Blue Plate Special

Do you have old pressed glass pieces hanging around your abode? I inherited plates, bowls, small pitchers, and cups done up in pressed glass that were meant to pass for crystal or cut glass. Because it was machine molded it was much more affordable than crystal, which explains why my family, with modest means but a desire to emulate the more well to do, owned pressed glass. I use my inherited pieces on occasion, but didn’t think much about them until I discovered margarts.com.

Actually, I discovered her videos on Instagram which show her printing a wide variety of fruits, veggies, scissors, and pressed glass onto fabric with printing ink. The technique is like the old potato printing you may have done in school, but done more imaginatively. I was eager to try artichoke printing, but I had pressed glass, printing ink, and fabric on hand, so off I went.

First, here are a few of Margaret’s efforts with pressed glass. She makes up her prints into pouches and needle cases.

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Then, here are my initial efforts. You can see I’m still working on the correct amount of ink.

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It turns out I used that pressed glass pattern some years ago.

The center of “All Decked Out” is a bowl rubbing with a blue (do you see a theme?) paintstik

Since I had my table set up for printing I dusted off my Gelli plate and printed weed leaves and stencils on old napkins used as mop cloths and silk scraps. For these I used Jacquard textile paints.

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My final experiments were on crinoline that I had stitched pleats into and painted. For some reason my textile paint was quite watery and so it didn’t stick evenly to the plate when I rolled it out.

I like the watery effect. I’m sure someone sells a stencil just like this.

Maybe I’ll cut up the plate prints into quarters and do a drunkards path type pattern. For now they sit on the top of my pile of experiments.

I’m linking to Off The Wall Friday.

Line By Line

Temporal challenges to create art abound on social media: 100 days of postcards, 52 weeks of collages, a year of daily ambient temperatures, etc. I wanted to begin 2021 with some sort of daily art prompt, but I didn’t know how long I could keep it up. I settled on 31 days of lines.

Why line? Though it’s one of the basic elements of design, in quilts it is often addressed only through actual quilted stitches. Some would argue that every place where fabrics meet creates a line, and I see that. But I am after line for line’s sake. Lines can be straight/curved/geometric/contoured/crisp/soft-edged/continuous/broken/jagged/even/dotted/dashed/thick/thin/varied/raised/recessed, and I’m sure there are more permutations I haven’t even thought of.

Paul Klee

So far I’ve been able to make lines on paper or fabric every day this month, and some days I’ve done more than one piece. I even persuaded a friend to join me on the line, though she is working with paper only, at least so far.

I’ve marked on fabric a little more than paper, and I’ve marked with India ink, acrylic paint, printing ink, colored pencils, tissue paper, and machine stitching; and used conventional and unconventional tools, including a feather, to apply my marks. I also did a bit of photography and Photoshop editing.

Here are a few highlights.

Silk that’s scrunched up, ironed, and then rollered with printing ink. I did several of these. I plan to iron it flat.

Monoprinted base, covered with torn freezer paper, rollered with printing ink. I did lots of freezer paper lines on paper and fabric.

Monoprinted base with eyelash yarn as resist (right), ghost print of yarn on left.

Bleeding tissue paper over watercolor paper, sprayed with water. For some reason, the tissue strips acted as resists and the color bled onto the paper at the tissue paper edges. I used the removed tissue strips in other pieces.

Plastic template scrap traced several times and colored with pencils.

Torn marbleized paper glued to construction paper and connected with white pen lines.

Crinoline painted and drawn on, ironed, and sewed into tucks.

I have still more ideas for line making, and may set aside the final week of January to create a larger work from all my bits. Have you tried a multi-day challenge and, if so, have you stuck with it?

I’m linking to Off The Wall Fridays.

In The Rear-view Mirror

My husband and I were fortunate enough to be able to self-isolate for much of 2020, so we’ve remained untouched by the Corona virus. Self-isolation gave me lots of time to devote to my art, and I think I made good use of the time to explore different media. After all, I have been saving collage making material for many years. It became if not now, then when? I know many artists found themselves too distracted for sustained creative work, but art became my escape hatch from grim reality.

