Journal
Random Musings on Art and LIfe
In last week’s post, I told you about my adventure with an Urban Computer Satchel. One of the my “standard” detours on a project like this is to paint up some Custom Color Velcro. Before you shake your head at me and think “Seriously,” answer me this. Don’t you hate being limited to White, Beige…
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…
Last week I shared an article by Nancy Kazlauckas about how she tests Paintstik colors for a project. I’m not quite as methodical as Nancy, but I did use her color testing method before I started painting on my big 3-panel project. In this case, a couple of hours up front saved me a lot…
by Shelly Stokes, Founder and Creative Mentor One of the students in the Totally Textured online course asked for advice on choosing Paintstik colors for a piece of fabric. Now, I have to admit that I usually “go with my gut” — choosing colors by instinct rather than some set plan. And that’s not terribly…
In last week’s tutorial, I told you about my process for creating overlapping rubbings from the new Kaleidoscope plates. (Click here to read that article if you missed it.) This week, I am happy to show you my beautiful new handbag. I love making handbags from fabric I create. They are one-of-a-kind bags that do…
by Shelly Stokes, Founder and Creative Mentor The new Kaleidoscope Rubbing Plates received warm welcome at the Minnesota Quilt Show and the International Quilt Festival in Chicago. Many thanks if you were one of the select group of people who snapped one up at the shows or placed your order during our promotion. I know…
To wrap up the series on Extreme Stenciling, I want to go back a couple of years to some experiments I did with suede. I met Jayme and Megan from Bella Nonna Design Studio at Quilt Market — and accepted their challenge to see if Paintstik colors could be used on leather and suede. To…
by Shelly Stokes, Founder and Creative Mentor As I mentioned in the first part of this series, I have been doing some serious stenciling over the past couple of months. I hand-cut three stencils that are 50” high x 20” wide and stenciled the images on black fabric panels. For this project, I wanted the…
In the past month, I have spent between 25 and 30 hours stenciling images on a new project. I am working on black fabric and a nice range of iridescent and matte Paintstik colors. For my project, I wanted my images bold and bright. Yes, I wanted them to jump off the fabric. Now that…
by Shelly Stokes, Founder and Creative Mentor A couple of years ago, I got bit by the hand-stitching bug. Hard. I am not saying it was a bad thing – just that it totally changed the way I think about painted fabric. It started with just a little bit of embellishment for a handbag. Then…
I was visiting with one of my friends last week and our conversation turned to the Shape Shifter Community Challenge. She is planning to make a handbag and she wanted my opinion on which Paintstik colors would look best on her fabric. I remembered a fantastic idea for testing colors from Nancy Kazlauckas, as well…
While I was teaching my Build A Better Background Class in Houston, someone asked about adding Paintstik color to a quilt after it has been quilted. Can it be done? Oh yes – and here are some beautiful samples to inspire you. Sue Kelly joined me for the trek to Cleveland to film some segments…
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