Mixed Media Artist

Bead Soup: 32 Projects Show What Happens When 26 Beaders Swap Their Stash by Lori Anderson Wax and Paper Workshop: Techniques for Combining Encaustic Paint and Handmade Paper by Michelle Belto The Big Book of Hacks: 264 Amazing DIY Tech Projects by Doug Cantor 100 Ideas that Changed Photography by Mary Warner Marien Photoshop for Artists: A Complete Guide for Fine Artists, Photographers, and Printmakers by Sylvie Covey Faking It: Manipulated Photography before Photoshop (Metropolitan Museum of Art) by Mia Fineman Vibrant Quilt Collage: A Spontaneous Approach to Fused Art Quilts by Bethan Ash Japanese Quilting Piece by Piece: 29 Stitched Projects by Yoko Saito Beading Artistry for Quilts: Basic Stitches & Embellishments Add Texture & Drama by Thom Atkins Charlotte Moss: A Visual Life: Scrapbooks, Collages, and Inspirations by Charlotte Moss Technorati Tags: mixed media , collage , assemblage , digital art , photography , altered books , art jou

Ok, you really wanna know?  :-) Image: riptapparel.com

I may possibly be offline for a few days.  Even if a few more posts show up, I may or may not be able to approve your comments or answer your questions.  See you soon, I hope!

  Beading Arts Cyndi comes up with a quick and easy metal stamping project...with a surprise! Craftside-A behind-the-scenes peek at our crafty world This week at Craftside there is a chance to score yourself a copy of the new book Extreme Origami, tutorials on how to paint a pumpkin and bell pepper and draw skeleton hands and feet and a recipe for a "Corpse Reviver Cocktail".   Crafty Princess Diaries Tammy reviews a knew knitting book and uses the word "adorable" too many times.   CreativeDream How about a needlepoint witch hat? June has the instructions just waiting for you!   Dr. Who Toile Chair Makeover Cherie uses Dr. Who toile fabric to remake old kitchen chairs.   Eileen - The Artful Crafter Eileen used chain maille started by her mother over 50 years ago in this sterling silver Two Generations of Hope bracelet design.   Technorati Tags: mixed media , collage , assemblage , digital art , photography , altered book

Lisa Kerpoe's new book, Visual Texture on Fabric , is very specific in its scope: Lisa focuses on using water-based resists to create layers of color.  What I like the most is that she uses easy to come by resists like flour, oatmeal, soy wax, and acrylic medium.  Just about everyone has one or more of those things hanging around.  Well, I don't have soy wax, but I certainly have all the rest!  Lisa explains the ways to apply the resists to gain you maximum visual texture when you then apply your colorants.  She prefers fiber reactive dyes to paints, although she does explain how to thicken dyes so that you can "paint" with them.  That threw me a bit, since I am a paint person.  But I figured that I could simply thin my paints so that I could "dye" with them! The book has several very handy features.  Lisa covers how to layer the techniques for maximum visual texture.  She includes a troubleshooting guide chart for when things don't go exactly a

People ask me about my politics from time to time. I don't know why. 

How do you teach someone to work intuitively with color, create improvisational designs, and find their own personal artistic voice? The answer is to expose them to a master teacher and quilt artist like Jean Wells.  ~ Vivika Hansen DeNegre, Quilting Arts Magazine, 8/1/12 When I read the quote above, I knew that there was no way I could phrase it any better than Ms DeNegre.  Jean Wells is a genius, and her book, Journey to Inspired Art Quilting is a work of genius.  The main focus of Jean's book is learning how to translate the design principles and elements into quilting, without losing your way and getting trapped in the details.  Her own specialty is the landscape quilt, and I found that I could easily get lost and trapped in just looking at them, but she has an amazing way of pulling your through the work and out the other side. Jean is a great colorist, and reading through her explanations of how to get all the parts working in harmony is really an education.  Sh

