Twirly Swirly Dresses and Lacy Girly Pages

I had a very artful weekend, which is always a good thing, but especially when here in NYC it went from sweater weather to 90+ overnight.  Yuck!  Not that I need one, but it was a great excuse to stay indoors and get messy.

On Saturday I went downtown to Michele's studio for yet another great class with Sue Pelletier.  Spending time with my artsy friends, creating a special canvas......priceless!  We altered little dresses.  They were gessoed, painted, embellished, and stiffened.  And then they were attached to canvases we covered with dress pattern paper, tissue paper, and assorted other items.  I used a wide gallery wrap canvas, which allows for more decorating opportunities on the sides, and best of all, it's ready to hang when you get the piece home.

I didn't take a photo of the dress I chose before altering, but I think it was a light blue with tiny dark blue polka dots.  I also used the back of the dress as the front, because I liked the opening.  Well, enough blah blah blah, here it is:

 

 

Me and my peeps, and our swirly twirly masterpieces:

 



 

Is that fun, or what?  And yes, that is a pink bow in Pat's hair.  In case you were wondering.

 

And that's not all I did.  I received two art journals last week, both from the Kindred Souls round robin.  Carol and Gloria both requested a vintage look, with Carol also asking for an inspirational quote.  So I had two opportunities to bring together fabric and paper and sweet embellishments.  First up, Carol's page.

 

 

Carol supplied grungeboard pages, and I covered mine front and back with kraft paper that first received a faux leather technique.  I originally saw that last year on Anita Houston's blog.  Click here for all the details.

 

Over that went some torn strips of printed fabric, and then the focal image, which was printed on cotton and has some batting underneath.  It is attached to fabric cut with the Sizzix Doily Frame die, and surrounded by a bunch of little Prima flowers. 

 

 

 

I made some stick pins and added them.  If you look above the pins you can see the word "timeless."  I actually used metal letters for writing on leather.  I figured, hey, leather, faux leather....let's see what happens.  It worked!

 





 

 

And the quote:

 

 

 

The back:

 

 

 

Gloria requested vintage shabby chic.  I treated my focal image just as I did for Carol:  printed on cotton and backed with some batting for added poof.

 

 

 

The background paper is by Prima (the Melody collection), and it was enhanced with a lot of sparkle, thanks to my Sakura clear stardust pen.  I outlined just about everything. 

 

 

The butterflies were cut from scraps from the same Prima pack, using my Sizzix Embosslits Beautiful Wings die.  I covered them with Glossy Accents for a different texture.

 

 

 

Two more handmade stickpins.

 

 

And a few more Prima flowers, sprayed with some Perfect Pearls Mists.

 

The back:

 

 

 





















More Prima paper, more butterflies, and more doodling with the Sakura pen.

 

All in all, in spite of really sucky weather, a pretty great weekend.



Keys4Art 2013, Part IV

This is it.....the final Keys4Art 2013 post.  I'm a little sad because blogging about the retreat is reliving it, and I can't get enough of that!  I hope some more of the ladies decide to do the same so I
can experience it all yet again.  (Speaking of which, click here for Teri's blog post).

One of our Keys regulars who did not attend this year was Val, and she sent along a bunch of chipboard houses, and asked us to decorate them using red, white, and aqua.  The completed houses will help decorate her new vacation home.  (If you click on Val's name above, you'll be taken to her blog where you'll see that home and the decorated houses she's already received from other artsy friends.  I know she'll love ours too).  I'm not sure if all the houses made it into Lill's camera, but here's what I was able to snag from her.  Click on Lill's name and get her perspective on the retreat.

 

 

BTW, mine is the one with the stylized flag, and on the roof it says, "Home Is Where The Art Is."  Which is for sure true for us.  And thanks to the wonderful Sue Pelletier whose artful flag class has inspired so many flags that have found their way into my art.

 

We spent a lot of time in the kitchen, either cooking, cleaning, eating, or watching others cook, clean or eat. This is what it looked like when we arrived, and when we left.  In between, not so much.

 

 

Thanks to everyone who kept us very well fed (and that does include Elena's and Bernie's restaurant, The Marlin).   Jacquie, Karen, Pat, Daisy, Sue....many thanks for the extra 3 pounds I brought back home with me.

 

 

 

We celebrated Lill's birthday with a cake and Bernie's spectacular ribs.  Yes, that is me wiping rib residue from my lips.  Unflattering, yet accurate.

 

 

 

And lest you think I was just one of the watchers, I helped shred the chicken for Karen's awesome gumbo, and I did make a pretty mean chopped salad a few times.  Actually, everyone pitched in.  And though we might have wanted to, we did not keep Karen chained to the kitchen churning out southern Louisiana treats.  This next photo proves that she had some down time.

 

 

 

Relaxing on the deck was one of the greatest pleasures of having the retreat at this house.

 



 

 

You've already seen what our work spaces looked like as we did our thing.  This is what it looked like when we arrived.  I can't even begin to imagine the work that went into readying the place for us.  Elena, Jacquie, you rock!  And a shout out to Patty and Linda, two other Keys regulars who didn't attend but helped with the set up.

