Quilted Colour Wheel

We haven't had a theme to work on collectively the last little while, so we've each been doing our own thing.  Chantal is decorating a clear vase with autumn leaves (painted and embellished with gold/metallic pen, and glued on with Mod-Podge).  Jordan is close to finishing his painting of the spider with the face of an old man (that's my description of it, but Jordan may have another).  And Ellen started a gorgeous painting of the Toronto skyline a couple of weeks ago over Skype, which I hope to see completed soon.

I finally finished the quilted colour wheel I started at the beginning of the month.  Here are a couple of photos of work in progress, to show just how much the beginning and the end of my projects resemble each other (usually not much!).

To add a bit of texture to the final quilt, I stitched in (free-motion) a bunch of wool/felt 'nuggets' (loose, pebble-like bits of felt, brightly dyed).  I love the final effect (though I had to struggle with my sewing machine to get it done, and only finished after breaking 5 needles...).

Carving Pumpkins

We carved pumpkins last week!  Jordan carved a big orange one, Jess carved and painted the big white one, and I (Michelle) carved and inked a butternut squash, while Jessica looked on and knitted.

I don't know what kind of squash the white pumpkin was, but it was much heavier and denser than the orange one, with walls at least an inch thick when hollowed out.  Jess turned it into a painted clown.

Jordan did an elaborate carving of a headless horseman on his orange pumpkin.  The photo below is work in progress.  The final work ended up being eaten by a squirrel, before evidence of the intricateness of the final carving could be photographed.

I recently discovered the art of Zentangle doodles, and drew some in with black ink (pen) on one of the 4 layers of my carved butternut squash. 

And so as not to waste perfectly good vegetables, I made pancakes out of the carved pumpkin pulp, and roasted the seeds (sprinkled with salt, pepper, garlic salt and paprika, and tossed in canola oil - yum!).

Chantal's Quilt

Last week we welcomed Chantal to our group.  Chantal is working on a bed quilt.  I don't have a great photo of it (we'll get better shots, and a better description, when it's finished), but here it is anyway:

Painting, Tyvek, and Mosaic Tray

Our last get-together was multi-themed.  The common thread was painting though, with a couple of exceptions (Ellen, for example, worked on needlepoint over Skype from Ottawa).

Jordan started on his new painting (but isn't showing work in progress).  Jessica chose a monochromatic design, and used her fine, intricate floral stencils for the beautifully layered painting below (only partially finished):

Tamsen and I finished our collaboration - the mosaic tile tray.  I guess this is the place to give the whole story of this project, which started with a wood framed goose print (a thrift store find):

   

I painted a couple of ceramic tiles in brightly coloured backgrounds and tree silhouettes (using ceramics-specific and acrylic paints).  A layer or two of varnish, over the paint, ensured that the paint didn't scrape off during the grouting stage.

Tamsen broke up the tiles into shards, large and small, and rearranged them on the inside surface of the tray (the back of the goose print):



The next step was to finish the wood frame - and Tamsen is a pro at this (literally!).  She sanded all the edges (several times, and with different sizes of sand paper, if I observed correctly), and then used her fancy brush to apply 3 coats of shellack, which dried beautifully and gave the finished wood a nice, shiny, smooth look and feel.

I put the finishing touches on it all and turned the old framed print into a tray by attaching cabinet door handles to each end.  Because of some difficulty with the screws, I stumbled upon an interesting finish to the handles (the screws were too long for the width of the wood, so to make up the difference, I added shards of tiles to each end, which ended up matching the tiled tray very nicely... if I do say so myself).

And VOILA! the finished tray:

I also worked on painting Tyvek.   Tyvek is a wonderful addition to any fiber art.  It's paintable, it somehow absorbs paint despite having the feel and texture of plastic.  And its flat shape can be distorted by heat (for example, by pressing with a hot iron), giving a very textured surface, for those who love that sort of thing (and I do!).

Here were my painted sheets of Tyvek (my blank, white Tyvek sheets were just used FedEx envelopes, cut up):

I broke them up into even smaller pieces, and pressed them with my hot iron (in the garage - the fumes from this can be quite bad!).  The flat sheets bubbled and melted.  The process is very unpredictable, and you never know how much bubbling and/or melting you're going to get (but it's always fun to see the results):

 

 The unpainted back looks great too!

Paintings, then and now

This is a rough sketch for what I'm working on now, tentatively called "The spider cursing after sleeping in". I don't know when I'll be finished though, I'm quite slow with these things.

Another Painting Collaboration

This collaboration (between Jordan and Michelle) is a result of conversations about hand writing analysis (Jordan's got a very interesting story about his own hand-writing) and translations of Romanian pastoral poetry, to a background of Romanian hip-hop/folk music (none of which has any relation to the name we decided on - something along the lines of "Stormy City Skies").

Work in progress...

Details, of the finished painting, from various angles:

The finished piece.  I keep changing my mind about which orientation works best.

Painting Tile Trivets

So today was my first long distance craft night. I joined Michelle and Jordan through Skype and it worked out pretty well. We jammed to some Romanian hip hop and while they were working on a collaborative painting, I worked on painting a trivet. I've been obsessed with making trivets lately. Here are two of my previous projects:

This is based on a painting by Leonid Afremov. I recently discovered this painter and I love his style. His paintings are so colourful and bold. I used acrylic paints and then sealed it with a clear varnish.

I painted this one after reading about Mandalas. A Mandala is a symbol that represents the Universe in both Hinduism and Buddhism and is usually characterized by radial symmetry.

Today, I worked on a painting of a bird.

(in progress)

(finished project)

Now I think I might take a break from trivets for awhile :)