A Peak Inside my Portfolio: Embroidered Bracelet

Still on my Fiber Arts kick! One my summer projects was to design and sew a cuff bracelet for myself. Embroidery is so nice because I can sit and do it while I'm watching TV or listening to music or relaxing out on the porch. Check out some of my other fiber arts projects here, here and here!

Gathering all my supplies! Embroidery Floss, material and leather. Don't forget a needle, scissors and a button to finish the piece.

Here's the sketch on the material and you can see, I've started to fill in the design and edges with a solid border.

I wasn't sure about filling in the area with yellow but I ended up liking the look!

Here's the finished piece with the button on the back to close it.

Finished bracelet!

What's Going on in the Classroom: Dyeing Fabric

As a last exciting project of the year, we're doing some fabric dyeing. Essentially it's tie dye, but we do delve into the world of traditional Japanese Shibori dyeing to start off. We learn all about the history and traditional folding etc. Then student either bring in a piece of cloth that they would like to use or they use a piece of muslin that I provide. Students have to choose (or make up!) their folding method.
We spend a day soaking the fabric in large buckets of dye and then we seal them in Ziploc bags overnight. The next day, the fun begins! Outside, I have several tables set up for soaking the cloth in a salt bath, then taking of all rubber bands and other items, and then rinsing in a clean water and wringing out. We had some pretty cool results this year! I think students will probably do some embroidery on their pieces as well. Here's to the end of the year!

A Peak Inside My Portfolio: Fiber Arts

Lately I've been dabbling in fiber arts,. In the past I've done a lot with embroidery, as you can see here and here. But recently I added to my skills with painting on fabric. I have done two items that were given as gifts. One was a tie for a family member on my husbands side. I painted a seascape on a yellow tie. The other was a table runner for my aunt, in which I used, batik, dyeing fabric, painting on fabric and embroidery to complete the final piece.

First I used a flour paste to create a batik design on my fabric. Although it worked out well, I would not recommend this method, it was very messy!

After applying the paste and letting it dry, I then sprayed a watered-down dye  mixture onto the fabric and let it drive completely over night.

After it was dry, I washed it thoroughly, which took forever! I was very happy with the resulting design!

The last steps were to paint the design on to the body of the table runner. I used acrylic paint to do this. Then I embroidered some white designs around the painted portion and all along the border. As a finishing touch, I added tassels!

A Peak Inside my Portfolio: Assemblage Series Finished!

Again, another throwback to a much older post. I finished my assemblage series many months ago and even exhibited them since then! However I am just now getting around the writing the final post about them. It's summer's fault I swear! In my last post which you can find here, I showed the painting of the woman with the ribbon hair, now completely finished it looks like this: 

And this mixed media piece incorporating natural elements, which is finished:

I also worked on three other pieces during this class, they all incorporated fiber arts and natural materials. This first one is a comment on decisions involving love, specifically in my life, but my hope is that viewers will see there own choices and love reflected in this piece as well. 

In progress...

In progress...

In progress...

And finished product, please ignore the other piece in the corner, it was on display when I took the picture. The second of my pieces involved the idea of grief. I used a combination yarn, branches and wax. Sadly, I don't have a good image for this one!

The last piece I worked on was a bit of a culmination of the the whole series. I wanted to depict moments or frames of life and how each moment is a choice and the all connect together and create a 'tapestry' of my life and the choices made therein. As you will see, I went through a ton of steps and reconstructions to create the final piece.

Composition work...

Redo composition

And more composition change.

Finally starting on the final piece.

Got all the pieces on and decided I didn't like it... ripped them all off.

On the right track!

Continuing to work...

Final piece. Although it's not my favorite, I do feel like it communicated my idea successfully and was a good end to this class and series.

  

A Peak Inside My Portfolio: Assemblage Series

I'm currently enrolled in grad school and I have the pleasure of taking an assemblage and mixed media class this term. My favorite thing about a studio-heavy grad program is the guaranteed time to create each week. It's much easier to make that time when you literally have to do it. Also it's something that my coworkers and administrators understand. If I tell them I'm busy in the evenings because I'm finishing grad course work, they totally get it verses just saying I'm making art. Although my admins are pretty cool so that might be okay with that too!

In this class I'm creating some pieces that are going to be a part of a series about life and the choices I have made in life. My hope is that these pieces will speak as a metaphor for the choices and challenges that everyone faces in their lives and as a result, speak to their hearts. Here's a peak at what I've been working on....

Beginning with a pieced together canvas on stretched screen. 

Several of these pieces incorporate some fiber arts.

Beginning the painting

Attached to the canvas.

Creating the textured 'hair' element

This is where I currently am, although very close, it is not finished.

This next piece used both fiber art and some natural elements as well as some cool old piano keys, beads, buttons and random items from around my house.

Yarn wrapped over sticks and twigs

Attaching misc. items to canvas

It's a work in progress, my current goal is to do better at visually connecting the nature elements with the canvas background.

A Peak Inside my Protfolio: DIY bags and the continuation of Flight

Well, I know it's been awhile, but if you're one of my teaching friends, you know that the weeks before Christmas break are hectic. Especially at the high school level, we're busting a move to get everything ready for Scholastic's Competition. More on my student's work in a later post, however; this one is about some of the work I've been doing at home.

As some of you know, I was working on a series of paintings about flight, for my graduate painting class. You can read about the first three paintings in the series here. Since that post I have finished two more paintings. One on traditional canvas, and one on metal that I cut, sanded and riveted myself! I though it was important to immerse myself in the plane-making process to get a clear understanding of what I was depicting in my paintings. Let me tell you, riveting is hard! Here are some process pictures.

Here's the finished work, can I just say, that it's so much more powerful in person.

The piece of metal, is quite a bit different. My instructor has been pushing me to move away from technical, realistic painting. And although there is still some of that in this next piece, I do feel as if I've pushed myself. There was a lot of trial and error to get there though!

Here's the metal construction that I started with. I used sheet steel, tin snips, air compressor and rivets to put this all together.

This was my first image. And although I like it, it didn't go far enough for me.

So I thought, maybe I should add color... still not what I was looking for.

So then I sanded it down and added these shapes, which I hated. So I took it to class to get some feedback from my peers.

I just needed to refine the lines and shapes a bit more, so back to the sand paper.

Here's my finished piece. I still have some of the same lines and some color but it's more developed and I think they texture and sanded areas really bring a dimension to the piece.

Okay, okay. I know this post is going on and on, but I do have a DIY that I did this last week and some fiber art that I finally finished. That's right, the embroidered backpack is finally done. If you want to read about my long battle with the embroidery, you can read about it here. But here it is in all it's finished glory!

Of course I had to use it immediately as my purse! But I was concerned about all the various things I keep in my purse snagging on the thread on the inside. So, I just quickly made a lining panel for the front side. I also whipped up a cute little DIY pouch to keep all my junk in. I used this tutorial here and it was so super easy to follow!

Thanks for sticking with this post to the end. I love doing little projects and adding to my professional and personal portfolio with different techniques and skills. Hope you're inspired to add to yours!