Friday, April 27, 2007

Finally: AQC Fabrics:Show and Tell

April 13th through 18th, I was attending Art Quilt Claremont in Berzerkely where I took a four day class from Rayna Gilman. The first two days were improvisational fabric printing with found objects; the second two days were Jump Starting the Art Quilt.

I attended the class really for those first two days. I seem to be moving away from doing much quilting, but I am excited about the surface design aspect and feel a pull in that direction. What it means? I do not know.

Anyway, SHOW AND TELL

This piece was begun on day one. I used a plastic "something" to print the orange shapes, first through a silk screen, and using the screen without the plastic screen to make the mirror image. It reminds me of old iron gates. I later painted it with soywax to get some "crinkled" texture over it. I'm thinking of going back in with black paint and emphasizing the gates a bit.

This piece was my experiment in gelatin plate printing. My gelatin was way too thin and fragile and didn't work well. Then I tried stamping over it with a weird salmon colored paint and a flowery shaped potato masher. When Rayna saw it, she insisted that I take it to the sink and wash it out. It dulled the colors a bit, but didn't save it. When we played with drawing/writing using a syringe, I scribbled and wrote all over this piece. It became one of my favorites. Reminds me of what I did in Gerrie Chase's class, but more successfully here. The moral: When all else fails, just add some more. (well, that doesn't always work).
Day Two and I was in Soy Wax Heaven. This piece used a piece of tile underlayment (I think) to get the linear texture, but more happened to it later. This and the next piece became fiber "Rorschach tests" at Pickles Monday night, with gals seeing fish flesh and (turned sideways) Our Lady of Guadalupe. To me it needs some graphitti over it.
Piece Two. I tried playing with this during the second part of the class with no success. But I like it a lot.
Most of you would recognize the base fabric for this piece. It was a ubiquitous spring green print at JoAnne's. I used one of Rayna's wooden tjaps and an eggbeater to add the texture, then painted over it. Very commercial look.
I'm still not decided about this piece. It looks clearer in this photo than it does in real life. People either like it or not. There was some torn paper screen printing and some soy wax work.

That's about all I'm happy showing... but I truly enjoyed the class and have a whole new enthusiasm for surface design today than I had before I got there. Now to decide how to apply these newly learned skills. (oh yeah.. I guess I already did!)

Check out my other blog: Deb's Daily DistractionsTags

No comments: