Out and About Creating Art

I have touched on this before, and I will keep bringing this up in the future.  If you make something, it is so important to get out and make what you make in front of people.  I spent the weekend with two sewing machines and an embellisher/felting machine at a local art fair.  I am always amazed and pleased at the way people are attracted to watching someone create their wares.  I was sharing a tent with two other artists/crafters, and we always had an appreciative crowd.  Take any opportunity that you can to stitch, draw, paint, etc. where you can be observed.  Talk to people about what you are doing, encourage others to learn to make something.

I've also gone on here before about artist trading cards, and I am now making a point to carry some of my own finished ATCs along with some blank ones and a small kit of art supplies.  Last month, at a non-art event, I was approached by an adorable young girl who was asking anyone and everyone if they wanted a picture.  As is turned out, she had made a bunch of tiny crayon drawings and simply wanted everyone to have one!  What a great kid!  I have tucked the drawing I received into my art journal, and I wish that I could get one of my ATCs to her.  From now on, I will be prepared to encourage anyone who wants to make a card in return for one of mine.  This is a great way to get children to value creativity and art, get them to realize that art is valuable and should have a role in our lives.

So, I now have a challenge for you.  Take ten or twenty minutes, make something (try some artist trading cards) and give it away.

Five Things for the Weekend

Yikes, Thursday already?  A very short post today since I am running around trying to gather things for the art fair this weekend.  All you get is five things I must take with me:
1. Sewing Machine
2. Fabric collages in progress
3. Basic sewing supply kit
4. Blank trading cards
5. Crayons and markers to decorate the trading cards.

There is a story behind #4 and 5, for next week.  I've got to get this stuff in the car!

In Ten Minutes

So, I have two little stitched pieces that I intend to be bases for some sort of embellishing.  I have not touched the pieces since I put them together last Wednesday.  I have though a lot about what I want to do with them over the past few days.  Many ideas for this project have flowed through my brain, and I keep coming back to putting a single flower on each one.  I picked a Joe-Pye-Weed flower head and placed it on one of the pieced back to see how it might look, thinking that I could stitch a portrait of the flower:

I want to do something with a day lily too, so I gave myself ten minutes today to come up with petals for that and leaves for the Joe-Pye-Weed:

All images copyright RPS

Yes, ten minutes, that is it.  I have not sewn the pieces yet, they will be raw edge appliqued.  I freehand cut the pieces, looking at the real things while I cut.  The orange for the day lily is silk dupioni that I dyed last summer with marigold flowers, and the green is a hand-dyed cotton gauze.  Now, I won't work on these again until the weekend.  I'll take them with me to a local art festival where I will be doing demos.  I should have both pieces finished next week, and I will document the time spent on them over the weekend.  How long do you think it will take me to stitch the leaves and petals down, stitch the stems and hand stitch the flower head for the Joe-Pye-Weed?

On Thursday, I will have some sort of of-the wall ramble here...

In One Hour

With peach and blackberry on my mind, as promised I allotted one hour to come up with a base for a fabric collage.  First, I made a very quick selection of fabrics and ironed them:

Next, I cut several sized of strips, and started sewing them together:

Moving on, I kept trimming where needed and sewing pieces to create not one, but two sections of pieced fabric, until they were big enough to be able to get 8 X 10" pieces out of them.

Here's the final result, two collage bases, each 8 1/2 X 10 1/2, in less than one hour. 

All images and designs copyright RPS

Yes, the size is small, but think about finishing things quickly.  If you are pressed for time, look for small projects.  You won't get overwhelmed, and your confidence will grow as you get satisfaction in finishing something in days or a week or two.

Next week, find out how I embellish the two pieces.  I honestly have no finished image in mind right now for these.  I am simply playing with a color palette.

Getting Ideas

Another quilt show vending stint in the books, and though sales were abysmal, I received some good comments, most of all about my color combinations in my Creative Kits of mixed fabrics and embellishments.  The most frequently asked question I get at any show is, "where do you get your ideas?"  The short answer is, anywhere and everywhere.  I have more ideas than I have lifetime to make them. 

I'll address the color combination ideas today.  I have made it a priority to study the color wheel and know the various ways to combine colors (complements).  There are some excellent books out there on the subject of color.  Aside from studying color from books, take a look around you.  Make a note of the colors that someone wears that catches your eye.  Look for color combinations in advertising, on buildings, in store displays.  Nature is a constant source of ideas for me.  Take a look at this quick bouquet I picked from my garden (day lilies and Joe-Pye-Weed):

The maroon and peach of the day lilies are really speaking to me, and I am envisioning an abstract fabric composition with pink stitching added.  I suppose the real inspiration in this color combination comes from what was waiting for me in my kitchen:

Mmmm, fresh peaches and blackberries!  Yes, I get artistically inspired by my food sometimes.  So, tomorrow, I am going to set aside one hour to create a base composition of peach and maroon fabric and maybe start embellishing it.  There is a method to my limit of one hour, I like to challenge the notion that I encounter of "oh, I don't have time."  Check back on Thursday to see what I did with my one hour.

A Hand-Dyed Haiku

The dye session form a couple of weeks ago turned out nice, more fall sort of colors, but lovely all the same.

I came up with a haiku poem late one night:

Bright colors on silk
Luminous damask linen
Lots of ironing.

I should be back to my usual Tuesday-Thursday posting schedule now.  I'll have something a bit more substantial next time...

Delays

Last week's dye session grew into something much bigger than I could handle.  I am still washing out beautiful oranges, yellows and two different gray/green/brown blends.  I have to get this mound of fabric under control, along with lots of other projects, so this will be the only news from my world until next week.  Go make something!

Here is a quick photo of the pile of Tea Leaves and Safari Gray (Procion dyes) fabric from last week: