Well, back in business

 Blogger has been re-organizing its site, but I think I've finally figured out how to use it again.  After a long drought, the studio is again busy.  The "fish" piece that started with an EPP'd background is finally finished.  It was started in March and has been sitting on the design wall ever since, but a flurry of activity got it done about a week ago.  I quickly learned that my FMQ'g has suffered over the past  few years, through neglect, and I really need to re- train myself to use it.  I've always taught my students that the only way to get good at it is through practice, practice practice.  Too bad I forgot that lesson myself.

 

The next piece has been pieced,  and sandwiched.  Yesterday I had  to go out to find a new can of spray baste, and today I hope to get down to quilting it.  This one too, requires FMQ'g within the area of the ferns, but the rest will just be matchstick quilting done vertically.  I'm pretty sure that it will be trimmed a little narrower on each side before it gets bound.  Since I haven't yet actually sprayed it, I didn't want to move it to take the picture, so you see it on the table .

The ferns were sun printed last spring, but since the fabric was painted not dyed, I had trouble matching the colour for fabric to use
for  piecing.  This impacted greatly on how I designed the piece, so I reverted to a fairly basic strip design.  The area  of the ferns will be FMQ'd, probably with a background in micro-stippling, done with 100 wt Kimono silk.  the rest of it will just be matchstick with matching grey cotton.

Finally back to the sketchbook

 Finally I've found the time to get back to my sketch books.  Firstly I tried a another collage, this time wanting to create something that I could use to practice using an acrylic glazing technique.  I don't think I quite made it, but here it is, such as it is.  I still haven't added the acrylic glaze, but I don't think a paler colour will add much to the finished look.

This is an older piece that I added some smaller circles to.  I believe they add to the design.  The darker corners have also been added.  They are from the same collaged painted paper towel as the larger area at the middle of the bottom.

Then I played a bit with a couple of the Thermofax screens I bought from Brandy Mazlowski.  The backgrounds had been painted some time ago.  I'm much happier with the second picture, but still feel that something is missing.  I'll go back to it again later.

Then I started dealing with some of the flowers and leaves that I've had in my flower press for the last few weeks.  The first picture shows some Alberta Roses that have bee firmly glued down with gel medium, but I have no idea what the flowers in the middle one are.  All of these pages require more work, but I have to wait until the gel medium dries before tackling that.

Finally, this is also natural leaves dried and glued down with gel medium, but I've been able to do a little more with the pages.  Firstly I used a Thremofax screen and gold Lumiere paint to put down the fainter image.  Them I made the stems with Inktense pencil and wet it, so that the gel medium wouldn't liquify it.  The leaves are from the mature American Elm that towers over my house and yard.  At one point they were a gorgeous gold colour, something that rarely occurs.  So I dried them hoping that the colour would remain true, but, of course, it didn't.  These, too, were glued down with gel medium.  Once that was dry I used a little gold oil pastel in the corners of the border, and then a mixture of  acrylic glazing medium and  Quinacridone Gold fluid acrylic, to add a little colour to the background.  I don't think it shows well in the picture. Again I'm not sure whether this needs a little more or not.  I'll have to think about it.