What to do with all those painted papers?

 I've had lots of folks ask what I would do with all the papers I've been painting, stamping, etc. in  Hilary's MIP online class.  Well, I have shown several pieces that I've collaged, stitched/quilted and added binding.  Some other ideas Hilary has shared with us is to look at our work as 'paintings' and mount them vs finishing them off as quilts.  So I've been playing with that idea!  

I finished this small quilt not that long ago (12"x12" paper collage) and decided to attach it to an old painted canvas panel I had.  Nothing fancy but it was fun to just play with another technique!  

Now that I'm on that 'kick' I headed to JoAnn's and picked up some wrapped canvas as well as well as two 11" x 14" photo frame panels for $2 each!  

Back in 2019 we were  printing with leaves, painting, you name it!  So I had lots of papers to  quilt.   I just quilt them and cut them out to insert in photo cards to mail to friends.  The quilted piece slips into the photo frame as shown in this picture.  

t

This was a piece that I quilted this past weekend and I laid one of the photo frames on top of it and I liked it!

Sorta!  You'll see later in this post!

  Closeup of some quilting.

I posted on our MIP FaceBook page that because the frame was white I asked for a suggestion as to what color I should paint the background. 

Gina, one of the lady's in our group had this suggestion:

Maybe you could make marks on the white canvas with similar colours to the leaves but slightly lighter? Stitcherly marks? Or (I'm on a roll now!)cover some leaves in paint and print lightly onto the background?

So, that's what I did!  Off I went to cut  some Hosta leaves from the backyard.  Then I mixed up some paint...I couldn't remember what colors I used originally so this was trial and error!  Next was to mono print around the white frame!   I just painted the leaves and used my brayer to transfer the paint. 

I'm quite happy with the results!  Thanks, Gina for the suggestion!!!

I'm in the process of making another painted mirror frame.  I'm giving this one to my daughter since I'm using another one of her great hand painted pieces!

Octopus Sketchbook

We were being shown by Hilary how to make a collage using our painted/stamped/dyed deli/lightweight papers.  I had ordered this  Octopus sketchbook about a month ago and thought this would be a perfect place for me to collage some of my papers!  You have four panels on each section to use for drawing, collage work, painting, etc. 

This leaf was printed recently on deli paper and the background was a blotted piece of deli paper.  If you look really close, you'll see a pale/white bird I collaged down (top area).

These deli paper leaves were a 'blotting' from one of my mono prints.  The yellow pieces collaged under them was a leftover 'blot' from some other print.

A larger leaf blot and several different pieces of deli papers collaged onto the page.

These leaves I cut out of a stencil piece of lightweight paper I did this past winter.  The yellow/orange leaves were from another deli blotted piece.

This is the cover of the book, which I'll have to do something to enhance it.  Perhaps some zentangles in white pen! 



It was fun to layer pieces of the papers into a collage.  I have lots of leaf prints and think this book will be filled quickly...after I order more matt medium...I ran out on the 4th page.  So I best get busy and get an order in!!!

Nature Printing with Gelli Plate

Well, I had my tooth extracted last Thursday!  It wasn't that bad, with the exception of not being able to eat real food!  I actually lost 4lbs!!  No fear...I'll be making up for lost lbs soon!  I'm starting to eat 'real' food now, with exception of crunchy foods. 

Now on to the fun stuff...Our lesson from Hilary's MIP online class was a blast this week!  Printing with nature...using leaves....I've printed with leaves before but Hilary showed us so many different ways and tips on printing with leaves and using the Gelli plate!  What fun!!  I haven't over dyed these yet but I'm so excited to share my prints!  Not sure which color dyes I'll use on each of them, so I'll take a day or two to decide. 

These were printed on repair tissue I purchased from Hilary's online store.  The paper is super soft and sheer.

These were printed on deli paper.

All of these were printed on layout paper from Strathmore.

I'm Back! Well, sorta!

OK, so Prednisone is my best friend right now!  So while 'she' is helping me out with the pain and swelling in my wrists, I might as well take advantage of 'her'!

Today I did some sewing, via machine, and it felt so good to be productive again!  I have four or five of these Solar Prints that I want to hand stitch but I needed to add some borders on, which is what I did today!

I added a batik border to this piece, which the leaf hand work is finished.

this one was finished while in Florida

And Wednesday I added this border fabric.  Now to start stitching the leaves!

I've finished hand sewing two of the leaf prints and now need to decide how to finish off the background area.  Machine or hand stitching!?  I do have a due date of August to finish these so I'll have to put my thinking cap on once I've done all the leaf hand work!

It feels SO good to be back...

Switching Gears!

You know I get bored working on one project...hence, the fill in with the wine cozies!  So this week I started on some hand embroidery for the Solar Fast prints I did this winter.  This is one of the pieces I'm starting to embroider, you can see the rest of the Solar Fast pieces here.

This is my progress so far. 

 The color of the piece is more like the 1st picture.  I took this one in the dark!  The piece is backed with some batting so I'll have to think about how/where I'm adding borders to the piece.  I want it a tad larger.  Hmmmmm  I might resort to the QAYG method by Marianne.  I love her method and think it will or should! work for what I want to do.  Who knows!

My wrists have been killing me lately so the hand embroidery is a good switch from beading.  I started to wear a brace while I bead or embroider, which is helping.  I've also found it helps just to wear the brace while I'm doing laundry or working around the house.  You just have to remember not to wash your hands while it's on!  UGH...doesn't feel so good as it's drying!