Surface Design Essentials

I'm so excited to show you a sneak peak of my newest book. Surface Design Essentials will hit the stores in January 2010!



A smaller format book with a covered spiral binding, Surface Design Essentials explores the use of acrylic paints, mediums, acrylic inks and water soluble pencils on fabric and some unusual, mixed-media surfaces. In addition to the 15 techniques covered, there are 7 projects to help you get started playing and creating. I think it will be a handy reference tool for any artist working with paints, inks and mediums.

Some of my very favorite artists generously contributed work for the gallery section of the book. You're going to love to see what they've created!

Judy Coates Perez
Virginia Spiegel
Terry Grant
Jane LaFazio
Natalya Aikens
Elin Waterston
and Lynn Koolish

The book will be available in bookstores and quilt stores worldwide in mid-January. If you'd like to order an autographed copy, please contact me.

Paired with the release of this book will be C&T and Liquitex's new Surface Design Center to quilt shops near you. The Surface Design Center features:

24 Liquitex Soft Body Acrylic colors
4 Liquitex Professional Acrylic Ink colors
Liquitex Fabric Medium
Liquitex Matte Gel Medium
& Winsor & Newton Brushes

I had the great pleasure to be in on the development of this center and it was so much fun to test out the products and give input as to what art quilters and mixed-media artists would find most valuable and useful in it. We debuted the center at Quilt Festival in Houston last month and invited everyone walking by to sit and paint and play with the mediums. We had such a fantastic response!

I'm delighted that it will be much easier for art quilters to find these products in their local quilt stores. I'm equally delighted that this means that more and more people will be experimenting with making art quilts and trying things they haven't yet tried. The Force is strong in those of us who play with paint and we welcome more people to join us!!

AED - creative in other ways

Today I was vending at the Brownstone Quilters Guild show in Allendale NJ and my creativity for the day involved setting up my booth. The show was open for 10 hours today and with the commute back and forth it didn't leave any other time for art. Believe me, it took plenty of creativity to get all that fun stuff in the booth, displayed attractively and appealingly!

AED - more sketching

Another thread sketch awaiting ink. Creative, but quick today...

AED - screenprinting

Why yes, that is a plaster fish head on my kitchen counter.



Today was much more about process than a finished project. I was working on fabric postcards - I snapped this photo just before I screenprinted some insects onto the painted and stamped backgrounds.

And I did pack the car rather creatively in preparation for vending at the Brownstone Quilter's Guild show in Allendale, NJ this weekend.

AED - sketching

When I was in Houston for International Quilt Festival demonstrating in the Open Studios of the Make It University section of the show, I started some thread sketches. I worked on a few of them today.

First I doodle on a sandwich of fabric and thin batting with a sewing machine and black thread to give the impression of a pen and ink drawing.



Then I add a diluted mix of Liquitex liquid acrylic inks to achieve a watercolor paint effect.



I play this weird game where I try to make the thread sketch with one continuous line of stitching - one start, one stop.



Sort of like doing a drawing and not lifting your pencil off the paper.



Since I'm so bad at regular watercolor painting on paper, I'm surprised at how much I like these and how much they look like I wanted them to look.



Okay, except for that one, which needs more pressing...

AED - Day Two

Day two of Art Every Day Month - and no, I won't be putting a number on each of these pieces *big grin*. There just happened to be a postage stamp, the perfect color and size, in my collection that had a 2 on it. Or my subconscious is really pushy...



This one is ATC-sized (2.5" x 3.5") and the base is Strathmore paper with a canvas texture. You won't believe the HUGE mess I made making this tiny thing! My studio is such a disaster right now that I've been reduced to putting a cutting mat on the floor and slicing and dicing on my hands and knees. And my camera got lost less than five minutes after I set it down and took me fifteen to find again. Ugh. I need a couple of days to devote to sorting and cleaning and organizing. Maybe next week...

Art Every Day Kick-off

I've been struggling lately trying to chisel out enough time for art. Almost everything I've made for the last yearish has been for a Purpose - for a book, magazine, class or some other obligation. I heard about the Art Every Day Month project on Twitter from Fi Bowman and immediately signed up. The "rules" are very loose and, in keeping with that, I'm not adding anything to it. As long as I've created something every day in November, I'm good. Some days it could be an interesting photograph, some days it might be a small collage, who knows? I'm open to anything and happy to be creating.



Today's entry is a 1.5" square collage on illustration board with fabric, paper, watch gears, stamping, and painting. Whee! Art for no reason at all. Fun!

PS: I used a scrap of newspaper from India in the collage. If anyone knows what it says, please let me know!