Tag Archives: mixed media art

Altered Book Landscape

If you have any interest in assemblage and mixed media art or just want to enjoy something a bit different from fabric and quilt making, I recommend Ina’s Art Room on YouTube. She makes wonderful works of art, usually using surprising elements (sometimes fabric). Ina also invites subscribers and visitors to participate in her 4 Core Challenges. I’ve participated in the past and it’s fun! Ina posts her videos on Fridays.

Ina’s January 2022 #4core challenge was to use a book as the substrate and include texture, metal, and give the piece a “winter vibe.” After the deadline she posts a video showing everyone’s finished projects. The January challenge video should be posted on her channel in early February.

I decided to participate again and here is my piece; a candle backdrop featuring a fabric landscape.

I have made the inside of the book the new “front.” The votive is covered in fabric coils and has a flameless tealight.

I bought the used book at the local library. The original hardcover was red and had some globs of glue under the paper part of the cover… so I scraped and tried to cover it with snowflakes. I tried a few different things to add texture to the snowflakes but in the end just painted them with a pearl white acrylic paint.

Here are few photos of the process.

First painted gesso over the red book cover and then acrylic.

I had the painted sky fabric in my stash, the white/gray fabrics are commercial, and the foreground snow is thin white batting. The fence is cut-up (used) craft sticks (tongue depressor size) that I painted, and the wire is just coated wire. I added a few little frays of silk fabric for the grass. The “snow” on the fence and wire is sawdust (for texture) mixed with gesso and some acrylic paint.

It was fun to quickly stitch up a very simple, little fabric landscape for this project.

Auditioning before the fabrics were fuse and quilted.

The fluffy border is a beautiful soft yarn and I think it worked perfectly!

The things I love about Ina’s challenges – She encourages artists to really make it their own, she offers loads of ideas, and there’s no pressure (though there is a finish-by date). I enjoyed every minute of making this project… well, all but the waiting time for materials to dry!

Winner! Thank you to those of you who entered the appliqued miniature landscape top sweepstakes/giveaway. Congratulations to the winner – Deborah F (Please email your mailing information to me at fiberdesignsbyann@gmail.com).

2022 – Many unfinished pieces have been weighing on me for far too long, so I’m going to work on actually finishing as many pieces as I can this year. I hope you’ll come by to see what I’ve done, maybe get more ideas and be inspired. There will probably be a few giveaways along the way.

Stay safe and make art that makes you happy.

Potato Patato and the Winner

Do you say poyn·seh·tee·uh or poin-sed-uh? Apparently either way is okay, depending on who you ask!

It would be an understatement to say I love flowers and have used them a few times in my artwork. Winter always makes me think of the poinsettia plant and so it’s probably no surprise that once again, I’ve made a poinsettia project.

Here are my new pieces; a notecard and tag, and the video showing how the card was made. I think it would be fun to use this idea for an art quilt too or to change it up with any other type of flower. Ideas, always more ideas.

If you watch the video, thanks, and I hope you enjoy it.

And The Winner of the Leaf decorated box with a surprise inside is – Sylvia Wallace! Congratulations, Sylvia, please email your mailing address to me at fiberdesignsbyann@gmail.com

I understand the end of the year can be a busy time but I’ll have one more sweepstakes/giveaway, and of course more art in December, so if you’re up to it I hope you’ll stop by again.

Stay safe and be good to yourself.

Always Ideas

I’m getting ready to teach a class on Sunday, these are strange times to be teaching live, but I really am looking forward to it.

As promised I have a new video. It seems the more I play with ways to get paint onto fabric the more ideas I get, and for me ideas lead to more ideas to try.

I’ll be announcing a new giveaway in October so if you are interested I hope you’ll stop by. For now enjoy the video, I hope it gives you some new ideas.

Falling into October

For the past few days the temperatures here have been around 90°F, we don’t have AC but my studio stays cool. Today looks to be finally cooling off a bit.

The coming of fall had me working on another Stir Crazy Member Challenge for Visions Art Museum, which will be published for members the first week in October. VAM offer so much inspiration and because we have had to spend more time in our homes, they have added a great deal to their online menu. I have “attended” wonderful artist’s talks with shows of their work, as well as, Q&A after. The online quilt shows are fun to go through at your own pace. VAM is changing their name to address better what they are about – it will become VMOTA/Visions Museum of Textile Art. I think it is a great museum to support. I’m not paid to create these challenges, and as far as I know none of the other artist are either.

When I make the video public, I’ll share it in an October post, until then here is a sneak peek of the project.

I’m also scheduled to teach at Visions on October 3rd. My first live class in some time (We were planning to hold this class before you-know-what struck). Hopefully enough people will sign-up to make the class happen. Masked and distancing, we’ll be using fabric, fiber, and a little paint to make a set of hummingbird note cards. They were so much fun to design and I love that the makers can make them their own as they construct each of their cards.

Example – fabric & fiber Hummingbird notecard

Our old house kitty, Kona, has finally figured out that she can come and go “outside,” into her little resort. During the daytime it’s attached to my studio and now I can stay in the studio playing/working instead of stopping to take her out onto the kitchen deck FOR HOURS. We’ll see if I actually get more done!

