Here's another art quilt for my 'Stairway to Heaven'. I've enjoyed all of the twelve challenges during the year and seeing every one's interpretation of our themes. It's stretched me to try new techniques and mediums. I'm eager to see all of our artwork hung in the gallery. A whole year's work and it's hard to believe it's ending. Thanks to everyone and especially Tracie Lyn and Jan for keeping us on track.
A mandala represented a creative process for me to use for the elements challenge. I posted to my blog the techniques used to make this piece. 
I enjoyed our "seasons" challenge. The seasons remind me of life cycles. Mine represents a variety of seasonal euphorbia. I discovered this plant last year and began taking photos. I didn't realize that poinsettia also belong in the euphorbia family. The outer edges are stenciled- an inspiration from Mary Ann's online class. I used Photo Shop to arrange and alter my photos.
I used Alma Cox's telamadera fusion technique to make this piece. She was a featured artist on Oregon Art Beat in February. Her work inspired me to do a piece on wood with burnt-in lines of my sketch, acyclic paint and fused fabric. In Spanish, tela is fabric and madera is wood. She also wrote an article about her process in CPS March/April 2008. I see she is teaching at Art & Soul in Portland this year. I left the mountain and sky painted without fabric and burnt into the wood the fir trees. It's a fun process.
Here's a close up fo the reef from a side view.
I enjoyed seeing Andrew at Teesha's PLAY retreat in Port Townsend last weekend. He made some incredible journals. I finally finished by Cabinet of Curiosities. I don't really know why I thought of extinction as a theme for this. It makes me think of life cycles and what survives or not. I drew and water colored the images and used a shadow box that Z'anne gave to me for the cabinet structure.
Happy New Year everyone! I've been working on this piece for a couple of weeks on and off. I took the quilted pet portrait idea and made the image 3-D. The head is polymer clay with wire fangs and a sequin eye- very mixed media. For the next challenge, I'll be creating with a different medium- not sure what yet. I have enjoyed working with fabric. Hope you are warm and cozy.
With snow on the ground, ice, wind and 25°F, I'm keeping warm and getting caught up on lots of projects. Usually, the squirrels chase one another along the fence or up and down the fir trees. They must be trying to stay warm in their little burrows today. I enjoy working with fabric, needle and thread when it is cold outside. It makes me feel cozy and warm. The inspiration for this piece came from Karin Winter's article about quilted pet portraits in Aug/Sept 2008 Quilting Arts. I have not commented recently on all of your posts. I'm really impressed with what everyone is creating. Now what was December's theme?
We returned from a wonderful trip to Oaxaca, Mexico a couple of weeks ago. We visited weavers and a candle maker in Teotitlán del Valle. The artisans used natural dyes to color their yarns and wax. This process fascinated me. Using different lengths of time in a dye bat varied the color concentration. The color green differed depending if the moss came from the bark of a tree or a rock. For many years, cochineal insects provided the color red. I loved the use of natural resources to make the colors they needed.
For our flora challenge, I layered decorative paper, acylic paint, one of my line drawings and a collaged tissue paper flower. The flower is much brighter and a deeper rose color in person. I like the combination of line drawings and collage. I enjoyed getting to know many of you at Art and Soul.
The texture in this piece is hard to capture with scanner or camera. I bought some plastic insects at Party City and embedded them in plaster of Paris. Then I removed the insects and painted with acylics using some stencils and texture stamps. The large beetle is one of my drawings. I printed it, the scarabs and the word "Entomology" on tissue paper and used matte medium to adhere them to the plaster.
I wanted to portray a group of birds gathered together. I re-sized my images in Photo Shop to get the proportions for an 8x8. Then transferred my drawn images onto an acrylic and ink painted background with collage papers. I painted the birds with acrylics.
