Friday, February 24, 2012

Abstract Lanscrape Class


I am in the process of experimenting with landscape collage and here are acouple of my attempts. Our assignment is to go further and add more color but to keep the background ..light, dull, or muted.  I know it's only an assignment, but I really like these and don't want to mess then up.. but then I have done a whole lot more and will continue to do more .. so what' the big deal?  eh?  We will see.





These are our warm up exercises to begin to focus on horizons..  I did a number of these but decided to only publish a couple. I like the vibrant colors and the gesture of something peeking over the horizon.



Friday, February 17, 2012

 What a week!!!
I spent this past week in the Machine Embroidery class at  Gail Harkers  Creative Studies Center.  We first dyed/painted a variety of fabrics with DynFlow dye.  Then after heat setting these dyed fabrics we began to experiment with combinations of fabric and backing, testing out our sewing machine learning how to make them do what we wanted.  Kinda.  We tried different stitches and threads combinations.  We did "cut back" work and even burned out some fabrics.

Below are couple of  samples completed in class
              Amazing what can be accomplished with the simple zig zag stitch on dyed fabric with  the right combination of  thread and  backing.


Here I layered different fabrics and burned back layers.                       

It was a great week.  I learned a lot and am inspired to continue working at home with my stash!

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Color Class Lesson 6

Just a couple of landscapes I wanted to post before I leave for the week.

I spent the day putting together a variety of landscapes and found that as I was playing around with my stash of paper I wanted to make more.  Just didn't have the right colors, texture, etc.  This thing can be addictive.

The left one seems to be overpowering RED.. don't know if I should do something or just be happy with RED.  Sorry about the glare but the glue wasn't dry and I didn't want to scan it wet.


Below I started with shades of orange using a brayer for the  background then cut a stencil of freeze paper and brayed on the purple and pieces of orange painted tissue paper...

I noticed on both pieces that when using the credit card over tissue that has been put down with matt or gloss gel medium I get color transfer which helps dull the colors a bit.  I like the effect.


 I found it very difficult sometimes to determine warm and cool colors  .. As Jane points out color temperature is somewhat subjective. ... such as the 2nd row of colors she presented in the lesson.  I waffled back and forth trying to see the difference.  I felt stymied.

In selecting colors for the project I gathered together sets of colors to work with but continued to change my mind as to temperature, wondering if this or that color was really warm.. or cool.   So back to the subjective aspect.... at this point it seems to me that color temperature most often is determined by the surrounding colors.

That's it for now.  I won't be posting for a week.  I hope to be sketching and thinking of ideas for the rest of the projects.

Color Class - Lesson 5
I enjoyed this process playing with all the S's.. stencil, stamp, scrap, spritz, scribble using what ever I laid my hands on.  I think you all are familiar with most of the implements are but should you want more information let me know.

I have made notations under each just as a reminder.
carpet stuff, stamps, comb and end of paint brust

water drip on acrylic, jar lid, carpet unlayment, brayed, commercial crackel



water spritz on damp acrylic paint, commercial crackle (Dick Blick matte acrylic under, acrylic top)

water spritz on damp acrylic paint, insert commercial crackle, rubber stylus, stamps, brush strokes

stencil,  bubble wrap, hand carved stamps, floral spray paint on black, stamps

comb, stamps, brayer




spritz water on acrylic paint




I did a lot more but thought these were enough to remind me of what can be done.  I wanted to try the paper scrunch, but ran out of time because I wanted to post before I leave for the week.