Paper and Threads

While I was at the Houston Quilt Festival, I spent a wonderful afternoon with Raena, one of the EDM members who lives in Houston.   We've exchanged comments on our blog entries, but never met in person, so this was a great place to sketch together.  We each selected one of the dolls from the exhibit to sketch and then sat and talked and painted for the remaining time before she had to leave.  Here is my doll sketch.

And here are Raena and I - photographed by an anonymous Quilt Festival attendee who surprised us by actually having read Danny Gregory's book Everyday Matters.

Posted by Shirley at 8:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

Four really scarey-looking "almost one continuous line" drawings of a face.  In spite of watching Picasso do this on a brilliant DVD, I have trouble figuring out how to draw all parts of a face without lifting my pen. 

Many of my artist friends love drawing with a Pentel Pocket Brush Pen.  I have trouble controlling it, but in addition, it is not water-resistant on the Fabriano Artistico 140 lb soft press paper that I bind in my watercolor journals. 

So today I decided to test it in the Strathmore Visual Journals.  You can see all of the other tests I've done in these journals by clicking on the Strathmore category on the right sidebar.  The paper used on the bottom right was watercolor 90lb, but I lost the label while cropping.

I quickly sketched each face, waited no more than 10 minutes, and then added the watercolor wash.  The ink did not leak through any of the pages, and it was water-resistant on all of them.

These papers feel different to the touch, but I can't really tell any difference in how they handle the ink or the paint.

Posted by Shirley at 7:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I'm off to The International Quilt Festival in Houston, but wanted to post my last quilt journal page before departing.  They were photographed quickly as they hang on my apartment-sized design wall - a little crooked.

This page was created with the thermafax screens that I made last month and thickened procion MX dyes.  I loved the technique!  The image of the models was a green dye print and then I free-motion stitched it in black.  All of the other stuff in the background was printed from other screens. 

Here are the first 6 all hanging together.  I will definitely go back to do a little more quilting, but I'm trying to keep the creative momentum going.  I have at least 4 more ways that I want to try to transfer images of the model to fabric.

I have a blog post comparing Pentel Pocket Brush Pen and watercolor washes in the Strathmore Visual Journals that will be automatically uploaded while I'm gone.  I didn't think my husband would step-in to post it!  But I won't be able to moderate comments until I return on Sunday. 

Posted by Shirley at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)