 

 

 

Teri took this photo of the view from the roof of the house.  I don't do heights very well, so thanks for climbing that circular staircase, Teri!

 

 

 

One afternoon we witnessed a school of jumping mullets passing by.  We were so excited and the fish so fast, we couldn't get a shot off in time.  But this picture I found online gives you an idea of what we saw.  It was this city girl's idea of Wild Kingdom.

 

 

 

Our last night was spent partying at The Marlin.  Good food, great company, and some interesting dance moves.  Not to mention the duet between the entertainer and our Jen.

 

 

 

 

The next morning we headed out to the airport early enough for Jen to get this shot of the sunrise....in a fast moving van, mind you.

 

 

 

We're already talking about Keys4Art 2014, which Elena is determined to have.......in Cuba!









 

 

 











A Tale of Flags and Quilts

What a wonderful weekend at Michele's studio! Two fabulous classes with Sue Pelletier.  I remember lusting after Sue's flag collage at Art Is You last summer, and on Saturday I got to make my own version....twice.

I tried to remember to snap photos at each step of the process, and did get most, though not all. Gesso encrusted fingers kept me from touching my phone on more than one occasion.

**NOTE re the photos:  Some I snapped with my phone, some with my camera, and some I swiped from FB.  So there will be differences in quality, and probably not all will enlarge when you click on them.

We started with a 16x20" canvas and applied old book pages to block out the area where the stars will be.




Then we added tissue paper over everything else.




We had lots to choose from when it came to creating the stripes---burlap, muslin, crinoline, wrapping paper, strips of Braille writing, and more.

Taking the time to arrange the stripes to my liking.





You can see we also blocked in some color for the stars background. On this canvas I opted for non-traditional green.

The stripes were adhered with heavy gel medium.





The raised squiggles which roughly outline parts of the flag were made with dimensional paint.

Here is Sue!



 

     

And look who came by to visit.  Seth Apter!

 

 
And here's Michele.




And Heidi.



 

 

And now for the steps I didn't photograph. The stars were made with stamps and paint, texture was created by scribbling into the wet paint with a fat pencil, and after that layer dried, more color and definition with a graphite crayon.

Then, coloring the stripes, and adding text.

My two canvases, one a bit more traditional than the other.  Also one done on a canvas with a small profile, the other having a very wide profile.

There is text on this flag.  I wanted it subtle,  so I wrote it with a poster paint pen that is just barely darker than the stripes.  The text on the red, white and blue flag is obvious, and I may have to tone it down a bit.  The jury is out on that.

 

That's Michele hiding behind her wonderful flag (with the lyrics from "Born in the USA" written on the stripes).

 

 

 

Sue brought this product in case someone wanted to glitter their stars.  Do you believe such a thing actually exists?  Ceiling Glitter?  Who does this? And the directions involve tossing the glitter onto a painted ceiling.  And it's not like she bought it in 1980.  It's being sold in Loews.  Now.

 

This is not a staged photo; I was looking for my star stamp, and this is where it was hiding.

 

 

 And as we always do at the end of class, a group photo.

 

 

 

That was Saturday.  On Sunday, also working on a 16x20" canvas, we did a non-sew quilt.

 

First we covered the canvas with old dress pattern paper, just because Sue says she hates starting on a white canvas.  Most of this will be covered, but it is a nice place to start, and we also covered the sides.

 

 

 

We set the canvas aside to dry, and then drew simple shapes on index cards, shapes that had meaning to us.  Some we cut out around the outline, some we cut out only the inside of the shape, which created a simple stencil.

 

 

 

We had six index cards and also cut out pieces of fabric roughly the same size as the cards.  I used muslin, colored burlap, printed burlap, cotton, and crinoline.  The ones we turned into stencils (like the fish you see above on the orange burlap) were used to fill the shape with modeling paste.  The others (like the palm tree) we used to draw an outline on the fabric pieces.

 

 

On this one, I applied the paste over the whole thing, lifted off the scissors template, and was left with stripey looking snips:









Next step, arranging the six pieces on the canvas, and glueing them down with heavy gel medium.

 

 

Then we used an air dry clay to add some dimension.  I used it on the tail of the fish, and on part of the paint brush.  The clay was covered with either gel medium soaked crinoline (the fish) or tissue paper (the brush).

 

 

 

See how the fabrics all have frayed edges?  I saved the bits that came off in the fraying and used them to add texture in different parts of the "quilt."  Burlap fibers to define the trunk of the palm tree, and others just for the sake of texture.

 

 

We also added bits of vintage ribbon, or stitched crinoline (or anything else we could think of) to add interest to the piece.

 

 

 

We broke for lunch and gave everything a chance to dry, and then spent the rest of the day adding paint, oil pastels, graphite crayons, ink, etc.

 

 

I consider this to be almost finished.  I want to add some subtle stenciling on the backgrounds, and maybe define each section with something dark.....graphite pencil marks, black paint, modeling paste painted black....something along those lines.

 

Finally, some shots around the studio, and the class photo.

 

 

 

 

 

If you missed these classes, Sue will be back in a few months.  Check out Michele's site for the details.