When it get too hot she comes back to her inside hammock. Hashtag – veryspoiledcat

Right now I’m using some of the background fabrics I painted last week and will share more about them next time.

More Experimenting and Winners

I have been working on background fabrics. While I was making Crackle Vessel I ran into a disaster with the background fabric. I ended up loving that background but the way I made it was the problem, it involved (homemade) texture paste and removing it was a huge mess.

So for now, no more texture paste on fabric. Here are a few new fabric and paper pieces I worked on today. I’ll share more about how they were made in a future post or video.

Here it is wet, it dried much lighter but I think it’s so pretty.

When I hung this to dry it whipped onto itself wet and so I just rubbed it all over. It still has potential.

Thanks to those who entered the August/September giveaway/sweepstakes.

I’m not going to say who won what – it’ll be a surprise and happy mail. Even if you have before please email your mailing address to me at fiberdesignsbyann@gmail.com.

The winners are:

Karen G

Deborah F

Joyful Q

Cherie M

Chris W

I have a question for those of you who like to enter the giveaways – Would 5 or 6 inch squares of commercial fabric as a giveaway prize interest you? Please let me know in the comments, thanks.

I’ll announce another giveaway later this month. I’ll also share more painted and stitched fabric pieces and ideas.

Resist, Free-Motion, and the Winners

I decide to put a few items for sale in my website Shop. It’s not a proper store but for now it’ll do. If interested see the drop down menu on the Shop tab and please realize that there are many items for sale on my site galleries. Let me know if you would like information about any piece. As time permits I’ll add more items, at least until I decide if I’ll be making a different shop.

I must admit I’m excited about finding ways to use the cardboard resist fabrics I recently made and want to make more. I free-motion quilted one piece and here is the video and resulting piece.

And the winners for the July fabric giveaway packets are… Karen G. wins the white, blue, red fabric pieces and Deborah F will receive the lavender and watermelon pieces. Congratulations and be sure to email your mailing info to me.

I can hardly believe July is almost over, I hope you are well and as always, thanks for stopping by.

It Looks Like Watermelon to Me

I’ve put together two little fabric packets. One (#1) is white, blue, and red and the second (#2), what I’m calling watermelon/lavender, for the July giveaway/sweepstakes. Let me know which one (or either) you’d like a chance to win by following the rule instructions below.

Here’s the How-to video showing how I painted the watermelon colored fabrics that is in giveaway packet #2.

**Fabric packet #1** The flower pieces are 13″x10″ and 15 1/2″x8 1/2″, the Arashi/Shibori is 22 1/2″x 17 1/2″

**Fabric packet #2** Flower piece is 11 1/2″x16 1/2″, Lavender/crackle is11″x11 1/4″, Rope wrapped is 16″x12 1/2″

Sweepstakes/giveaway begins July 21, 2021 and ends at 9pm (Pacific Time) July 26, 2021.

To enter: You must live in the US only (no international entries). One entry per person. NOTE: (If applicable) If your name is drawn as the first winner it will be removed for the second drawing.

Leave a comment that you would like to win – #1 (white, blue, red) either/or #2 (watermelon/lavender) and include your first and last name (or last initial).

On July 27, 2021 I’ll use a random drawer and announce the winner/s on my next blog post. Winner/s will email me their mailing information and I will mail the fabric packet ASAP. If I don’t hear from the winner within five days of drawing date, I will run another random draw. Good luck!

Painted Fabric – Cardboard Resist

This is the first cardboard resist piece I made, it was made on a painted (light wash) piece of fabric and I used two colors for the design. Read on to find out more and for the How-to video see below.

For this next piece I left some of the backside tip fabric unpainted (no yellow), once dry and pressed I painted orange dots to the centers. I didn’t like that result, they felt too deliberate. The holes were in a tighter placement and I don’t think the overall results were as good, BUT maybe it’s just the colors; I think these colors would have been more striking on a white background.

Below is the only piece (so far) painted on white fabric, the picture doesn’t show how pretty it really is. I forgot to take a photo before I cut some pieces out, that’s the photo-shopped out white areas.

The next piece didn’t go as I had hoped. I started with a piece of rope wrapped fabric in green (more about that in a future post). I used three colors on the green background, which was an okay idea, but again the holes were too close. I’ve concluded that there needs to be more fabric and space between the holes.

I did use the the above fabric but it doesn’t look anything like it did after painting. In my previous post I share the crackle/crinkle painted fabric and said I’d try to share an artwork using that technique and this newest paint technique. Here it is… Mixed media collage, raffia, coffee filter, and hand painted fabric. I may talk about the background wall fabric in a future post.

I learned more… One – I wanted the vase to be shiny so I painted Mod Podge on it, when it dried it was shiny BUT the crackles and crinkles were no longer visible. And two – Dry Mod Podge is really hard to wash out of fabric! I ended up flipping the fabric over and that worked fine, it’s actually darker than it appears in this photo.

After painting a few pieces I have more ideas for using this technique. If you paint fabric using any of these techniques I hope you’ll share your results.

