I'm addicted AGAIN to creating patterns with stitch.  I just love the texture and color.
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I guess I'm obsessed.  Here is another piece I finished this week.  More to come!
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Here's another image of my stitching series.  I'm having a wonderful time working with my hands to create these pieces. In this still crazy world we live in today, hand stitching seems to make me calmer.

I have no idea how I will finish them but my mind is working on it.  I decided to machine stitch around the square, just to stabilize the pieces. We'll see where it goes from here. 

I just finished taking an 8 day free course from Louise Fletcher.

This is the second time I took this course and still, learned (or re-learned) a lot.  Louise is a talented artist and an excellent and enthusiastic teacher.  Thousands of people all over the world were enrolled in this free course and it was fun to see everyone's response to the 4 assignments.

For me, the 4th assignment was the best and here is what I worked on today.  

She has lots of videos on YouTube so I encourage you to check them out when you need a little encouragement or some inspiration.
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OK.  After a couple of years hiatus, I'm back to the joy of stitching.

I still love mixed media because it's so fast but slow stitching is more meditative and relaxing.
This piece was created in a mixed media format where I made a design using a glue gun on cardboard, covered a gel plate with acrylic black paint and pressed the "stamp" onto the plate to cover it with paint and then pressed the cardboard onto a white cotton fabric to create the design.  I then used a different acrylic paint to color the background.

I stitched all the black lines with pearl cotton and then added stitches to create the total piece.
If you know me, you know I love making French knots so all of these pieces have a LOT of them.

These pieces are 5 inch squares and I don't know what I will do with them yet.  But making them is very satisfying!
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​Happy stitching!

I spent the day making "stamps" from using a glue gun on stiff cardboard.

I loved the results of this experiment since I couldn't control the glue gun so the prints that resulted were unpredictable and definitely showed the hand of the artist.

I used two Gelli plates for this process.  One used as a "stamp pad"  and one to pull a print from.  I used black acrylic paint for the stamp pad and several transparent acrylic fluid paints for the background.

I will use these prints as a basis for collage.  Try this.  you will have fun!
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I brought my art books, journals, mixed media and watercolor paintings to Three Arrows Gallery this week and here is a photo of my "shelves".  I'm excited to join 45 other artists and makers in this new venture in the RiNo Art District of Denver.  I have been working on making these artist books and paintings for the last two years but have never made them available to the public.  I have no idea if anyone wants to buy my work but I guess we shall see!  Everything is an original and one-of-a-kind.  And affordable!

Opening day is  Friday, May 6, 2022 from 10am-6pm.  If you find yourself in Denver, I hope to see you there.  I'll be attending the opening from 11am-12pm.  The address is 2605 Larimer Street.

Great place to visit for last minute Mother's Day gifts!

I was commissioned to make a large fiber art piece for installation at the new Denver Health building 2 years ago.  Because of Covid restrictions, I haven't seen it hanging on the wall.  But now that these restrictions have been lifted, I will have a chance to see my work in person. (Hopefully, without the plastic covered chairs!)

I had a wonderful time creating these pieces (spanning 12 feet by 3 feet) because I learned so much about the history of Denver.  One of the phrases on these pieces is "hop alley".  A tribute to the Chinatown of Denver before it was destroyed.  Our mayor, Michael Hancock recently apologized for this massacre.

Quilting and fiber art are a wonderful way to explore story-telling.  I am happy to be able to tell my stories using these mediums.

This week, I'm organizing the art books I want to sell in the Three Arrows Gallery, opening in May. This is one of my "junk journals" I'm adding to the inventory.  I usually make several in the same series and will keep one of them in my own collection to remind me what I made.  It is hard to price these artist books since each one takes so many hours to make, not counting how long it took to make all the papers and inserts inside.  

Whatever.  I'm just happy to get them into someone's hands that loves them.  Or gives one as a gift to a special friend.  From my hand to yours.

Many artists try to figure out how other artists create their unique work.

Dan Tirels  made a video demonstrating Andy Warhol's "Blotted Line" technique.  I loved this idea and made several pieces in my studio today.  I am letting them dry overnight before adding color but I thought I would share this with you so you could have some fun this week.

In short, you draw something on paper, attach some tracing paper to it on the left side, then put some "art paper" on the right to receive the ink.  You use a pen and ink to draw over the drawing and flip the tracing paper over to transfer the ink.  

Heck.  Just watch the video.

It's fun and I love the results.