Sneak Peek

Not sure what is going on with me this week, but frogs have definitely been a mainstay in my creations this week. They are rather cute. This guy was from a pattern I bought a long time ago, started but never finished. It was supposed to be a present for my sister who is crazy for frogs. So if she wants this guy, she is going to have to come for a visit to get it! Ha ha!

He has a mate which is started. Should be another 10 years before I finish her though! Well maybe I can get it done by Christmas.

As a participant in a quilt art blog hop, I am submitting my current work in progress. To check out everyone else participating hop on over to Nina Marie's site


My last frog is actually a set of frogs. I pulled out a piece I had been working and and was in love with. Suddenly, after viewing it hanging up, I hated it. I pulled it off the design wall and buried it like I always do. When I get stuck on a project, I find that stepping away from it for a while will help me gain some perspective. This time it worked. I realized I did not have enough contrast and set about adding in more colors along with the contrast. I was happy when done but it was still missing something. Walking by my daughters african fighting frogs made me realize that was what was needed.
In second grade they learned about the life cycle of a frog and grew them into tiny little frogs. Once the unit was done, the kids were allowed to take some home. They were the size of a thumbnail. We took three which she promptly named Georgie, Gustavo and Fib. They are now the size of a large fist and need a bigger tank!

I spent an evening sketching the little guys. (I say evening because they move around quite a bit.) Once satisfied with the sketches, I traced them on some heavy vellum, cut them out and used it as a template to trace onto a greenish batik. The frogs have spots all over and I wanted a dimensional look, so I put a piece of batting underneath the frogs and free motion quilted around to create the patterning. Colors for the spots where done with fabric markers. The final part was to applique it onto the quilt. Just before sewing it closed, I added some stuffing inside to really pop them off the quilt.
I am loving this piece. I am finally ready to square up and finish it off! It feels so good to create something I love again!

Cucumber ATC trade - Cool As . . .

I decided on this little guy because the theme being cucumber meant that you could use all the colors in a cucumber which includes the orange flower! This project started with a sketch of the frog. I used acrylic paint to add color but it was too flat and needed some dimension and texture. I added details using colored pencils. Still kind of flat looking.

Referring back to pictures of the frog, I realized he was kind of shiny. Light bulb moment meant time for the glossy accent! I am glad I bought another bottle. I really love playing with this product! Looking good but still lacking the skin texture. That was solved while digging through my fabric markers for another project (which also includes frogs!) and I found my Puffy Velvet Pen! I haven't used this in a long time and it is supposed to be for fabric. Well rules are for breaking sometimes and I colored in the top half of mr. frog with it. It dried quickly. I love not having to wait. Hit it with a heat gun and wow! I nice rubbery type of texture. But what about the bumpy texture. So I added some dots all over the top and hit it with the heat gun again. Oh yeah!

Here is a side view to help explain what it looked like. Bet you want to reach out and touch it!
It rained all day yesterday so my cards bowed. Sigh.

Jonquil ATC

I seriously need to come out of this artistic funk I am in. Between the heat, kids swimming and allergies, I just don't seem to have any creativity left! I have stuff started or swimming in my brain but can't seem to get it moving. So the ATC trade came along and I plowed my way into it.

The trade was the color jonquil but for whatever reason, the flower was just stuck there. So I did what any hard working artist does, I went with it! The background is paper canvas painted with taupe and then a pale green. I used gel medium to adhere small squares of yellows and oranges. Originally this was going to be more abstract. The more I tried, the more it didn't work. So I sketched flowers using dark purple colored pencil and filled in the colors using oil pastels. I have to go play with them some more!  Hmm just had an idea for my Typography challenge!

The flowers were done in various shades of yellows and oranges. The background was with dark purple, sky blue and lime green. I trimmed around each with fancy scissors I swiped from my daughter and then mounted onto dark yellow card stock using orange eyelets. I love punching holes with that! The final touch was some silver, glitter dots in the center. Happy Summer!

