Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Finally, an Art Day

Yesterday, Caroline and I decided we needed an art day. So we set up out on the patio, and got out the fabric paints. Much of this batch is stuff I got at the great yard sale about a month ago. We were experimenting with Golden acrylics (liquid form), Versatex paints, and Jacquard acrylic paints on muslin.



Gemma was thrilled and ready to participate.



My strategy? Slop on a bunch of paint and see what happened.






Caroline had fun splashing paint around, then decided to try a beach type scene.



Here is an assortment, drying. We discovered that the colors dried much paler. Perhaps we diluted the paint too much. Hmmm. More experimenting will tell.



Unlike Nancy Crow and Melody and Tommy and Gerrie and others with to-die-for (hah! note the pun) dyeing areas with sinke and everything, we use the hose under the kitchen window for our rinsing of brushes. It's not the best set-up, but hey, it worked for us.



Gemma grew bored when we wouldn't let her play with paints. I think she is sulking, and not appeased by the rawhide chewy.



I now need to heat-set everything with a good pressing. My art group's current challenge (due next March or something) is a "muslin challenge," where the only fabric you can use in the piece had to start out in your hands as plain muslin. (You can do anything to the piece, any painting or dyeing or embellishment, and theme for the quilt--but the only fabric you can work with is muslin.) So, perhaps I'll be able to use some of this for that project...we'll see.

We had a grand time. Caroline is looking forward to experimenting with free-motion quilting on her seascape. She has grand plans.

7 comments :

  1. Anonymous12:55 PM

    That looks like great fun! I love sunny days in the garden with art supplies :-)

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  2. That reminds me of the first challenge from the last season when the designers had to make an outfit with only muslin. Those who did not dye their muslin definetely missed the boat.

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  3. Anonymous4:26 PM

    I need to do some great fun paint stuff like that. Maybe I'll bring a bunch of paints on vacation - there's a deck and a hose and my 14 year old and her cousin....

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  4. Actually, Deborah, that's what inspired this. When the group came to discussing challenge ideas, I threw this one out (thinking of the project runway challenges I loved) and that's what everyone wanted to do. And, by the way, I can hardly wait for Project Runway tonight!

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  5. Very nice set of fabrics! And everything I've painted has dried a lot lighter... something that you almost have to build in the process. I really like Caroline's sloppy piece.. the squiggly lines are a perfect touch.

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  6. I want that green fabric with the black squigglies for my kitchen curtains. Can I order 8 yards?

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  7. This seems like so much fun!!! Nice work. I used to dye in my bathroom, on my knees, bending over the tub! Now I have a sink and daydream of loosy-goosier times.

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