Stephanie Redfern at Festival of Quilts

Last week at the Festival of Quilts (Birmingham, UK) I had a great day gazing at some wonderful pieces of textile art. Such talented women -- I am so envious. In particular I was drawn to the work of Stephanie Redfern, who had created the most amazing book with art quilt pages. It was stunning, so imaginative with words and pictures yet she only won second prize in the Quilt Creations Category... the winner piece was a vase of fabric flowers, they looked good, were beautifully made but did not have the wow factor that was Stephanie's work. http://www.sredtextiles.co.uk/

for Amy

Following on from the Triptych I made a similar canvas for my stepdaughter -- she had asked me to make something for her bedroom. She was thrilled. The style is similar to my earlier work but what the hell... many a famous artist has returned to the same theme.

My first teaching workshop

Exciting news... Art Van Go have asked me to teach a workshop in November. It's a real honour as I still consider myself a learner in mixed media. However, in a former life I was an information specialist and have a great capacity for recalling useful, and sometimes useless, information, which I love to share. This includes mixed media techniques, inspirational books, and web based resources. The workshop will be about sharing things I have learnt. The papers that will be created can be used in collage, handmade books, scanned for developing in Photoshop; printed onto fabric as well as inspiration for other work.

Altered Books

I belong to a Yahoo Group, Altered Books... not been a great contributor more of a lurker. It is the 10th Anniversary of the group and one of the moderators, Corinne Stubson, is making 188 books comprising of individual pages that group members have submitted to celebrate the anniversary. Each of us that has a page in the book will be sent a copy. This is a labour of love by Corinne: I am really looking forward to seeing the book at the end of September.

Corinne's work can be viewed at http://www.glitz-oh.com/art/main.php

Image Transfer

At an Art Van Go workshop with Annette Morgan I made a fabric collage using image transfer. Firstly I tore up images from a non-glossy magazine (newsprint works as well), placed a piece of white nylon on top then brushed with acrylic matte medium. When it was dry the piece was soaked in warm water for 10 minutes or so and then the paper was rubbed off, leaving the ink adhered to the nylon.

I scanned the collage and, using Photoshop, copied a section and altered it using hue/saturation and the Cut-out filter. This image was printed onto T-shirt transfer paper and ironed to the collage. I then machine stitched it in place onto a backing of linen scrim. There was white nylon showing -- used the soldering iron to burn it back to the edges of the collage. Am quite pleased with my first attempt at this technique.

Triptych

Took a challenging class in June with Bobby Britnell at Art Van Go -- 'Mixed Media Approaches to Abstract Design'. I ended up working on a pebble with white veins and abstracted it down to several images using different types of media. Chose one of the designs and developed it onto a rectangular canvas by sponging acrylic paint over paper string. Finally the string was rubbed with a gold Markal (Shiva) paintstick. Made two more with the colour moving from grey through blue to mauve. They have pride of place on our bedroom wall.