I was also fortunate to have a friend who was eager to try out some online classes and videos with me, and we shared our efforts with each other thanks to technology, as well as art supplies through porch drop offs. You can read about our different takes on a Jane Davies class here.

Of course I continued to make art quilts, and you can check out that work on the “My Quilts 2019 On” page of this blog. A few were major projects, but many were experiments in using scraps.

I’m not one to choose a word of the year, but my word for 2020 would have been adapt. I tried to play the hand I was dealt. Thank goodness for Jane Davies, Julie Fei-Fan Balzer, and YouTube. With the help of these online guides I took up collage, acrylic painting, and monoprinting. I tried to combine all three in mixed media work.

I learned with “Fiddleheads” not to use canvas as my backing fabric as it is so hard to hand sew through. The matte medium on top of the paper didn’t help either. I had planned more handwork, but scrapped that notion in favor of markers. The work combines woven and non-woven fabrics, magazine pages, and mulberry papers.

“Fiddleheads”

“Take A Seat” started with chairs stenciled on fabric scraps. Then I stenciled on monoprints, and combined all the stenciled bits with fabric shaped like the profile of a chair.

“Take A Seat”

“Covid” was my attempt to use found and made paper images in a collage. I had saved photos of sunglasses ads for years. Those glamorous models got masked and covered up with the reality of the pandemic.

“Covid”

“Shadow” was an early collage made up of magazine images with a bit of marker line added. Thank goodness for my years of NYT Magazine page collecting.

“Shadow”

My untitled felt piece, backed with canvas, came about after a friend gave me her felted wool scraps. They were already backed with fusing. There’s a woven paper strip background in there, as well as shiny patterned dress fabric scraps.

felt, paper, and foiled fabric

A monoprint exchange with a friend led to a tribute to autumn. Felted wool, organza, and paper were given a boost with markers and embroidery.

“With A Little Help From My Friends”

I hope to continue mixed media explorations in 2021 and improve my integration of paper and fabric. I made lots of work I’m not including here as it shows what went wrong. Practice leads to better work, but you don’t want to wade through the beginner pieces unless you’re a masochist or closely related to me.

I’m linking to Off The Wall Fridays.

Working Small

I realize that small is a relative term, both for ice cream servings and works of art. For me, a small work of art measures less than 25 by 25 inches, which is a medium for some. A small ice cream serving for me is one and a half scoops. While I envy artists who turn out interesting work that is just 4 by 6 inches, I just can’t seem to work that small.

My work continues to use paper and fabric as I try to learn how to integrate them. Often, I begin with monoprinting on a gelli plate to develop papers and fabrics with intriguing designs. It’s just fun to crank out a dozen prints in the time it takes to sew a fussy seam. Of course the downside is cleanup is more onerous.

Two of my recent collages are made with bits from my prints, plus photos and hand painted papers.

“Alien Plant From An Alien Planet” (8 x 10 inches) also uses an ink marker.

I got into markers even more with “Arches.” (9 by 12 inches) It mashes up photos from a trip to Central Park, a bit of an old table cloth, and monoprints.

“Fiddling” combines lots of magazine images, old art postcards and painted tissue paper, plus a monoprint or two.

Moving on to pieces made with fabric and paper, I finished “Fiddleheads” with hand stitching and learned I shouldn’t use a canvas backing if I want to hand sew.

“Fiddleheads” is made with hand dyed fabric, nonwoven fabric, and magazine pages.

In my latest fabric/paper creation I used gesso and markers to stencil chairs on fabric, paper, and nonwoven Pattern Ease. The edging is fused on using Frieda Anderson’s method.

This one needs a name besides “Chairs.” About 22 by 23 inches

Observant readers will have noted that none of the above pieces have batting, though the last two have backing and a bit of top stitching. I haven’t given up on quilting, but have found sewing heavily on paper is tricky. You can end up with a perforated line effect if you’re not careful, and there are no do-overs.

I’m linking to Off The Wall Friday.