Art Quilt Portfolio: People and Portraits

I received a fascinating new book in the mail! Martha Sielman has hit it out of the ball park again with this next book in the Portfolio series. Many of the artists I am familiar with and many I became acquainted with in this volume. Twenty-one specific artists are given feature status, endowing the viewer with a perspective of their work in six-page spreads. Other artists’ works are sprinkled throughout, amply adding to this comprehensive look at current work featuring people and portraits in the textile art world . Each of the featured artists’ work is accompanied by a rich narrative of what makes them who they are and how they arrive at their finished works.

Enjoy Bodil Gardener’s work with her playful, exaggerated characters. So much fun!

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Collette Berends uses a very painterly effect in her work.

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I adore the quirkiness and simplified forms of Yoshiko Kurihara. I especially like Morning Breeze.

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Morning Breeze

Mary Pal’s amazing works using simple cheesecloth on black backgrounds portrays details not thought possible by this writer!

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Viola Burley Leak uses highly expressive images. Her works are colorful with lots of movement. The use of black gives weight to her use of brilliant colors.

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The cartoons of Pam RuBert entertain, as always. She is probably the most humorous textile artist I know.

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St. Louis…Wish You Were Hair

Kathy Nida is provocative, daring the viewer to be offended by her raw depictions of women in various social situations.

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United

Jenny Bowkers, depicting her middle east travels has work included in this volume. Olga Norris with her faceless figures, and Lora Rocke, Joan Sowada, and Maria Elkins, all with the most breathtaking realism, are in the Portfolio. The painted work of Inge Mardal and Steen Hougs is here.

Sielman has gifted us with another stunning compilation of art in textiles. Purchase here.

A Tale of Two Lambs

I am finally posting on my long-neglected blog. Life has been wayyyy too busy! I am busy working at the paper, the holidays came and went during which time I was taking an InDesign class so I could learn to do layout for work, and at the same time, I was working with my illustrator, Jaime Brannon Haney, putting this book together.

It is our first children’s book, A Tale of Two Lambs. The book was timed to come out before Easter as it is created around the Easter story. You can order copies at https://www.createspace.com/4144683 or  pay through Paypal to my email address at kathy@katherinesands.com and I will ship it out! The book is $10.95 plus $3.00 tax and shipping when you order from me.

A Tale of Two Lambs

Sketchbook Cover

Got a collage going that just isn’t working for ya’?  Make a sketchbook cover out of it!  I haven’t been sketching much lately, but my sketchbook got a new jacket today.

Visual Journal-ing

I got the idea to decorate the front of my visual journal from someone else who is doing the online workshop at Strathmore.  Of course, I couldn’t just do it with paper…I had to use some cloth too…this cloth is rusted cloth and the rest is paper. I really loved her color scheme of browns, tans and red, so I worked off of that also.

Now as to what is inside…I have yet to finish Week #3’s instructions and Week #4 is where we are now.  I will get it finished this week!  And post it then.  As for the Sketchbook Project I signed up…I have gotten as far as collaging some newsprint to the page.  My plan is to do a sketch over that and then paint it.  This has been percolating for some time…and January is almost over.  A new theme will be announced for February. January has been a busy month, but I almost have my tax paperwork finished and will get it to the cpa early for once!

Life In August

I’m such a slacker on this blog!  I really didn’t have much of anything interesting to report.  I have been getting ready to teach and vend, so have not been making any art, that’s for sure.  I have some new products to sell and the class I taught last weekend was machine quilting.  What’s there to say about that?

I do have a sample that I quilted with my Featherweight machine.  That might be interesting to see.

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A complaint I have about stitching this way on the Featherweight, and it may be a problem unique only to mine and not to other machines, is that when the needle goes down in the hole a second time, a pretty noticeable knot appears (at least with black thread on white cloth).  But I made the sample to show my class that it is possible to do this on a Featherweight.

I love Kathy Sandbach’s books on machine quilting.  The one I used for the class was Show Me How To Machine Quilt.  She has developed a method of creating unique continuous line designs in stitch for quilts with diagrams showing how to start and continue. It’s a great book especially if you are looking to go beyond stippling and other filler designs. I have some left over from the class.  They are $16.95 plus shipping.  They are not up on the website yet.

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Another piece of news:  I now have Rayna Gillman’s book for sale on my website!  See here.

Rayna's book

Well, I guess that’s all for today…hopefully it won’t be so long between posts this time!

Seeing…Where It All Begins

I have been reading Betty Edwards’ book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, as I have mentioned in previous posts. She says that learning to draw is not so much about drawing, but about seeing. She writes extensively about how to turn off the left brain dominance and make a shift to the right brain creative mode. The exercises in the book are there to help make this happen. I find it interesting how one can start to “see” things even when they are not expecting it.

For instance, my husband and I made a trip home for the 4th of July. I was talking on the phone when he pulled into the parking lot of the Dairy Queen in McLeansboro. I thought he had to use the restroom and he never said anything to me as he exited the car. While I was waiting, I began to “see” the side of a building in front of me. I think my mind made the shift to the right brain. Wow! There were some awesome markings. I got my camera out and started snapping pictures. I found watermarks and pitmarks on the building. I just kept shooting anything I thought I might find interesting, because you just never know.

Here are the markings that caught my attention:

This building with the blue doors also intrigued me, so I took a few pics of it too.

I think it’s time to get a new Thermofax screen order ready. I am loving buildings.

For most of my adult life, I have been a bit of a photography bug. Perhaps that’s why I went to x-ray school…to take pictures! But I’ve traded all that in now for a more artistic and interesting picture-taking experience. I love my digital camera.

Tuesday This ‘N That…

The holiday is over.  I didn’t get to do my usual ritual since we left town to go visit with families.  My usual 4th of July celebration consists of reading an old American history book and remembering the sacrifices of those who rebelled against an oppressive government, so that a new way of life, a new freedom of expression and of living, could be established in our country, the United States.  I marvel at their bravery and wonder, if called upon, could I do the same?  Considering the history of our country is something I feel I need to do at least once a year, and usually my husband is working on the holiday, so that affords me the time to do it.

But this year we went home, since my sister was coming in from Texas.  We spent a day with his family and a day with mine before driving home on Saturday evening.  I took some things to work on and think about and my sketchbook, in case there were any idle moments.  I have been reading the book by Betty Edwards, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain and had not really tried any of the exercises yet.  So, on Friday night, I set my mother-in-law’s salt and pepper shakers in front of me and proceeded to do some almost blind  contour drawing.  I  see the possibilities of using these drawings for abstract work.  I highly recommend this book.

Today I have been outside in my “wet studio” (patio) screening and stamping silk scarves with dye paint for a different look.  I am planning and looking forward to a productive week!

New Reading Material…

I ordered some back issues of the Surface Design Journal.  Yummmmmm………  They arrived very quickly.  You can order back issues here.

New Books…

I’ve been reading! A few weeks ago I ordered some new art books. Art Against the Odds, From Slave Quilts to Prison Paintings by Susan Goldman Rubin is an interesting short study (actually I think it’s a children’s book) of the work of artists in concentrations camps and the Japanese internment camps in WWII, quilts made by slaves, and art made by patients battling mental illness. It is very interesting. I also purchased Betty Edwards’ Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, so far quite stimulating. In her book, she mentions another book called The Right Way to Draw by Kimon Nicolaides, which I also happened to order at the same time. I haven’t read it yet. Yesterday I was at the dentist’s office with Betty’s book while I was waiting. I was reading her description of what happens when the right brain is dominant and the left brain is turned off…wow, that’s exactly what it’s like in what I call “the zone”! I know you all know what that is!