Stay tuned for the next sweepstakes/giveaway announcement.

Crackle – Crinkle Technique

I mentioned in my previous post that I have been working on new painted fabric techniques. I’m sharing a one here, though for me it’s not new because I accidentally made a piece of this fabric a long time ago. Below is a short video that demonstrates just how easy it is.

A couple things I should say – First, it is best to use darker paint to get the most obvious results. And, unless you have large hands or a large handed helper, this technique is really only for making small size pieces of fabric.

Next week I’ll share another new technique and if time permits, an artwork using the two techniques.

Below is another piece of fabric I made using this crackle/crinkle technique. I used black paint and after I rinsed it, I had a sad feeling that it didn’t work (see left side below). But I should have known better… Just a hot iron and the crackle appears, like magic! In this photo the right side has been press completely flat (except for the little crease on the right edge).

Below, the fabric front is on the left and the back on the right. Any brown color is just from bad lighting; the piece is nice dark charcoal gray. I like the fabric back as much as the front and now I see plaster walls, cave walls, or rocks… Note to self – Must try in brown.

I look forward to sharing more painted fabric pieces and hope you’ll say tuned. Thanks for stopping by.

Beyond Snapshots

I remember telling my son I wanted to use his photographs in my art quilts but I didn’t mean printed on fabric; I meant the actually photograph. I know I’m not alone in wanting to use photographs in combination with fabric and fibers. In today’s post I share a few from other artists and I thank them for granting me permission to share their work here.

If there is a quilt maker in a family there’s a pretty good chance at least one memory quilt has been made that includes special photographs celebrating a person, a day, or an event.

Fellow quiltmaker Ruth O’Neil shared her bookshelf quilt top. It has a photograph printed on fabric of her brother along side her niece’s daughters and books with titles (all but one) from a her niece’s favorite author. The plant near the top has 3 dimensional leaves.

Ruth made the quilt below after a safari trip. I think the pattern and fabrics work really well with the photographs.

Ruth also shared this quilt. Her daughter gifted her fabric printed with these photographs and the blue batik. Ruth and her fur baby obviously are fans of this guy!

Susan Lenz is a prolific artist of unique work. Many of Susan’s pieces include vintage photographs or her own, some she digitally alters before they are printed on paper or fabric. To the printed photos she will add stitches and embellishments… sometimes framing them because Susan is also a professional framer. Susan always posts excellent stories and explanations about her artwork and her travels, if you haven’t already, I suggest checking out her website and blog, where the below images can be seen in greater detail.

Susan Lenz artist (detail of *Palmer-Epard Log Cabin*), see her blog for full image. Note all the hand stitches in the sky!

Joanna Mack aka The Snarky Quilter takes photographs that often capture textures, shadows, and light. She sometimes uses filters in photoshop software to alter her photos. Always learning as much as she can, Joanna explores and produces projects using a variety of techniques and methods.

I wish I could say that we collaborated but this piece is entirely hers. Joanna won a small, painted fabric landscape in one of my blog post giveaways. She started with a photograph she’d taken of a rusty textured (outdoor fireplace) barrel, altered it in Photoshop, had it printed on fabric, and later cut it into strips.

She cut the landscape fabric too and stitched it to her barrel pieces and then, as she writes on her blog; “I quilted it to resemble chain link fencing covered with the stems of weeds. The edges are finished with paint and yarn.”

I appreciate that Joanna has had some of her photographs printed on different types of fabric and shares her thoughts about each one on her blog. To read more about “A Cell With A View” and see her other projects and be inspired, visit her blog.

Petra Heidrich is a textile and mixed media artist in Germany. She embellishes vintage photographs, postcards, and sometimes paper, using thread and floss. Petra’s embroidery layer draws me in, and then I look past it and notice the photograph. I think the embroidery stitches and photographs play and work very well together.

On her website, Petra writes – “I like to refer to embroidery as “painting with thread.”

I recently rediscovered a box of postcards I’d gotten years ago from my parent’s estate. In the box I found a postcard that just called to be made into a photograph on fiber piece. I contacted the photographer, Bill Banaszewski, to ask for permission. So that he’d have some idea of what I had planned I attached two images from my Photograph on Fiber series. Not only did he give me permission to use his photograph but he also wrote that his wife is a quilter!

In my original Photograph on Fiber series pieces I mounted the photo under/onto plexiglass, I don’t use it anymore, otherwise the process is essentially the same. My landscape is mounted onto a acid-free board for hanging and for this piece I slightly edited a scanned and printed copy of the postcard’s back to use as the label.

Bill has been photographing New York’s Finger Lakes for years. To see his photographs and learn more go to Finger Lakes Images.

The photograph, in this piece a postcard, is mounted about 3/4″ (not quite 2 cm) above the art quilt.

“Finger Lakes” Photograph on Fiber, mixed media art quilt by Ann L Scott. Postcard photograph, by Bill Banaszewski.

I hope the pieces in this post have inspired you as much as they have me.

Until next time, thanks for stopping by.

Fiber Designs by Ann

Fiber art Design, Instruction, Sales