Building Confidence

As mentioned a few weeks back, I've been working in The Art Quilt Workbook by Jane Davila & Elin Waterston. Finally, I finished the first assignment -- not without some changes to the instructions, chiefly that I am not conforming to the suggested 9 x 12 inch format. I just don't want to! Anyhow, my theme for the series is shibori discharged fabrics and here's my first piece...

I'm really happy with this piece. All the fabric is hand discharged, except the backing/border, which is handwoven Guatamalan fabric. I spent a few afternoons this week teaching myself how to free-motion quilt, and I used that technique throughout this little quilt. I've discovered that free-motion quilting on discharged fabric is very cool!

The next assignment is to design a quilt using digital imagery of some sort -- either an image printed on fabric, or inspiration from an image translated onto fabric. Last night I printed a few recent images on fabric, using my new and very-well-loved Canon Pixma MP530 AIO printer. Digital images on fabric should really be done with pigment inks (rather than dye-based inks like my printer uses), so I'll treat the printed image with a fixative that will render the colors to withstand UV light. I have a few pieces of fabric downstairs drying, that I treated this morning with one of the Golden Gel media, that should do the same thing as the fixative. When that fabric is dry, I'll print it. I'm really delighted that the color images I'm getting with my Canon are so spectacular.

I'll probably lose a few friends, here, but I intensely dislike Epson, despite the fact that so many artists use Epson printers in their work. With my Canon, there's no need to tinker with the color settings -- what I see on my computer screen is exactly what came out of the printer on fabric. The Epson I had and recently junked had to be messed with 'til the cows come home to get the colors right. And that was the least of its problems. Anyway, that's another story.

I'm having a very enjoyable time with my new daily rituals/practices. I recently started doing sketchbook collages every day, first thing in the morning. And I recently got back into morning meditation -- something I did regularly for a couple of years before letting it go a few months back. Something else I'm planning on is a practice of making weekly quilts, inspired by artist Jeanne Williamson.

I really like the idea of making a lot of art, just doing it for the practice. I feel like I've already got next year's chops on!