Chaos Removed Backside

As requested, here is the "back" of the Chaos removed piece. It used to be the front, but after cutting it up and reassembling, then painting, I liked the other side better. You need to use your imagination, but this used to be flowers in a vase wrapped with a black and white ribbon.

Chaos Removed, the big picture

After a quick email consultation with Melody Johnson, my husband thinks he has figured out how to enlarge the pictures so you can see detail. It seems to be a long involved process the way he does it, but it works for now, so the picture in the previous blog can now be enlarged.

Chaos Removed

The Dec/Jan issue of Quilting Arts Magazine had a lot of ideas I wanted to try and one that really peaked my interest was Out of the Dustbin Quilts by Annette Morgan. In this article she explained how she took an old quilt that she didn't like and manipulated it by painting it, cutting it up and reassembling it in a different way. Strangely enough, I happened to have a piece I didn't like (yeah, right, like I don't have a lot of those!) from a project I'd done years ago, so I decided to try it and the below piece is what I ended up with.




I thought about embellishing it by painting in some detail around the stitching, but I think I like it just like this.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

This is my finished piece for the Take It Further challange and I hate it. I really hate it. I would not normally put something this bad on my blog site, but I made a committment to the challange to post everything. This was monoprinted, then I outlined the mountains, then added some painted cheesesloth to the bottom. It was still ugly, so I stamped the mountains with various stamps I had, and then I did some free motion quilting all over. Still ugly, but I'm done. I went into this challange knowing that I was going to experiment and not try to make masterpieces which relieves some of the decision making pressure, and here are the lessons I've learned:

1. Start small. With a larger piece it can quickly become overwhelming.

2. Even though I'm experimenting, I should still take it seriously. On this piece I just wanted to finish it and move on.

3.If I'm not having fun with it, stop. Either start something new or just post the progress I've made.

I'm ready for next months challange now

Tidepools

A while back I had this piece on my blog site, and it was a work in progress. Now it's finished and I'm posting it, but I notice that I can't seem to enlarge it, so you're missing the detail. I'm going to haave to ask my computer whiz DH how to post to enlarge. Anyway, there's lots of handstitching on it and I've entered it into a local exhibition, so we'll see what happens

Take It Further

I have joined Sharon B's Take it Further challange, found here http://sharonb.wordpress.com/take-it-further-challange/ . We get 2 choices each month, one is an idea - this month it's about someone you admire, or if we don't like that, there is a color wave to follow. Since I just came back from Santa Fe I decided to try something in the Georgia O'Keefe style and I am using most of the colors from Sharons list. This first picture is from a monoprint I did using thickened dye on cotton sateen.

I then added some machine stitching to outline the areas and add some interest. So far very boring

In this third picture I added some texture by stamping the mountain on the right - I'm not impressed by this , but I added some cheesecloth to the bottom and I like where this is going.

I'm trying to do things I don't usually do with this challange, such as the stamping, monoprinting , because it's a good way to explore different techniques, get out of my comfort zone, and it doesn't really matter if it doesn't work. I ususally start each piece expecting it to be my masterpiece so it's a strange feeling to just let this take me where it wants to

Santa Fe

We went to Santa Fe, New Mexico last week for 6 days and had a wonderful time. What a serene, peaceful place. Thanks to recommendations from Carol Larson, we had some delicious meals, and saw more art then I have ever seen at one time. We visited several museums, including the International Folk Art Museum which I loved, and the Georgia O'Keefe museum which was a disappointment. The picture below is from a door leading into a church in Santa Fe.

One day we drove up to Taos and saw this World Heritage Site, Taos Pueblo, where members of the Taos tribe still live in the village, and preserve the way of life of their ancestors, including

this graveyard below.

We were not able to visit Abaquai, Georgia O'Keefe's home while we were there because it closes in the winter, however she had another place there called Ghost Ranch that was open and it was wonderful. There is a library, school and small art studio where they have classes year around in various subjects including painting, and jewelry making, which was the three week class we looked in on. We walked for quite a while on this property and saw the inspiration for several of her landscape paintings, including the view below

They have a commisary there, where the employees and students eat their meals, and outside were these three chairs.

I came home inspired, and decided to do my Take It Further challange on Georgia O'Keefe, using most of the colors in the color chart option.

Tidepool

This is my newest piece, I'm calling it Tidepool. I took a piece I had done some deconstructed screenprinting on and over dyed it. Then I added some interfacing and cheesecloth I had painted and did some hand stitching.

I'm thinking I may enter it in something. One of my goals this year is to enter more exhibits,

because I really want my work to be critiqued. I think it's important learn from what others have to say about my work.