Dew ATC

This months color choice was Dew. For whatever reason, I had an idea almost immediately and digging through the handmade fabrics, I had the perfect starting point. The fabric was a yellowgreenish color. I took fabric markers and drew leaves all over it with several shades of greens. Then I went in with darker markers around the leaves to make them pop out more. I did a free motion stitch around the leaves in green to add some texture. I cut them apart and drew spider webs on each card. I used Stickles glitter glue to get the sparkles of water or dew on the spider web. After it was dry, I put glossy accents on top of the glitter spots to make it more dimensional and like a drop of dew. I really love how these turned out. Don't forget to check this months entries at our blog Arts In The Cards!

More Stuffed "Thumbs?"

I really liked making the one stuffed piece based on a little girls drawing and decided to make a bunch more. I am even thinking of selling them. Me selling my art! This is indeed new to me. I really have to try that some more, otherwise I am going to run out of room in my studio and there really is only so much wall space in a home isn't there?!

I tweaked the design a bit and made them in three colors. Some have curly hair and some have straight! There are several other designs I have made. I just have to move from paper to fabric! Stay tuned!

ATC Turquoise

This trade is by far my favorite! The unique interpretations of this color really blew my mind. Apparently we all enjoyed this color! Check out the others at Arts In The Cards blog. You won't be disappointed!

My turquoise interpretation was of the stone. Have you ever looked closely at the stone? Lots of levels of blues and greens with some brown and black. Using a hand painted fabric of a turquoise water and beach, I added a flour paste resist over the top. I wanted to get the crack like look of the stone. Was this overkill? Probably but it was fun to play. After the resist dried completely, I cracked it into big cracks and some fine ones. Then painted into the cracks with brown dye paint. Once that dried, I had to peel off all the resist. Good thing I made it really thick. It was much easier to pick off but still a lot of work. Once done, I fused the fabric to pellon backing and free motioned stitched over the cracks in a black thread. It looked really flat until I went back in with paint. I painted a light blue green color up to the edges of all the cracks. Then a painted in a slightly darker blue in spots which gave the cards more dimension! Loved it! The final part was to paint a silver edge around each cards and stitch it down. I wanted silver to mimic silver and turquoise jewelry. No single shots this time but if you click on the picture, you can see more of it closeup.

Prayer Flag

Our ATC Revisioned group has posted our next challenge which was to create a prayer flag for spring. Go here to see the rest of the groups finished pieces http://artsinthecardsrevisioned.blogspot.com/Arts In the Cards Revisioned

I always struggle with these types of projects because I hate putting such personal pieces out for the world to see. It's as if you are opening up your heart for all the world to see! I loved the piece until I finished adding the border. It just wasn't the right color I think. I auditioned a bunch of colors and this one was the only one that seemed to kind of work. It just seems too pink for me. But the universe knows what is in my heart and will overlook my bad color choice I believe! LOL

 I started with a piece of white cotton fabric and thought I had cut the size correctly. Apparently not as I will explain shortly. The colors were added with the watercolor crayons drawn on and then blended with water. After it was dry, I wrote words or thoughts onto the background using a dye pen. This whole process was done intuitively. I just went with whatever thought I had on creating and didn't question it. The overwhelming desire to quilt this in rows was too powerful to ignore so that is what I did. I have been wanting to try this out and found myself very pleased with the results.

It has been gray and dreary for well over a week now so my colors are just as dull as the weather. I always believe that thoughts are like prayers and they fly about the universe. So I created free form birds out of fine netting. Thoughts can be positive or negative and sometimes we just down pay attention to where we hold our attention so I made dark and light birds to remind myself to try and think positive thoughts! When I trimmed my piece to size, some areas did not have fabric! So to compensate, I had to make my border much larger than I wanted. Combine that with the color choice and I was suddenly very unhappy.

I tried to offset some of the "pinkiness" with some ribbons and fibers. It kind of reminded me of dream catchers. I added some green beads to represent seeds or my thoughts growing in reality. For now I am done and ready to send it out to the world but I may leave it up on my design wall and think about it some more. A flash of inspiration may strike and I will be able to fix what I imagine to be wrong or I will leave it and spring board off in a new direction.