Mixed Media Artist

Today I want to introduce you to the second book that caught my eye for summer projects with the kids or the grandkids... Magical Forest Fairy Crafts Through the Seasons by Lenka Vodicka-Paredes and Asia Currie.  These ladies are awesome, and if you fall in love with their work, you'll be thrilled to know that there is another book simply called Forest Fairy Crafts  that you can snag as well. All the fairies, gnomes, and critters are made from felt, so the cutting and sewing part is super-simple.  It's the details that make the difference, and there are copious instructions given for how to make these delightful folk come to life.  The beginning section covers all the materials and techniques, and the first part of the project section suggests that you construct practice pieces: a fairy girl, fairy boy, fairy baby, and a basic gnome.  Of course if you're like me, you'll want to just skip ahead right into the projects!  Go ahead...the instructions are ...

There are two books coming out this month that I believe are perfect for not only your own amusement, but also for doing projects with children or grandchildren!  I am very excited about both of them.  I haven't yet been able to get my grands hooked on fabric art (they do like to draw and paint though), but I can see myself just casually working on a cute little project when I'm with them, and letting nature take its course!  The first one is up today, and I'll hit the second tomorrow. The Big Book of Pretty + Playful Applique by Carol Armstrong looks like a must-have to me.  It has ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY TWO of Carol's gorgeous, realistic designs.  There are four full projects included to help you practice doing these appliques, but I don't care so much about that as I do about the incredible number and quality of the applique patterns.  Just look at the lists below and you'll see what I mean.  Click on the pictures to get a larger image that you...

In July, this fun book came out that shows you how to take all your different fabrics and get them to play nicely together!  If you're like me, you've got cottons, wools, silks, upholstery fabrics, sheers, and more in your stash. Click to see an enlargement In The Art of Mixing Textiles in Quilts , Lynn Schmitt will show you to blend them together like a pro, including how to add great dimension to your projects by using different materials together.  There are 14 specific pieced and appliqued projects included in case you want some ideas to get you going! This post contains affiliate links: Amazon

Artful Alphabets by Joanne Sharpe Joanne Sharpe has done it again!  In her first book (shown below), Joanne taught the basics of creating hand lettered alphabets that didn't take years of calligraphy practice to master.  In her newest (shown above), she shares 55 new ideas and fonts that you can try, tweak, and make your own! If you don't own the first book, don't let that stop you from getting Artful Alphabets .  The basics are covered again.  Joanne's style is light and whimsical, but you can easily morph the imagery being used to suit your own style.  Personally, I have always disliked my own handwriting, and I really appreciate Joanne's admonition to embrace it and see what comes out!  The biggest adjustment I've had to make is to remember that I am *drawing* my letters, not simply writing them! The Art of Whimsical Lettering by Joanne Sharpe This post contains affiliate links

Do you enjoy sewing with children or grandchildren?  Do you want them to learn how to use a sewing machine but also how to do hand stitching beautifully?  My personal opinion of some books that try to do these things is...boring!  No kids want to make uncool, unhip, untrendy projects just to learn some skills. What they do want are projects like these, which you'll find in  Sew Creative  by Jennifer Pol Colin :   Mermaid tail blanket Chalkboard backpack Click on this table of contents to see it larger You'll notice that most of the projects are for beginners and intermediates.  Only one is considered difficult enough that help will probably be needed.  However, working alongside a child (either both working on one or each doing your own) will definitely add a lot to the fun!  I think a couple of Animal Neck Pillows are needed by my two grands!

Cozy Wool Applique by Elizabeth Ann Angus has eleven cute and clever projects that use fusible applique accented by basic embroidery like blanket stitch.  The projects are divided into seasonal themes, and include pillows and table runners.  This book is great for a beginner, because all the projects include step-by-steps with patterns included. Everything's Blooming by Erica Kaprow is for the more experienced wool applique artist.  This book comes with full-sized pattern sheets to make the quilt shown on the cover.  It includes 30 blocks and is a stunning creation.  Erica likes that you can take a block or two along with you to work on, making it a portable project until it's time to assemble!!

Laura Wasilowski has an unmistakable style, and if you love it as much as I do, you're going to want to see her new book Joyful Stitching .  She is known for her happy colors, deceptively simple shapes, and tantalizing thread embroidery.  Using beautiful wools, silks, and felts, Laura takes you through the process of designing and stitching up delightful free-form embroidery pieces. Laura's book starts with the materials and tools that you'll need.  If you've done any amount of needlework, you most likely already have everything you need, though you might want a few new colors.  Laura works on solids, so save those printed fabrics for another day.  The next chapter gives you options for transferring designs to your fabrics if you don't want to completely free-style it.  And next comes 21 different stitches that are the most useful in her work, from the simplest running stitch to the more challenging bullion stitch.  Good instructions mean that y...

Ok, either you love Sharon Boggon's work, or you're wrong! :-) But seriously, how could you not love her work?  Just look at what you'll find in The Visual Guide to Crazy Quilting Design : Sharon's main goal, I feel, is to teach you how to tell a story with your quilts, how to make every part of the process serve the art.  To that end, she starts with an overview of the encrusted crazy quilting style, discusses how to design that journey for your viewer, and then moves to piecing and stitching.  The second half of the book teaches you how to do beautiful variations on basic stitches and how to incorporate beads, buttons, and more. I don't often quote parts of the books that I review, but I just want you to have an example of one of Sharon's many many (many!) tips that you will find in this book.  I recommend it for beginners and experienced quilters alike: "A good, quick way of finding a color scheme is to select a favorite patterned fabric. T...

  The books that I am sent to review that cover wearable art, beading, bead jewelry, etc are found on the Beading Arts blog.  Every so often, I like to list them here so that if you are interested in those topics as well as painting, collage, and quilting, you can bounce over and see the ones that catch your eye! In Chronological order: The Embroidery Book Micro-Macrame Jewelry Simple Metalwork Jewelry   Casual Bead Elegance   Jewelry Made with Wire + Fiber   Jewelry Making with Resin   The Art of Quilling Paper Jewelry Earlier lists: Part one Part two          

I really enjoyed reading through Cathy Nichols ' new book Storytelling Art Studio , published by North Light Books .  I love the way she has organized the book, and I also love that her artwork is very very different from mine.  That way, I'm not as likely to fall into the mistake of copying so much as just thinking about how I can use her techniques in my own work. Cathy's chapters build one upon another, but you can also skip around in order to simply try out the ideas that strike your fancy.  In order, the chapters cover creating characters, setting the scene, altering the mood, adding conflict, expanding the plot, adding a moral, storytelling with symbolism, repeating a motif, and titling your piece.  Each chapter has a step by step demo if you'd like to work through a similar piece. One of the most helpful features, I think, is the broad variety of backgrounds that Cathy teaches throughout the projects.  She shows you, through the demonstrations, how...

North Light Books has a beautiful new volume out that was edited by Jamie Markle.  It's huge, and has the initial appearance of a coffee table book, but I couldn't possibly bring myself to call it that after I started reading and gazing my way through it.   Art Journey - Abstract Painting asks the featured artists to answer many probing questions that all of us probably have: what is the essence of abstract painting?  How much planning do you do?  What is your inspiration?  Let's look at how their answers broke down! When asked about the essence of abstract painting, some artists explained that their work is totally non-representational.  Some spoke of emotions, experiences, and their own inner world.  Others focused on the elements of design like color, space, line, and texture.  But a large group of artists spoke more about "abstracted reality," with objects seen in a different way, fantasy "landscapes" or "still lifes," unrecogn...

I am really really excited about one of the new books coming out in June from C&T Publishing !  I have been planning to make a t-shirt quilt, like, for-Ev-ah.  I know...it would probably be easy enough to just simply wing it, but I'm very happy to get some expert advice from Carla Hegeman Crim and Lindsay Conner  in The T-Shirt Quilt Book before I start! Info on the book says, Capture the memories of a special time, starting with a quick pillow project or a baby quilt made from onesies, and work your way up to bed quilts in multiple sizes. Learn the secrets to choosing shirts, centering and cutting out around a logo, working with shirts that are too small, and interfacing knit fabrics with finesse. You'll practice your skills with 8 projects ranging from simple squares to pieced stars and triangles, plus easy machine-appliquéd motifs. With beginner-friendly designs and truly unique layouts to entice experienced quilters, this essential guide to T-shirt quilts...

Fair warning: I am highly prejudiced in favor of this book!  Why?  Because not only does it contain the very best explanation and practical plan for critiquing your own work that I've ever found, but also because I am absolutely in awe of Nancy Reyner's personal painting work.  Fear not, though.  You can paint (or color, or collage) in a totally different style from Nancy and still learn everything you need from Create Perfect Paintings , because the subtext is to create perfect paintings for YOU.   Still...if you don't happen to like Nancy's work, you are just plain wrong.  Just sayin'... This is not a painting techniques book.  Instead, it focuses on teaching you how to look deeply into an image (yours or someone else's) and to analyze the effects that it has on you as a viewer.  Technique is important, but being able to manipulate your viewer's eye movements and perception is what Nancy says separates an amateur from an experienced arti...

