Painting the Apron

Last year I painted an apron to submit to the Cloth Paper Scissors Magazine for the Mixed Media Apron Reader Challenge.  It was selected as a finalist, and I was really thrilled to see it in the July/August 2016 issue.

      

The apron was created in layers with fabric paints and my own designed stencils and masks.  Below are some pictures of the process and some details.  Please let me know if you have any questions.

The background was created with stencils over a round Tyvek stencil with a sponge.  The idea was to cover the background with interesting shapes and different colors.  I think I got a bit carried away with the colors :)

Using leaf and flower stencils and masks, I added a watery layer over the background.  I held the flower masks in place, and pounced with the sponge around it.  The leaves were done with the stencil first (painting the inside), then a mask over it, to get the shapes inside the leaves.

The leaf and flower shapes were outlined with a fabric pen.

Next the shapes (from the first layer) were now outlined inside the flowers.  Shadows were added to the flower shapes to make them stand out a bit more.

Some of the background shapes were still too strong and competing with the foreground, so they got a layer of white dots through sequin waste.

Finished!  Added some doodling to some of the leaf shapes, and put it away so I wouldn't keep messing with it :)

While it was gone, I started another apron and a tea towel with some of what I had learned.  I got Textile paint and decided to go with greens and blues.  Below you will see the first step and the finished pieces.

Challenge #269, Magazine Publishing and Tessellated Fish

Challenge #269

The Diva's challenge this week (here) was to try out the newly released tangle Ellish.  You can find the step outs for Ellish here in the Zentangle Newsletter.

You are seeing my very first attempt at this one, and for some reason I really do not like the tile, but decided to post it anyway.  This proves that sometimes you really need to practice to get something right :)

Magazine Publishing

I love Cloth Paper Scissors and have had a subscription ever since my niece gave me a 1-year subscription many years ago.  If you don't know the magazine, there is a challenge in every issue and once in a while it grabs me, and I have to participate (and hope my submission gets published).  No matter what, I always learn lots when creating my submissions, so even if they don't end up getting accepted, I had fun :) 

This one was to design and cut a stencil and submit a 6x6 in work made with the stencil.  My piece showed up in the latest magazine - May June issue, and I was thrilled to see it.  This is the piece (below) and if you have a copy, it is on page 88.

This is the dirty stencil after creating the piece.
I even lost a little piece of it (top center flower)!

And here is the piece I created with the stencil, molding paste, watercolors, ink, colored pencils, acrylics, and who knows what else!

I also submitted an apron for the next issue, so we will see if that one will make it as well :).

Tessellated Fish

Escher's tessellations are incredible, I love them and find them very inspiring.  Mine are completely amateurish, but I don't care... I love creating them and it is always a huge challenge to make them fit perfectly, especially when you want to make it a repeat pattern.

My latest try was with the fish I hand-carved (here), but I wanted to make them a little rounder and lighter, so I fiddled with them, the design and size until I got to this:

Tessellated Fish repeat pattern painted
with watercolors in blue tones

After making the repeat pattern, I tried it on the VIDA scarves, and loved how they looked - actually was very surprised :)  Here is one:

Cool, don't you think?