"A Tribute to Mark Indig" Postcard

For the fiber postcard group this month, our theme was "Geometric Shapes". I have to admit it was a tough theme for me. Every design I sketched seemed too simple.....not interesting or creative. Then I looked at one of my design walls and noticed an torn page of the LA Times with an article on photographer, Mark Indig. I decided to pay tribute to one of his photographs. The postcard above titled "A Tribute to Mark Indig" is inspired by one of this photographs. Here is the link to his website so you can check out his photographs of urban landscape.

http://web.mac.com/markindigphotography/Mark_Indig_Photography/Home.html

Screen Printing with Jacaranda Leaves

The other day a branch from a nearby Jacaranda tree fell. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to use some of leaves to screen print fabric. I took pfd fabric and pinned it to a folded drop cloth. I laid some leaves on top of the pinned fabric. Then printed using thickened green dye over the top. The first print came out nice and clean.

I decided to leave the thickened dye on the screen overnight so, I could try the technique called Deconstructed Screen Printing.  The next day, I pinned a new piece of pfd to the drop cloth and screened thickened Sodium Alginate to release the dried dye. This print came out too light.

I had some Jacaranda leaves left over so, I decided to print over this fabric.  Using a clean screen, I pulled thickened purple dye on top. The white and light green shows through to add depth to the fabric.

Happy 84th Birthday, Mom

Happy 53rd Anniversary, Dad and Mom

"Petals" Postcard

The June theme for the postcard art group is "Flowers". I thought it would be fun to turn fabric into canvas by using gesso then paint with acrylics. Each petal is painted separately then attached to the "quilted" postcard with thread and a white bead.

Playing with Fabric

Today I worked on creating fabric for a black/white/gray project.  I monoprinted some white Kona fabric with black Setacolor fabric paint. Here is a photo of the supplies I used:

And here is a sample of the printed fabric:

On black Kona cotton fabric, I used a decolorant to remove color to create grayish-white dots:

Peel Away The Layers

I finally got around to using tea bag papers in my artwork. It reminds me of a thin layer of skin. Underneath this layer of "skin", I used a patchwork of brown and tan wool. Putting this small artwork on top of regular fabric didn't seem to work. I decided to dye cotton batting in persimmon. This idea came from my friend, Linda Friedman's blog.  http://lindasartquilts.blogspot.com/2010/07/wildfire-tribute-to-all-wildland.html 

"Glow" Postcard

This artwork is another fiber postcard for mini group that I'm involved with. The theme this time was "Light". This design is the first thing that came to mind. Swirling colors of white and gold foil on a bright yellow background. The main lesson I learned with this postcard is how tricky it is to photography metallic gold.

4/27/11 Amendment: The recipient of this postcard took a better photo than mine so I replaced it today. Thanks, Teresa!

Happy Easter

The Brewery Art Colony Los Angeles