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 [...]
Add a Layer with a Sheer Paintstik Overlay
With the next Whole Cloth Collage course starting in a few weeks, Art Brain is having lots of fun with the idea of Sheer Paintstik Overlays. I feel like my brain is in a popcorn popper once she gets rolling, but I’m not complaining. When Art Brain is having fun, I’m having fun! So… what […]
Ethnic Designs: Food For Creative Thought
Do you collect particular crafts or textiles “in your travels?” Do these treasures influence the designs that appear in your work? As I was looking through photos a few days ago, I realized that my collection of textiles with ethnic designs may be a bigger influence on my art than thought. Here are a few […]
Clay Prints with Zahava Sherez
As a teacher and a Creative Mentor, I’m always encouraging you to Try Something New. And you know what? It’s good for me to take a dose of my own medicine! So… On a recent “sisters” trip to California, I arranged a private class with Oakland artist Zahava Sherez. I met Zahava during my travels […]
What Is A Whole Cloth Collage?
As I have been preparing to teach my new Whole Cloth Collage with Paintstiks and Textures course, I have been trying to pin down an answer for an interesting question – what exactly is a Whole Cloth Collage? According to our friends at the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a collage is A) an artistic composition made of […]
Speed Things Up With A Silhouette Hi-Tech Helper
As I have been prepping for the Whole Cloth Collage class that will begin in mid-January, I started pondering how I might speed things up. For previous projects, I have always drawn images on paper and cut them out by hand. (Although I do use an Olfa Circle Cutter whenever possible.) To cut stencils FAST, […]
Alphabet Quilt Challenge 1: A Good Start
If you pay any attention to the financial news, you have probably heard that Google has rearranged its corporate structure under a new holding company by the name of Alphabet. I’m not sure how they picked the name, but they certainly aren’t the only folks playing with letters these days. The DIVAS (my small quilt […]
A Super-Sized Paintstik Rubbing in Sunny Mexico
As we begin our tour of Rubbing Plate Roundup, I just couldn’t resist showing you a super-sized rubbing I made from a patio table in Chapala, Mexico. It’s slightly off topic, but Paintstik Rubbings are the first chapter in the book. (Wink, wink!) You’ll just have to pretend along with me that I’m working from […]
Sticky Fabri-Solvy Makes a Great Mask!
Freezer paper and sticky spray have always been my go-to tools for masking off areas of my fabric when I paint. But during our recent Totally Textured online course, Janice Skene got tired of using sticky spray and looked around her studio for an alternative. She had some Fabri-Solvy from Sulky on hand and said [...]
Test A Design With A Silhouette Cutter
In a previous post, I talked about testing paint colors before starting work on a big project. Today I want to talk about a different, and perhaps more important, test that can save you from untold hours of unhappiness. With the new high-tech tools available today, we can make a scale-model of a design to [...]
