Category Archives: By the Shore

By the Shore, Curvie Cuts, Foundations Series, Label Blocks, Name Game, Three Grand Sons

Visits

July 1, 2015 admin

Hello,

This quilt-” Unbroken Circle” is by my friend Sally Dutko. I purchased it from her before I went to Indiana and I am enjoying it a great deal. I think I can learn from looking at the details of this work. I made the trip to Sally Dutko’s studio sale before I went off to Indiana. She has a wonderful space with lots of display areas. She is an artist I have long admired and I was fortunate to purchase one of her works for my self. I will be very sorry when she makes her final move from this area. She has given me great advice about my work in the past.

I had a wonderful time on my trip to Indiana. Barbie is a wonderful hostess and we did a lot during my stay. We went to a visitors center in Nashville IN and looked at this wonderful Chihuly among other things.

This work, “Family Life” by Susan Else, was a part of a wonderful show at the Carnegie Center for Arts and History in New Albany IN. The works were all excellent and we enjoyed ourselves. Got me to thinking about some new approaches too. Making our viewers choice created lots of discussion among the four of us.

We spent two days in Barbie’s studio doing silk painting. This strong scarf is her work. Her work is wonderfully complex and she sells them at the Holiday event in town. My work on the other hand is quite simple. Barbie has developed this wonderful stretch technique with pipes, rubber bands, rings and clips. It is so very flexible that she can adapt it most sizes of silk that she wants to use just by moving the parts around. The process of adding the guta was was easy and clean. I have not done this type of thing in a long time and it dose require skill.

This top one came home with me as we got some work steam set on Sunday . The second one is still in Indiana with Barbie. She will mail it to me when it is steamed too.

Progress Report: Hand Work I felt I needed to take some hand work with me to Indiana so I started this piece. The base is a silk screen I did a while ago. I did a lot of couching on the surface and then added some of the slices from the jelly roll felting that I did last fall at Cheri’s Blue Moon studio. I am enjoying the process.

Name Game- Three Grand Sons

I worked on this one before I left and again when I got home. I have cut the three names into 4.5” squares and I am in the process of moving and playing with placement now. When I am happy with that I will stitch them all together.

Curvy Cuts – New Project I got such positive feed on my work on “Encounters” that I had to go looking through my stash of fabric and make a second starter for a similar project. I do enjoy cutting the curves more every time I do it. I have the other hand work project too so this one will not be seen again for a while.

Van Goth When I went to Maine in April I purchased a panel print of Van Goth’s Iris’s. I though it would be a good place for me to practice free motion work. I tend to get excited and my stitches are not uniform in size. So I have been doing little bits of this picture to help me build some uniformity .

Near the Shore I am working away on this piece. There are lots of bits of different colored fabrics and yarns building up on top of one another with this one. I am building rich color layers like a painter.

Spray Paint When we went to visit Elizabeth she showed us her spray painted works. They were amazing. Marty and I tried it when we got home. Control was much more difficult then we both expected- but we had fun. I have tried to build a work using some of that material. At this point I do not feel it is at all successful. Even adding hand work did not seem to pull the piece together or give it the focus I think it needs. Perhaps so input from my Diva and QuEG’s friends will help save this. I am willing to just say it was a learning experience too.

Label Blocks I have two blocks this time as two weeks have passed by.

Keep Creating

Carol

By the Shore, Encounters, Foundations Series, Label Blocks, Scrap Happy Quilts, Three Grand Sons

More on Lines

June 18, 2015 admin

Hello-

I just had to post these flowers today. I love both the color and the contrast in textures. I have not been very good about

concentrating on lines as I intended to be this year. But I took a renewed look this week. I was caught by the lines on the street and thought the are indeed one type of line- strait. They are a lines of direction and ones of illusion. They create a feeling of depth on a flat surface and lead the eye back in space. Most art is an illusion and a bit of magic. I say magic because if one looks at the materials ( paint, pastels, fabrics and yarns) that an artists starts with-it is nothing but magic when one looks at the end result.

Encounters 26" X 25" — Encounters
26″ X 25″

Progress Report: Encounters This is my newest completed hand embellished work. I put a postage stamp on the lower left to help with scale. It is a standard size- but I am not happy with it. So I will keep looking for an item to add along the side to help give the viewer a clue as to the size of the piece.

This work has more of the fabric form the discharge screen printing class in it. The dark fabric is a Judy Roberts piece form her monthly mailing. It came in January and I just knew I had to use it with the white material. I think they play well together. I have enjoyed doing the various stitches on the surface of this piece. I only did machine work as stitch in the ditch on some of the seams to hold it together.

By the Shore

I am ready to start to build up the dark sections of this work. I want it to feel deep – not just black so I am going slowly. I like all the textures too

Name Game- Three Grand Sons This is the next one in the series. Stage one here with Nick and Ben. Both positive and negative shapes are shown here.

Gavin shows the second cut of the fabric. It is already getting difficult to read the name. I will slice all three of the names into 4.5″ blocks and shuffle them next and put them all together for the top of this quilt.

New Work This top is all put together now. It seems quite weak to me so I will have to do some wild machine work on top to pull it into a work of some interest.

Scrap Happy Sense I sold one more of my Scrap Happies to Beth and there is a wedding for Barb’s son coming up I started more work on these types of quilts. The one with the red and black centers is all set in rows. This shot is only three rows.

This second with three shades of blue as it’s centers is not as far along When the rows are all assembled . I will make scarp backs for the two of them. They are always fun.

