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 […]
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 […]
Studio Essentials: Finding the Sweet Spot
After three months in Chapala with (very) limited supplies, I found my home studio more than a bit overwhelming. With several decades worth of art supplies on hand, it’s a miracle I get anything done! It’s time to remove the distractions and get down to a smaller set of Studio Essentials. Rather than just “thinking” […]
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, […]
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 […]
Easy Paintstik Placemats
With Thanksgiving around the corner, I want to give you a quick and easy recipe for dressing up your table. Let’s dig in and make some Easy Paintstik Placemats! Dress up your holiday table with Easy Paintstik Placemats! Click To Tweet There are just a few ingredients in this recipe. Some relatively plain fabric. If […]
Pine Beetle Rubbings
Last week I posted photos of Pine Beetle Art. In a nutshell, they are photos of tree trunks showing the paths taken by pine beetle grubs as they tunnel around under the tree bark – and slowly kill the trees. Oddball inspiration? Yes. But inspiration nonetheless. Today, I have photos of Pine Beetle Rubbings. No, not rubbings […]
Water Lily Quilt: A Touch of Hawaii Without All The Work
As I was looking through the original samples from the Paintstiks on Fabric book, I was reminded how far we have come on this Paintstik adventure. I say “we” because it really has been a shared journey. I have had the opportunity to teach thousands of students and readers to use Paintstiks on fabric, and [...]
Paintstiks on Fabric: How It Started
When I was filling out the entry form for the 2017 AQS Show in Paducah, I realized how far the Paintstiks on Fabric adventure has come in the past 17 years. Here’s what grabbed my attention. AQS Entry Form The folks at AQS expanded the section on the entry form to include the most [...]
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 [...]
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