As part of my “timeout” from the business here at Cedar Canyon, I’ve spent a good deal of time on my Star Flower project. It’s the first of my Paint, Stitch & Bead adventures that will be a completed piece of art instead of a learning tool. I created the design using the Silhouette […]
A Bit of Play with Kaleido-Designs
There’s nothing like teaching to set a person’s mind to learning something properly. With my classes at the All Things Silhouette conference coming up, I’ve been doing a lot of playing with a concept I call Kaleido-Designs. I’m having tons of fun with this. When I designed the Kaleidoscope Rubbing Plates, I did the doodles […]
Paintstik Overlay Update
You may remember that I’ve been working on a way to rescue a project with a Very Busy Background. I experimented with a computer-simulated overlay, then took the plunge and applied a Paintstik overlay to one section of the piece. Today, I’m happy to report that the Sheer Paintstik Overlay really works! In case […]
From Inspiration to Design: Flores Talavera
A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about the first design I created in my new Inspired by Talavera adventures. In this post, I’ll show you how I got from inspiration to a completed design that I call Flores Talavera. From inspiration to design – see how it works. Click To Tweet This […]
Talavera Flourish Experiment
Over the past few weeks, I started digging into the treasure trove of Talavera designs on the dishes in my kitchen. The sheer volume of possibilities was a bit daunting, so I picked a single design motif for a Talavera Flourish experiment. A single motif is a great place to begin a design experiment. Click […]
Paintstik Overlay Experiment 1
About a month ago, I “tested” a sheer Paintstik overlay on the computer screen to see if it would Tame a Busy Background. This week, I decided to see if a “real” Paintstik overlay worked on real fabric. Painted overlay vs. sheer fabric overlay: Does it really work? Click To Tweet Because I used […]
Tame a Busy Background with a Sheer Paintstik Overlay
As I’ve been debating the fate of my Whole Cloth Collage project, my friends encouraged me to save the background, but find a way to tone it down. Of course! All it needs is an overlay. And for me, that means a Sheer Paintstik Overlay! I could “see” how this would work in my head, […]
Is There A Fabric Design In You?
As a fabric lover, I have a question: Is there a Fabric Design in you that’s just waiting to come out? Now that might feel like it’s coming out of the blue, so let me ask a couple of other questions. Do you scour through your fabric stash looking for a piece that is “just right” […]
BYO Batik: A Renegade Stencil Experiment
With time set aside for experiments with Renegade Stencils during my retreat, I decided it was time for some BYOB. In case you’re feeling like you’ve encountered yet another strange word in the “Shelly Dictionary,” BYOB stands for Build Your Own Batik. We’ll save the bottled spirits for another time! Build your own Batik fabric […]
Design Magic in Chapala: From Fountain Tiles to Fabric
Design Magic is the title of a book that I wrote in 2010. It’s a methodology for creating a design using a square of paper, turning the design into a pair of positive and negative (equal and opposite) stencils, and adding the pattern to fabric with Shiva Artist’s Paintstiks. The process described in the book […]
Pine Beetle Art: A Bit of Oddball Inspiration
Are you shaking your head at the thought of art by tiny critters that kill trees? Good. That means I’m not alone. But… as I’ve been hiking around a ranch in South Dakota, that is exactly what I’ve found. Pine Beetle Art. Seriously! Art and destruction go hand in hand when Pine Beetles go to […]
Defined: Whole Cloth Collage
With the next session of Whole Cloth Collage coming up, I’ve received a number of questions that all boil down to… What, exactly, is a Whole Cloth Collage? Given all the new things I’ve been exploring in the past year, let’s see if we can pin this down. According to our friends at the Merriam-Webster [...]
