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Random Musings on Art and LIfe

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Bailando en la Noche: An Art Quilt by Shelly Stokes

May 28, 2015

For the past 18 months, I have been working on a major art quilt project. Her name is Bailando en la Noche, or Dancing in the Night. I chose her name because the medallions evoke the swirling skirts of Mexican Folk Dancers under an exuberant night sky. [Tweet “Check out “Bailando en la Noche” –…

Folklorio Dancer 2: Add Color with Extreme Stenciling

March 19, 2015

In a previous post, I showed you how I made a stencil from sign maker’s vinyl using an image of a Folkorio dancer. Today, I’ll show you how I added really bright color using Paintstiks, a brush, and my fingers. Yes, you read that correctly. While I do most stenciling with a brush, the technique…

Folklorio Dancer 1: Cutting and Transferring a Vinyl Stencil

March 12, 2015

My big goal for my Personal Art Residency in Chapala is to learn to use my Silhouette cutter. I purchased it more than a year ago, but have done precious little with it since. I decided that my first task should be to cut a stencil and paint up a piece of fabric for a…

Test A Design With A Silhouette Cutter

February 12, 2015

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]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…

Beauty Equals Mass of Imperfections

January 15, 2015

Today I want to propose a new Universal Law of Art Physics. Are you ready? The New Law is a nice simple equation, kind of like Einstein’s E=mc2 that describes mass-energy equivalence. But, unlike theoretical physics, I know you can relate to my New Law. Without further ado, here it is: Say what? Let me…

Slow Stitching Adds Life To Painted Fabric

October 30, 2014

If you have been with me for a while, you know that I’m working on a major project. Yes, this baby will be a Show Quilt. It is the first big art quilt that I have tackled in about 10 years. It’s a big undertaking, but I’m loving it! The first big steps in this…

Extreme Stenciling on Suede

May 1, 2014

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…

Extreme Stenciling with Paintstik Colors

April 24, 2014

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…

Titanium Is A Stenciler’s Best Friend

April 17, 2014

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…

Hawaiian Quilts In A Hurry!

June 18, 2012

Last week, we talked about paintstik appliqué – and how it’s a whole lot faster to add images to fabric with paintstik color than with traditional appliqué. Today, I want to go one step further and talk about “extreme appliqué.” In case you’re wondering, I’m talking about those magnificent two-color Hawaiian quilts. Think about it……

Cool Curves Make Amazing Scrollwork

March 28, 2011

Last summer, I took part in the Merchant Mall at Bernina University in Orlando. Most of the people at the conference were sewing machine dealers and their employees. With my new Design Magic book in hand, I offered the dealers and shop owners a free DesignMagic stencil along with a free project. I was really…

Start Simple with Placemat Project

March 7, 2011

In last Monday’s post, I talked about projects you can make with the Primrose Stencils including the big (huge?) Woodland Flowers Quilt. If you missed it, I also said this was NOT the first Design project I would tackle if I were new to paintstiks or Design Magic. (It’s not a difficult quilt, just a…