Black and White

Although I haven't posted in a couple months, I have been busy.  This is my first commission in a while. For the most part, most of my art has been gifts to others.  However, I was approached by someone who wanted something original for his fiancé for Christmas.  Although I had done plenty of photo inspired fiber art, I had yet to just do some in black and white and have it remain that way.  That presents its own set of challenges, but I think it came out nice.

Here is the painting I did on fabric based on the photo:

Here it is once I did the quilting:

Finally, here it is as it was presented to the client, framed:

One thing I really like about it was that in the background, although it looks like random stitching, it spells DREAM.  I didn't want it to smack you in the face....I wanted a little subtlety.  (You see it now, huh?) The client said that my rough draft drawing reminded him of a dream.  I was also really inspired by a quote I found by Dr. Seuss: "You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams".  They are such a cute couple anyway, and so is their love story.  No details on that from me though!

Quilt Festival!

The International Quilt Festival in Houston has come and gone.  There were four great things that transpired:

 

1) I had the pleasure of attending for two days, and I took classes from two fiber artists that I greatly admire: Hollis Chatelain (www.hollisart.com) and Frieda Anderson (www.friestyle.com) .  Overall, I was able to get some good ideas on how to approach my quilting in terms of design, and I got some more practice with free motion quilting motifs. 

 

2) I had the opportunity to do some shopping, and I actually only (mostly) bought the things on my list.  I was not wooed by all those tempting deals that always seem to be coming at you from every turn. This very well could have been because I had no spare time to wander.  Hmmmm, we'll never know!

 

3) I was so inspired by all of the spectacular artworks, both traditional and contemporary, and

 

4) I myself had my own fiber art exhibited there.  It was such an honor!  I cannot wait until next year when I plan to enter numerous works in several categories.  I am getting started now.  (But more about that later!)

 

 

 

Here I am in front of my "Jumping The Broom" quilt.

It was juried into the Traditions exhibit.  It was very interesting to see what traditions were interpreted in fiber.

 

This quilt is based on my favorite wedding photo of my husband and I jumping the broom.  Jumping the broom is an old tradition in African-American culture which dates back to slavery.  During this time, slaves were not permitted to legally marry.  It became a tradition to "jump the broom", to symbolize sweeping the past behind you and starting afresh together.  This display showed a couples love and commitment to one another. 

I also had another piece in the "What's for Dinner" exhibit.  My "dinner" was Pizza and Green Salad.  Back when my husband and I had the time and moolah to go out to eat regularly, we would eat pizza every week at our favorite pizza joint.  While we were waiting on the pizza to be served, we would always get a salad first so that we wouldn't feel like we were eating too badly. 

"Pepperoni, Please!"

The exhibit was set up really nicely!  Each entry had to be a placemat of the same size, 15"L X "24"W, and they had an extra long, decorated table set up with each of the entries placed along the perimeter. 

 

I especially loved the entries with the crawfish boil, the sushi, and the placemat with the spilled milk, mac and cheese and French fries with the title "I Do It!, I'm Two!" because my two year old daughter says that all the time!

Artsy Shoes.....Finished!

It took about two weeks to finally finish them, but I got them done!  Now I just have to spray and protect them.  Overall, I am pleased!  Check 'em out.....

From this........

To this...



The outside



The inside



The back



The front



Laced up



On my Feet

Artsy Shoes

I have always admired the graffiti that I see on moving trains, and this past summer my husband surprised me with an anniversary trip to an artsy destination I have always wanted to visit:  San Francisco.  I got to see lots of awesome graffiti all over the place:

I also have been wanting to do my own "graffiti" on a pair of shoes, and I finally took the step to do some.  They are still a work in progress, but I have finally drawn everything on it. 

 

They have some of my favorite things, plus a little doodling.  Now, I just have to add the color!  I have to have them done by Halloween, so I can wear them to the Quilt Festival!

Practicing on friends

I am really enjoying manipulating photos on Photoshop to create fiber art.  I am still just a beginner though, so I decided to make a couple of medium sized art quilts for friends to get some more practice with some of the program features.  These are my works in progress:

This has been a tremendous learning experience so far.  I have started the quilting on one so far. I did not know that I could print overlapping tiles when printing my projects.  That really helped me put them together more precisely.  Man, I sure wish I had figured that out on my "Jumping the Broom" quilt.  Oh, the time and frustration that would have saved...........

Quilting Arts

Quilting Arts Magazine recently had a reader challenge entitled "Friendship and Devotion".  I don't read the magazine as soon as I receive it most times, because I want to read it when I have time to sit and take it all in.  (Having two little ones certainly takes up a large portion of my attention, of course!)  So, there wasn't much time for me to get something done.  Luckily, I immediately thought of an artwork I began years ago, that was just sitting in my closet with no home.  It was about the size it needed to be as well.  What was the problem? You see, it was inspired by friends who are no longer friends with one another.  So I took a look at it, and changed it up just a bit to fit the current status. Then I appropriately called it, : "Frenemies"!  Here is a snippet of it.....

I don't want to show the entire thing because...da da da dummmm....It was accepted as a finalist in the challenge!  Hopefully you will be able to read about it and see it in the February/March issue of Quilting arts!
 

What have I been up to?

All this year I have been participating in exhibitions opportunities.  Since my last posts about the quilt festival, I have been very busy.  My Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) quilt sold for $150 again this year.  I was a little worried that it wouldn't sell because the design looked so simplistic.  Believe it or not, there was some thought and effort put into it.  I am very thankful that I was able to help raise money for SAQA.

In other SAQA news, the members from Texas had an opportunity to participate in a traveling trunk show exhibition entitled "A Texas Experience".  At first I thought about the Alamo, but wasn't really inspired by that.  It seemed too stereotypical.  The deadline seemed to creep up on me, and I decided that I wouldn't have enough time to get it done.  Then the deadline was extended, and I remembered that I wanted to do a small series about cowboy boots a while back.  The problem was that I didn't own any and hadn't taken any pictures of any.  Coincidentally, the next day, my fashionable co-worker strutted by in her brown cowboy boots accented with purple stitching. I convinced her to let me take her boots on a little trip outside to photograph them.  I then took one of the photos, manipulated it on Photoshop, and stitched over it like crazy!  Here is the result:

"A Cowgirl Necessity"