Happy New Year!!

I have finished up a lot of my projects over the holidays and I can't wait to share them with you!  I'm still in the process of organizing the photos of my many projects but I have a lot of new and exciting things to show you.

My first love has always been photography and with the all of the photo apps out there now one can do amazing things with one's photos.  Over Christmas, we were visiting family in WI, and we ate brunch at "The Old Feed Mill" in Mazomanie, WI.  (Link here) I took this photo from the outside of the building:

I used one of the many photo apps to create these:

I took this photo at the bar area inside the old feed mill:

And these are just a few of the altered photos of this same photo:

If you are an artist like me, please look into these apps.  Most of them are free and it allows you to see your photos as if they were painted in watercolors or pastels, charcoal or pencils.

Reverse Wool Applique

Two weeks ago my mom and I went to the Quilt Convention in Hampton, Va.  We have done this for a number of years and I am always so inspired by other people's work.  There are vendors, quilt guilds displaying their guild challenges and anything and everything in between.  I took over 300 pictures but I'll save that for another post.  Tonight I want to tell you about this wonderful lady I met who does reverse wool applique.

Michelle May is the owner and designer at The Raspberry Rabbits located in North Carolina.  We had a wonderful chat in her booth.  I was initially drawn to her pumpkin pattern.  As I looked around Michelle started telling me the stories behind each of her works, for example, the pumpkin pattern was named "Peter's Pumpkin" from the nursery rhyme.  I did end up buying this pattern along with her adorable book called Fabled Fusions.  The Peppermint Tea pattern was inspired by Alice in Wonderland's Tea Party and Wish Upon A Star was inspired by Michelle's love of the Wonderful World of Disney show that she used to watch as a child.

As you all know I like working with upholstery because it adds texture to a piece of work.  I told Michelle that I was going to try to make Peter's Pumpkin out of my upholstery stash:

It turned out being a little bit more difficult to work with than I had anticipated because of the many layers of upholstery (including the batting).  It was THICK and this was all hand stitched.  The backing was a velvet paisley print.  I ended up changing the beige background because it was too hard to sew through (as it was leather).  In the next picture, you can see that it is off-white wool felt.  The first layer of the pumpkin, the brown part, was in fact leather.  The second layer was a tweed upholstery and the third layer, orange, was wool felt.  The stem was two layers which consisted green velvet and the same brown leather I used for the pumpkin.

In the above picture, the upholstery with a mustard color background had a raised wool design that I cut out and then used for the vine and the decorative pieces at the bottom.

This was so much fun to do!  I think my next project is going to be O'Ryan the Stargazer from her book Fabled Fusions; O'Ryan is the cutest little owl I've ever seen!

Two of my "in progress" art quilts

I cannot believe my favorite upholstery store is going out of business!!  This store was a hidden gem for me.  When one first enters this shop it seems pretty small, then there are swing doors to the second part of the store.  The first room housed most of the upholstery, the second room had mainly trims and tassels.  Then there was a third room in the back!  This is where I get super excited because they have bins and bins and bins full of remnants... CHEAP!  When I started making art dolls years ago I would use these remnants as their clothes.  Some upholstery is very textured and rich in colors and there are different types of patterns that you can't find in a traditional fabric or quilt shop. 

Since my artistic endeavors change like the wind I can usually find various uses for my art supplies.  Sometimes if I'm working on two different projects in two different mediums they will overlap, hence my love of art quilts.  Art quilts combine traditional quilt methods with a modern twist, usually adding unexpected objects to beautiful wall hangings. And this is where my ideas overlap... I could use my upholstery remnants as a base to creating unique one-of-a-kind art quilts!

This was one that I started a few months ago:

Of course it was 2-D until I added beads, yarn, ribbon and puffy paint to it.  I also made some of the centers stand out by using extra upholstery and stuffing it with cotton.

Then I found some of my old sculpey beads that go almost perfectly with these colors!  I probably made these in the early 90's.

(circular bead in the bottom right hand part of the photo)

Again this is not finished yet.

Last week when I went to this upholstery shop again (they aren't closing until at least December) I found this remnant that I fell in love with!  The moment I saw it it inspired me.  The dark brown part of the leaves are velvet and feel oh so soft!  Here was the picture I took a few days ago after quilting it and hand sewing a row of gold beads:

As you can tell by the photo there are gold accents on the beige background part of the upholstery.  When I quilted over this it seems to disappear so I wanted to make that stand out again... fabric markers to the rescue!  I have also added decorative yarn and turquoise beads.

I have a huge collection of beads and usually I can find the right colors to go with my projects.  Here is a photo of everything I've used so far:

As with the first one posted here I like to work on these for a while then walk away for a few days. This is why I could never be on Project Runway, sometimes they only have one day to complete a challenge!  Anyway, when I return to a project it is with "new eyes" and I am able to be inspired again.

Art can be found anywhere

One boater got real creative with his rope.

Smithfield pier, Virginia.

I beat my deadline

In the last post I said that in the gallery (at Olde Towne Art)  a lot of artists paint on canvas and that's how come their studios look "full".  I decided that I needed to create a few larger pieces to "cover my wall space" but I had never painted on canvas before.  Well in the art world I'll try anything once so I bought myself some canvas.  I had no idea what I was going to do so I started with my favorite color pink.  The first thing that popped into my head, that was pink, was the Breast Cancer Awareness ribbons.  I have a good friend that is battling breast cancer right now so this is in honor of her:

I wanted to add dimension after I painted the background silver so I added black paint to ceramic stucco and painted the door and ground.  I then mixed varying shades of pink with a heavy gel medium.  The ribbon is made out of pink sculpey clay.

While I was researching quotes to put on my first piece I came across a quote that inspired me to make my second piece.  This one is called Sunshine.

Again I mixed reds, oranges, yellows and gold with my heavy gel medium to create texture in the sun.  This piece, and the previous one, both measure 9" X 14".

For my third one I knew I wanted more texture whether it be fabric, yarn, paper or anything else that inspired me.  I went to a local art store where I knew they had a bin of cheap craft yarn and there I found inspiration.  My third one is called Under The Sea:

First I painted the canvas in swirls of greens and blues.  The inspiration was the bumpy yarn, it looked like seaweed to me.  Again I wanted dimension so I made the fish out of sculpey clay then painted them.

While digging through the yarn bin I found 2 more skeins of yarn that also inspired me.  My last one was made with red, grey and silver yarn and acrylic paint.  It is untitled.

I was aiming for three finished canvases before we went out of town for Thanksgiving but I managed to do four before my creativity slowed down and I am very pleased with all of them.  I will be hanging them on my studio wall this afternoon just in time for the Christmas shoppers!