Prayer for Rain

TUESDAY, MAY 22, 2012

Prayer for Rain

Rain

ATC trade April 2012

My prayer flag for spring continues the rain theme from our April ATC trade. My image of the color "rain" was meant to capture a mood...a change of plans, canceled outings, grey skies, wind and rain striking windows...all part of living in western New York. Gloomy. 

 In contrast, my prayer flag calls for rain in a place that needs the rain badly: California. 

I had some sheer, highly starched cotton which I tore into three pieces to use as three layers. I used  thermofax screens to paint the background blue and added branches on top of that. I stitched some vertical lines adding "drops" of clear glass beads to represent rain.

The branches reminded me of forsythia bushes, one of the early spring bloomers inWestern NY. I added the yellow forsythia flowers with machine stitching and embroidered French knots to look like budding flowers.

Forsythia bushes, detail

I embroidered the word "rain"  and put the three layers together , joining them at the top to form a sleeve to hang the flag. I'm hoping to make more prayer flags soon.

SELF-PORTRAIT PROJECT

The Art House, an art coop out of Brooklyn, NY (www.arthousecoop.com), runs weekly free art projects that anyone can participate in. In order to support these efforts, a self-portrait project was offered. For a small fee, a 4x4 mounted canvas was mailed to entrants on which we were to make a self-portrait. It gets mailed back and goes on display at the Brooklyn Art Library.

I used a piece of screen painted fabric for the background, adding a silhouette made out of a scrap of painted paper. I added various watch faces, gears and spring, bus token and key, meant to represent the wound-to-tight chaos that often occurs in my brain.

TURQUOISE TREE

This month's ATC challenge was  challenging for me.  I can never figure out when/where/why I'll be inspired.  It did prompt me to silk screen a bunch of fabric and go from there.  The background consists of  previously painted fabric  that I cast aside because the green splotches didn't appeal to me. But when I screened over it with turquoise paint, I really liked how it was looking.  Realizing that I  needed something other than the background, I screened branches of a tree and added little turquoise bead "flowers" .  I really need to work on my beading!

RAIN

The March ATC challenge theme, "Rain", was supposed to be about the COLOR of rain. Rain, for me, is more about emotions or moods. I grew up in a place where rain was an unpredictable factor in whether or not your birthday party, picnic, drive, walk in the park, wedding etc. would be possible. It spoiled many outdoor functions; therefore rain was a factor in my emotional state.

I chose to use a photo of a girl looking wistfully out a window and made a transfer out of it using LazerTran mounting it on a piece of an altered magazine page. The backgrounds were all from pages of magazines that I applied washes of CitraSolv, manipulating the pages until I got the effect I wanted.

I wanted to have the background misty with rain casting a gloomy mood on the card. Now I live in No. California where it used to rain on and off for a few months in the winter, and NEVER rain in the spring and summer. You could plan an outdoor event and be 99% sure it wouldn't get rained on. My feelings about rain have changed and I really enjoy what rain we get. Lately, however, we haven't gotten enough rain to prevent semi-draught conditions.

Twist of Lime

LIME is the theme for the Arts in the Cards for March. I decided to try some needle felting using my friend Liz's felting machine. Using purple wool felt for the base, I dug up some trim that I thought looked like lime, but is probably chartreuse in a good light. Oh, well, didn't realize this until I started getting "lime" ATCs from other members. I wasn't about to start all over again, so I guess I should title them "Twist of Chartreuse". Using the felting machine sure was fun, but I ended up breaking three of the needles, then lost a tiny screw, rendering the machine useless until fixed. Sorry, Liz! I added some sequins and beads.

ATCReVisited: St. Winifred

It's exciting to be a part of the ATC ReVisioned group. Early on in my art journey, I took an oil painting class. When I was needing help with part of my painting, the instructor drew a sketch on a piece of paper to demonstrate something, and when he was done, he signed the scrap of paper and put it in his pocket.When I looked at him puzzled, he told me to always sign my work and NEVER throw away any art I made.Although I don't sign doodles, I always save art work that I have done, even the most awful stuff. I was especially interested in going back to some of my older pieces that were stored away that I wasn't sure of, didn't like, hated, or just plain didn't care about and turn them intosomething else.

I found a 5x8 piece that I intended to donate as part of a fundraiser for cancer but decided it was too personal as it includes a picture of my mother as a young woman in her brand new nursing uniform. The photos and written material were transferred onto white muslin using a

gel medium. This was mounted on a piece of upholstery fabric. I added buttons that looked like eyeballs to the corners. "St. Winifred" was put away for "later".

For ATCR (revisited) I decided to mount the 5x8 collage on another piece of decorator fabric, a pale green with scattered wispy brown branches . It looked kind of blah, however, so I decided to repeat some of the black of the ambulance guys on the 5x8. After trying several methods, I ended up using black Versatex screen printing paint, scraping it over the stencil like I was silk screening. This provided me with the dark black that I wanted.

The 5x8 collage was placed so the stenciled clock looked like a halo over my mother's photo. I added black binding for more contrast.Not sure I like that, however. It has been fun revisiting some old work and I am looking forward to working on the next piece!

February ATC

The Arts in the Cards ATC trade theme for the month of February is RED. The trades that I received were just grea , which always inspires me to want to do something "different" and as interesting as those ATCs coming to me. After days of anguishing over what to do, and many attempts, I ended up doing a traditional Valentine.

For the background I used bright red silk tie remnants with a diagonal pattern. I found a wonderful paper flower template that I was going to use as a stencil, but decided to use the template as part of the design. Beading was added to some flowers.

TWO

ART'S IN THE CARDS celebrates two years so the theme for January is "Two". I've not been part of the ATC group for two years

but I have enjoyed every month I have participated.

This card is kind of simple: painted wash for background and

stamps in foreground. Being an artist can be isolating. Working together on an art project we become a group of friends that share ideas, techniques, inspirations and challenges.