Stefanie Girard's Sweater Surgery See how to make a recycled book page coffin Halloween garland. Beading Arts Cyndi is celebrating Metal Month! Come meet an amazing metal jewelry artist, Judy Grum.    Clear Glass Sculpture With Teal Solar Light Cherie uses glass pieces, a solar light, and some teal beads to create a garden sculpture.   Craftside-A behind-the-scenes peek at our crafty world This week at Craftside we have a double giveaway filled with Mod Podge, Martha Stewart glass paints and books along with a fun recycled Halloween lamp tutorial and a recipe for a dreamsicle shake.   Crafty Princess Diaries Namaste is known for its craft friendly bags. Tammy takes a look at a few and gives you the scoop on a special offer available during October.  Eileen - The Artful Crafter Eileen restores and upgrades a badly damaged charm bracelet.        Technorati Tags: mixed media , collage , assemblage , digital art , photography , altered books

There are lots of galleries to examine at Detourbutterfly's site, but I think my favorite is the Assemblage collection.  I always want to make pieces like this, but they never quite turn out this good.  Maybe someday if I keep working on it! Technorati Tags: mixed media , collage , assemblage , digital art , photography , altered books , art journals

I love this book!  More Fabric Art Collage starts where Rebekah Meier's first book leaves off.  Techniques...don't we just love to collect 'em?  The more the better.  Well, here are 64 techniques that you can draw from for use in mixed media, surface design, and embellishment of just about anything.  Rebekah features some of the newest materials and products out there, including TAP, Mul-Tex, and Lutradur (which isn't all that new now!). After covering tools and supplies, including basic fabrics and papers, Rebekah discusses in depth the topics of surface design, resists, fabrics, acrylic mediums, alternative materials, paper, embellishments, display, and scrap projects.  I'm not 100% sure that I understand why the topics are broken down in this way, but in the end it doesn't really matter. The pure fact is that this is not yet another compilation of the same old same old techniques.  Sure, if you've been around the block, you will be familiar wi

So here is how I finished up the sequined quilt that I began showing you last week .  It would have been better to have painted the outside portion of batting before quilting if I had known then how I was going to finish it.  Oh well! 1. Paint the batting that sticks out beyond the top fabric.  Let it dry thoroughly. 2. Choose a backing fabric and cut it even with the batting "frame".  3. I used my favorite blanket stitch all around the outside, stitching just the batting and the backing together.  Another option would have included adding another row of blanket stitch around the top fabric, stitching it just to the batting before adding the backing, but I decided to keep the edges of the top fabric raw. 4. The finished quilt.  I added a few small buttons to the back (not shown), stitched through all the layers, to keep the heavy decorative button from sagging ( see an example of how that's done here ). Copyright 2012 Cyndi Lavin. All

  Eileen - The Artful Crafter Check out The Artful Crafter's Halloween Parade of Craft Projects.   Paper Covered Pumpkins With Poetry Cherie adds old pages and poetry to a Dollar Store pumpkin. Stefanie Girard's Sweater Surgery See how to carve a maple leaf rubber stamp from an eraser.   About Family Crafts Drop by the Family Crafts site and play along with the new craft challenge! This challenge is all about making scarecrows.   Crafty Princess Diaries Tammy shares about her latest yarn store splurge, which, of course, means baby alpaca.   Beading Arts Cyndi finishes up her leaf-inspired project using tools from ImpressArt.   Technorati Tags: mixed media , collage , assemblage , digital art , photography , altered books , art journals

Mount Hood...not always easy to see with Portland's weather! Last week I shared a few shots from our adventure visiting Dani out in Portland Oregon.  Since it was Labor Day weekend, a long weekend, we crammed in as much activity as we possibly could.  And the weather was amazingly cooperative too! I thought you might enjoy seeing what happens when two artists share an apartment...your kitchen takes on a nautical theme...and your studio sits in the middle of your living room! We took a trip to the beautiful rose gardens.  Portland is known as the Rose City because of the wonderful rose-growing climate.  Even though the gardens were past their peak, they were still amazing.    From the gardens, we caught a little steam train (kind of steampunk steam train...) over to the Portland Zoo.  I love how it's all hooked together so that you can park at one spot and take the train around to the other places you want to see. This house has nothing

Sandra Meech has written Connecting Design to Stitch as a very serious book on design, a much more scholarly work than most.  So often we expect our quilting and fiber arts books to be about techniques, but Sandra has taken a different approach.  She feels we should pick our colors, embellishments, and surface techniques wisely, not based upon what the latest trends and materials are, but rather based upon how well they will support our theme. Connecting Design to Stitch explores how our theme can be carried through our textile art through the judicious use of design elements and principles.  Sandra focuses on the creative process more than the details of technique, and she also includes interesting exercises to help us refine our own patterns and preferences. "A dynamic design draws the viewer into your work. The strong use of shape, image, or color captures the viewer’s interest initially, and then their eye will be led across the rest of the surface." 

