I brushed on some random color. When I build up layers of painted imagery, I like to start by putting down some primary colors, mainly warm yellows and cool red, because when I paint blues over them I'll get greens and purples. I especially like yellow as a base color because it is light, bright and transparant and I can always go darker with layers of color over the top.

With pencil I drew a few images on the canvas, white pencils are always nice if you can't see pencil lines very well.

Then I painted the background with deep blues and turquoise. You can see some of the colors are translucent letting the printed images and color from below show through and some of the colors, like the turquoise, are opaque.

 I used a black sharpie to give more definition to the simple graphic shapes

I still havent decided on what kind of closure if any I'm going to put on the bag, for now I just fold it over and that works fine.

Painting Canvas

This week I had a need to paint so I pulled out a big piece of canvas, threw a layer of gesso on it and  drew a big octopus. Indigo's always telling me I should paint on canvas more.

I painted the octopus body with acrylic inks.

and painted the water and seaweed with regular acrylic paints. The water is actually more of a teal blue but the camera seems to have a hard time getting that color.

I love the golden orange and teal blue colors together, opposites on the color wheel, they really make the image pop.

I knew it needed more patterning of some kind, so Indigo suggested I make it a blue ring octopus. Which seemed perfect, because I needed some more dark values to balance the dark the eyes.

Now I need to get back to less fun and creative work, filling out class proposals, contracts, etc., but as things move along I'll post more photos.

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8 of cups

While trying to gain perspective on things, the card that turned up most often as an outcome in tarot readings was the 8 of cups. It expresses exactly how I feel and has helped me realize I need to be more assertive in taking control of my life. 

Being a tea drinker, using tea cups felt like the perfect imagery to pull all these disparate symbolic images together to represent this card. After painting deeper shades of the various colors around the cups, to separate them from the background, I painted white around a scrollwork design, which feel like flames and feathers, passion and lightness.

I felt like it needed a strong graphic element, so I added a large 8. Then I used a gold paint pen to add decorative details to the scrollwork design.

The cups still blended into the background, so I added a rough and bumpy (like the road in life) outline to the cups, mimicking the style of the 8 and bringing them forward visually.

Finished painting, I think...

Eight of Cups: Moving on and letting go. Time to change direction in life. Dissatisfied and disappointed, wanting something entirely different, but not knowing what. Finding courage, taking time to rest and heal.

Making progress in life and art

This is my initial drawing on fabric as the base for my painting. I started with an anatomical heart from an old medical illustration engraving. I extended the arteries into curving vines to represent new growth and life. Below I have drawn veins from a heart, going upwards, which feel like barren trees, but also have the symbolism of roots to me. The fabric is about 3' x 6'.

Using acrylic inks and a 2 inch wide brush, I painted over the drawing with large brush strokes of color.

The only way to get a photo of the whole thing was to stand on the table, unfortunately there is a large shadow falling across it from the window.

Now the thing to keep in mind is, I really don't have a definite plan here. I am just doing it. I am trying not to worry about whether it will come out "good" or not, because really that is not the goal. For me right now it's about processing feelings, thoughts, aspirations hopes... just what's going on personally.

Cicadas, I love the way they buzz in the trees, communicating with each other in circular pattens of sound and I think the growth cycles and transformations they go through in life are fascinating.

The Moon: deception, disappointment, dishonor
Strength: acceptance, courage, optimism, heroism
2 of Cups: resolution, harmony, partnership
2 of Coins: need to balance, energy, amusement

The World: new life, the end of a cycle, attainment of purpose
Cancer crab: represents someone
3 of Swords: betrayal, separation, clearing the way for something better

Grieving the death of relationships, closure and renewal

Hanged Man: suspension, meditation, transformative thinking
6 of Swords: letting go, moving beyond sorrow, the road to recovery
Wheel of Fortune: positive change, progress, beginnings

The cards represented are ones that have come up multiple times in recent readings, so I think their meaning is significant and so very apropos.

More painting and layers of imagery to go.