update

The separate artist pages are updated.

Piece 3 - Complete!!!

Just put on the finishing touches!! Whew! Looking forward to your feedback!

EMERGENCE

Here is a close-up of the main branch.  The branch over the textile part is made from bark cloth Wil gave me from Africa. I'm afraid I matched the color for the painted part of the branch so well you can't actually see it in the photo.  The other bit you might be able to distinguish in the photo is that I used crushed up shells from the actual pecans off the tree on my mom and dad's farm in Texas.  The current resident was kind enough to send me a bag of them!!  How cool is that????

The fourth canvas is underway and the fifth (and final for now) has been started!! 

One more poppy

One more poppy piece before the year ends.  I did an experiment with thickened dye spread on a plastic mat and pressed fabric over the surface.  The dye bubbles and moves so it's very upredictable (but fun).  I used some cardboard poppy shapes as a resist.  The left side is a piece of shibori with the same dyes; I used clothespins as my resist.  Poppies are free motion stitched and I heavily machine quilted the background  It's small, only 12" x 12".  Happy New Year Everyone!  Hope I can remember my password..... Wil, can you help???

All Together Now

I have just been looking at the pieces each artist has done so far and I have to say that I am liking the way the pieces look together!! Not one to have worked much in a series or anything before, I can see how this concept is beneficial. Great work everyone!!!

Weeds can give us drugs - Irene MacWilliam

12 x 24 inches 30 x 60 cms
I am using the same technique and fabrics as in my other pieces that I have already posted. I used steam a seam light for the various bits of the foxglove; as it is repositionable this made it fairly easy to get an arrangement that pleased me. Al the fabrics are painted, dyed, stamped etc. I am still not sure what I think of this series, some days I quite like them and other days I feel dissatisfied, I think because they are not in the usual strong colours I tend to work with. I am aiming to do 6 pieces to these dimensions although I will be switching to a new theme for 2014.

2014

I hope you all had a happy Christmas and are looking forward to a new creative year. But it is also time for some thinking :-). Do you want to work with a new theme in the coming year or expand on your present one? Just let me know and I will add it to the blog.

Third Pecan piece on its way

Yes.....before you gasp....I DO know what day it is and how soon Jan. 9th is.  But am I panicked???? Ummmm....yes.....just a bit!

Anyway, the third piece is currently called "Emergence".  This is just the background (a blue wet acrylic color wash.  Dabbed out the "cloud" effect with a paper towel when the paint was still quite wet.  Next I stitched in the textile piece.  Added bits of brown (a pounded fabric from years ago) since the branches would be prominent in this piece.  Then did the grass and began the infrastructure of the tree branch itself.  The "star" of this piece is a screen print of the pecans when the covering opens up and the pecan (as we are used to seeing them) is revealed.  That will be for tomorrow along with some leaves. OH and a stretched piece of bark cloth (like the trunk of The Sapling, will be the continuance of the branch on the textile part. It is sopping wet and stretched out to dry at the moment. And one more thing, I have shelled a bunch of pecans from the HUGE ancient tree in from of my parents former homeplace in Texas. They were sent to me by the wonderfully kind current resident. I will be pulverizing the shells to adhere to the larger parts of the limbs for texture.  I did a test piece and really like the results.

Emergence

I do have the other 2 designed and the materials assembled...just need to execute them.  

Somehow I had hoped this would be a more conversant group. But then, I haven't been particularly great at that myself on a regular basis I suppose. I'm hoping it is because we are all so wonderfully involved in making awesome art!  I just know that I for one would LOVE to have some feedback.....even if you don't like a piece.  It helps us to improve and learn.....    just sayin.......

Poppy Assemblage

Hello All,

I am puzzled about what to do next with this piece; it's a complicated one created with DSP (same batch of dye as Birch & Moons).  Using cardboard cutout poppies, I printed on two pieces of white silk which then were fused to the hand-dyed background piece.  Then --- an experiment!

I've been laser printing onto gampi (rice paper) for collage and decided to try adhering a small piece with matte acrylic medium on a sample of fabric.  It worked, so I printed the cluster of poppies (lower left), ripped off the excess paper, and adhered it with the matte medium over one printed silk section. Gampi becomes more transparent when it dries.  This has been pinned on my bulletin board for a couple months because I'm not sure where to go next with it and haven't been back in my studio since mid-Nov.  Might put it away for a while and when I re-discover it maybe the light bulb will go on.

Weeds - Children Make Daisy Chains

Another piece in my series on appreciating weeds. 12 x 24 inches or 15 x 30cms

I screen printed a child on an a mockup of the green earth and blue sky. It seemed OK but a tiny bit pale so I added a bit more grey and printed the children using my own handcut stencil on my actual piece. Horrors they looked far too dark. Left the piece for a few days and then decided to overprint the children with a paler shade of grey. I did this by carefully placing the stencil over each image and then placing the screen to add the additional fabric paint. They were apppaling like plasticy extrusions!! They looked worse each day, then a friend suggested covering the piece with organza. In my unusual fabric bag I found  a sheer organza with flowers and leaves so applied that to the children but it was such an improvement. Not sure if it was the answer but I added the daisy plant, looks more like the button daisies than the wild ones but I have had positive feedback about them so will leave it as it is.

The sky and ground were made with stencilling, dyeing, sun printing etc. The green daisy band and binding were sun printed. This will make my third piece posted – I only started half way but I am working on another piece and hope to have six in this collection so if it is Ok with members I will post them as I complete them.

Now to get my head around thinking of something for 2014. Posted on a gloriously warm day in December, unusual for here in Northern Ireland. 

Finally Completed

Just completed the finishing touches on the second piece in the Pecans Series - Summer Grove.  I am very pleased with how it turned out. Hope you like it.  Now on to the third piece!!  Time is getting rather short.  Glad I have them all pictured in my head!!  (note - the strip across the top is actually straight...just an anomaly with the actual photo.  Can hardly wait to get them professionally photographed!!)

Summer Grove