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Sarah , who writes Saturday Sequins , prompted a group of us to do a blog hop that she called Sequintastic September .  I decided to join in, and ended up surprised that what came out of me was kind of on the dark side rather than the bright and cheerful thing I had expected. I found the button and the fabric out in Portland OR while visiting Dani.  The antique gold sequins and copper-colored seed beads were already in my stash, along with the embroidery floss and batting, so I set about to use the sequins in some hand quilting.  Here are the steps I took, so far: 1.   Cut the fabric to size and layer onto a slightly larger piece of batting.  Cut a small piece of cardboard to sit behind the button, under the top fabric, and reinforce it.  I poked two holes through it to make it easier to stitch the whole thing into place.       2.  I used 3 stands of black embroidery floss to quilt the piece with the sequins and beads, following lines

  Crafty Princess Diaries Crochet socks are not that easy to make, but the Crafty Princess is tackling them anyway.   Eileen - The Artful Crafter Eileen shares the how-to for a Sand and Sea themed Glass-Beaded Bracelet.  Painted Glass Garden Mushrooms Cherie makes some glass mushrooms for the garden using recycled materials.   Beading Arts Cyndi gets busy with some tools and materials from ImpressArt, the metal stamping company! Craftside-A behind-the-scenes peek at our crafty world This week at Craftside there is a tutorial on how to create your signature initials for your Zentangles, a fun portrait made from confetti, some zombie fun and a yummy recipe for tomato pie.   Technorati Tags: mixed media , collage , assemblage , digital art , photography , altered books , art journals  

Art in the Pearl , an amazing art show in downtown Portland, Labor Day weekend A year and a half ago, Dani moved to Portland Oregon to take a job working for Michael Curry Design .  Even though I hate having her so far away, I am very proud of the work that they do, and I'm thrilled that she is making her living doing the kind of art she loves.  We were able to take a long weekend and visit her over Labor Day, and yes...I am just now getting around to going through the pictures I took.  Don't judge me ;-) Along with about a million other people, we decided to head out to the beautiful Columbia River valley and do some hiking.  By "we", I mean Dani and her roommate Meg, Mike and me.  First stop, Crown Point.  That's Meg and Dani above...I told them to look tough.  And here is Crown Point building, with its amazing interior architecture: We stopped to see a couple of smaller waterfalls, and also stopped in to see Herman the Sturgeon (estimated at 70

What's in your heart: ATC challenge and swap Deadline: 11/05/12       Haute Handbags Deadline: 11/15/12       Wearable Art Awards 2013 Deadline: 11/15/12        Art Journaling Deadline: 11/15/12          QuiltCon Deadline: 11/30/12       Vogue Knitting Design Contest Deadline: 11/30/12            Technorati Tags: mixed media , collage , assemblage , digital art , photography , altered books , art journals

Check it out!  This is what my sweetie gave me for my birthday.  Am I a lucky lucky girl or what?  The Derwent Inktense Pencils ( Set of 72 ) are everything that I was hoping for when I read about them.  You can use them wet or dry, but I prefer dry.  Why?  Glad you asked!  Because once you've scribbled them on dry, you then go over them with a wet brush and the colors just burst into life. These are different from other watercolor pencils that you might have used.  They behave more like inks: once the color has dried, it is permanent.  Adding more water will not lift them back into liquid form.  That means that you can add layers upon layers, and the colors will stay true.  As long as they're wet, the colors blend beautifully, so you really can have the best of both worlds.  And, I haven't tried this, but I've been told that as long as they haven't yet been wet, you can erase them like regular colored pencils. Wow, huh? Of course I had to start using them