New Hand Work Because I always want to have some hand work to do I laid out and pinned up this new start for my next hand challenge. The white base has a bit of screen printing in pink on it. I added some organza, yarn, silk paper and some of the felt slices I made as a part of a play day with Cheri had last fall. I will be using mostly the same colors of yarn and floss as I did for “ Encounters”.

Spray Painted I plunged in and started the quilting on this one this week. I am outlining the reds and purples and then inventing the areas on the solid units on this top. I am enjoying the process, but I am not sure about what I am doing.

Label Block I just keep working away on these little fellows.

I will be away next week so there will be no post again until July 2.

Keep Creating

Carol

By the Shore, Encounters, Foundations Series, Label Blocks

Natural Beauty

June 11, 2015 admin 1 Comment

Hello,

This moth was in my yard this week. I have never seen a live one before and it is beautiful . Marty and I came across it when we were out side painting on Friday. We were so taken by Elizabeth’s spray technique when we were in Maine that we had to try it our selves. It was a lot of fun and we both have a new respect for what Elizabeth is doing. It takes a lot of skill to control the application and just folding the fabric is not all that is involved. We altered lots of different types of surfaces with the paint. From cotton, satin to corduroy and organza. This play sent me off in a bit of a new direction.

Progress Report: Painted Work I got all excited by the painted cloth and so I started and assembled a new top. It is big simple blocks because I want to feature the painted surfaces. Adding in sharp quilted lines will really extend and enhance the painted areas I hope. I am really taken by the sometime crisp edges and sometime soft ones.

By the Shore Now I am to the fun stage with this work as I am building up the surface with colors and textures. It is so much fun to add all the different types of fabric, paper and yarn to the surface.

Encounters I am still doing hand work on this project. The base is a mix of fabric that I did deconstructed silk screen printing work on and some of Judy Roberts wonderful hand dyed material. It seems to become lost for periods of time and when I come across it again I see it with new eyes. I think I am nearing the end as I add different types of stitches to the surface. They have helped me solidify the vision for the work.

New work I am still building this piece. At the moment I am not real delighted with it and feel it is only a background for something more. It needs a focus I think.

Label Block These nightly practices are moving along. I am finding it very hard to keep the labels square sense I can not stretch the fabric. I will not do a hand project like this again.

Keep Creating

Carol

Arches, By the Shore, Freedom's Joy, Label Blocks, Minion, Paper Quilts

Buds Opening

April 30, 2015 admin 2 Comments

Hello,

I have noticed as I have been walking this week a daily change in the environment. Not only is the grass growing but flowers are up. I also see that spring flowers are different here than in mid west. These white violets are a good example. ( I have purple ones in the yard too) Every day the shadows cast by the trees changes as the buds explode out into the sunny world. I find it exciting to see the major changes from one day to the next. I spent Monday playing with Cheri in her studio. She was busy creating freezer paper stencils, ironing them down and then painting over them them. While she did that I worked on adding a layer to the puppet heads that I made at Varna last month. I added paper clay over the two human heads and the dog head as I was happy with the forms. I then built up the bird head with more paper Mache’. I moved from that to building a mask with a cardboard base. The mask seemed to take on a life of it’s own as I started out trying to create a lion- but it seems I have a horse instead. Cheri suggested a different type of Mache paste and so I added the paper layer on top of the cardboard. I like what is happening even though it is not were I thought I was going. Then the third 3-D project this week was to start to create a new batch of Minions. I seem to be exploding with my own creative push as I also pulled out and sorted stacks of fabric for six new projects this week. This shot shows four of the piles. I only have eight yellow tubs for separated projects and they are all full, that along with the 3-D stuff and I have a lot on my hands to work at for a while.

Make Visible 23"X 29" $235.00 — Make Visible
23″X 29″
$235.00

Progress Report: Make Visible I am done with this quilt now. This project started last summer when Susan and I were playing with all her different mark making tools. I did several different quotes with the tools and I am now getting around to finishing them off. I quilted the words Make Visible seven times on the surface of this quilt . Some times I did them in block letters and some times in cursive. Then did reflective quilting to finish it off. I used the obi that I got from Ginny in this project too.

Regina’s Blanket This project is made from some of the wonderful designer samples that Regina gave me a few weeks ago. It was fun to try her techniques with her fabric. It is great to snuggle under too.

By The Shore I was looking at my photos of the trip to Arcadia with Barb and Marty from a few years ago. Among the pictures was a great shot of the basalt along the shore. So I decided to use it as the start of my next Foundations piece. This is just the pin up.

Paper Quilt I came across some papers I had done as Gelli plate prints. Two of them seemed to go together so I started this work in the Carol Weibe technique. It has two cuts in it. I had also melted the tyvek that Cheri and I had painted from the week before. Now there is lots of that to play with and I may add a little of that texture to the surface of this paper quilt too.

Flag- Arches I am using these flags as a place to really play with things I do not normally try. In this case I used Caran D’ache water soluble crayons to add color. Then I spritzed it with water. The word “Arches” is written in broad line Liquid Copper magic paint marker by Deco Color. It did not bleed when I sprayed it with water.

Flag Freedom’s Joy With this project I stamped a bird with a foam stamp that I had made several years go and then I used colored pencil on top to enhance it . I also used the colored pencil in the lines to add motion. The words are done in permanent marker.

Label Block I am doing my daily stitch work with this project. Every little bit adds up.

Keep Creating

Carol

Cre-8

Category Archives: By the Shore

Visits

More on Lines

Natural Beauty

Buds Opening

Creative Fiber Collage Artist Carol Boyer