I am tired of the browns and grays and blacks and whites in my New England landscape. I want COLOR!!  These two new books from C&T Publishing are just what the doctor ordered! Take the first steps to becoming an art quilter with popular teacher and best-selling author Katie Pasquini Masopust in her new book, Artful Log Cabin Quilts . Starting with an inspiration photo or painting, choose fabrics to create your own artistic log cabin quilts. Learn to navigate visual pathways and composition, applying easy techniques and experimenting with color. Student work is presented, showing that anyone can create an art quilt! Design and make your masterpiece with freeform log cabin blocks using this versatile method. Become a skilled foundation piecer with New York Beauties and Flying Geese blocks that amaze! Carl Hentsch simplifies a technique loved by many with his straightforward approach to curved piecing, foundation piecing, and simple machine appliqué. ...

Wen Redmond's book, Digital Fiber Art , published by C&T Publishing , is packed full of more information than you can possibly believe.  And throughout, each technique, tip, and idea is decorated by Wen's photos and digital pieces.  It's a complete visual feast. The book begins with inspirational chapters that help you get your images and backgrounds ready for printing and combining.  Using digital filters, digital and physical collage, painting papers and fabrics, Wen shows you how to combine these for truly unique results in your art quilts.  Though she focuses throughout on quilts, so many of these techniques can also be used for paper-based collages. The technical information covers using your printer in some unique ways, pre-coats for your fabrics and papers, making carrier sheets for printing, underpainting and overpainting the substrate, using sheers, recycled fabrics and papers, and various specialty products (like Lutradur).  Wen shows...

Jodi Ohl's new book, Abstracts in Acrylic and Ink , published by North Light Books , is a great kickstarter for anyone who's wanted to try, but is afraid.  Painting is a dialog, Jodi explains between you and your materials.  It can be marked by love and happiness, but also by frustration...it's all part of the relationship.  Jodi's advice?  Get going!  Dive in with an open mind and a fearless heart.   The entire book is filled with demonstrations, which is very very helpful to someone just getting their feet wet.  The first three chapters contain quick and small scale demos.  In the first chapter, Warm Up Exercises, Jodi stresses working fast and small to allay your fears, getting past a blank canvas, and using yupo paper as well as watercolor paper.  She then turns to understanding painting mediums, including crackle and glazing medium, and making acrylic skins.  Next, Jodi briefly covers the elements and principles of design, in ...

Are you interested in learning how to paint in a realistic fashion, but not slavishly photo-realistic?   Julie Hanson's new book Fire and Light , published by Schiffer , is gorgeous, encouraging, and very very contemporary in feel. Julie wanted to develop a more immediate approach to oil painting, one that replaced traditional tonal underpaintings with what she calls "temperature painting."  She shows you how to build a double primary palette (a warm and a cool) of the three primaries, and how to create your earth tones and neutrals from it as well as your secondaries and tertiaries.   The first half of the book covers basic skills with oil paints and how to use color to build form.  There are helpful charts for those who work with watercolor or acrylics...yes, we can do this style too! Part two of the book takes you step-by-step through temperature painting and shows you many many examples of both Julie's and her students' work.  Very ins...

Work small and often...and in multiples.  That's the take-home message that I received loud and clear from Jo Toye .  Her North Light book, Abstract Explorations in Acrylic Painting is exactly what I've been looking for, and yet somehow I almost missed it!  It was published last March, and I am so so so blessed to have stumbled upon it, almost a year later! Why am I so enthusiastic?  Because Jo paints the way I want to paint.  There are many many good books on acrylic painting, and I have reviewed many of them, but this one suits my style, yet pushes me to do better.  Jo is an evangelist for line, something that I don't always consider in my paintings.  It has always taken a back seat to color and texture in my work, but now I'm reconsidering the error of my ways.  Line work gives vibrancy and direction .  Duh.  And this is what I was missing. The first half of the book covers the why and the how, while the second half contains ...

Schiffer Publishing has put out a book of unsurpassed beauty and inspiration for those who love quilts and quilting.  In their new volume,  Art Quilts International: Abstract & Geometric , edited by Martha Sielman , you will find 220 pages of gorgeous quilts and the stories behind them.  Martha, who is the director of Studio Art Quilt Associates, Inc (better known as SAQA ), was able to chose from among 1300 submissions to 97 artists that are featured in the book's galleries, and 29 that are featured with information on their inspirations, working methods, and histories. The variety of styles represented in this large volume is incredibly inspiring.  For anyone who has ever wondered what makes a quilt "abstract," the answer is manifold.  Some focus on line.  Some focus on color.  Others merge those elements with symbolism.  There are quilts that are monochromatic but with intricate quilting patterns.  There are others that are wo...

Here is part two of the list of books that I've reviewed this year on Beading Arts blog.  They are in chronological order.   Part one was posted last week! 18 Beaded Jewelry Projects New Connections in Chain Mail Jewelry Discover Torch Enameling Hubble Stitch Colorful Wirework Jewelry Cool Copper Cuffs Make It Sparkle! Metalsmithing Made Easy Modern Beaded Lace Learn to Use Two-Hole Beads The Embroidery Book