Art Challenge Day Two “The Gift”

I’ve been challenged on FaceBook by Susan Leslie Lumsden to show a piece of my work every day for five days. This is day two and I decided to post it on my blog as this is an old favorite that I want to share.  Titled: “The Gift.” When it was made there were advertisements every Christmas, Mother’s Day, and Valentine’s day for this mixmaster which stated: “Don’t give her just one gift, give her five,” meaning it was a multi-task mixer. Remembering a Christmas when I was newly married, and I didn’t like to cook and didn’t do it well, I received nothing but KITCHEN gifts. What a disappointment. This art piece enshrines the damned thing with a party aporn made of hankies, a shiny metallic halo, and a velvet red roof. Along the bottom are images of a circa 1950’s housewife with her “beloved” mixmaster. Before I forget it, I challenge Ellen Eiford White.

Printing on Fabric

Just when I think I’m getting smarter in PSE, I perform dumb, dumber, and dumbest things.

I’ve printed on fabric many times, but this time nothing goes right. Gets hung up in the printer, smudges of ink on the sides, etc., etc., etc. I had a small piece of hand dyed gray fabric to print on and messed it up.

See the big smudge on the right? And I had no more hand dyed gray. Once I use a hand dyed fabric, a commercial fabric just doesn’t do the job. What to do? Ah-Ha! I turned the above fabric over and scanned it and put it in PSE. Then I scanned my drawing of the trees on tracing paper and put that image into PSE  on a transparent background. Then – moved the trees onto of the scanned gray background and printed it on a paper backed silk purchased from Dharma Trading Co.

The background is a little lighter but I can live with it. And if you look very closely you can see the trees that were on the back.

I also wanted to use an image that I saw on the internet. I asked the photographer for permission but got no answer. So I altered the image by putting my head of “her” body. That wasn’t so hard, but every time I printed the image there was something wrong. Too green, too big, too small, too something, Took nine tries to get it right.

Wish I were really that slim.

A Bee In My Bonnet

Have fiddled with this all Spring. Finally finished. The background is a photo of a poppy printed on fabric. It has been manipulated in Photoshop Elements to mirror both horizontally and vertically. The head is a sheer fabric and small flowers are cut from commercial fabric and fused. Embellished with beads. Can you find the bees?This piece will be entered into the Art Quilt section of the Bloggers Quilt Festival.

Lemons to Lemonade

You’ve heard the old saying:  “When you get lemons, make lemonade” haven’t you? Well, here’s the lemon; an out-of-focus picture of my flower bed. They were ALL out of focus.

And here is the “lemonade” after being manipulated in photoshop.

I think I can do something with this.

Amaryllis Manipulated

Sometimes it’s a push to come up with something new for a blog post once a week. Thought I’d share the amaryllis image of last week, manipulated on Photoshop Elements, this week. ‘Twas fun.

Three Wishes

I think I’ve finally gotten over a creative block. Instead of putting a photo image – blop – onto fabric, I’ve cut into it. Thankyou, Jeanne Williamson. Your book THE UNCOMMON QUILTER turned on the light bulbs. Funny how you know something all along, but you need to have your cage rattled now and then. I asked myself, “What’s so important about having the whole photo present? Cut out the important parts!”

And what happened to the piece with the photo image on fabric? I cut it up into 6″ x 6″ mini quilts and practiced free motion quilting on them. Maybe I can salvage something out of them. If not, lesson learned.