About a year ago, I took a workshop with Jane Dunnewold on Complex Cloth. We painted, dyed, stamped, stencilled and just plain messed with fabric. One of the pieces I came home with was the start of Wild and Precious based on Mary Oliver's wonderful words "How then will you live your one wild and precious life? I began by painting the fabric with transparent paints from Pro Chem. Once dry, I used blue glue to write the words, let it dry again, then covered it with a flour paste and let that dry. After crumbling it up and breaking the flour paste surface, I painted it with black paint and let it dry. This is what I came home with and taped to the wall.
For a long time, I touched it as I passed by and did nothing else to it. Now with the ACC show in the future, I took it down and began. The first thing was to better define the letters. I got out a favorite brush made by my friend Keith and gold fabric ink and filled in the shapes.
That sorta worked, but not enough. So, I used white opaque fabric paint and that wonderful brush again and got ...
Now I liked the words. "Imagine" had been added using a stencil with matte medium and white gold leaf. Now it was time for borders. Version one ...
Ouch, those blocks have taken over the piece. So, I ripped that off and got new borders. Fast forward to the end, I used a few different free motion designs to quilt it and VOILA, the end piece ...
And just a close-up of those important words ...
The final size is about 19" x 29". I like it. It seems to work. The best thing is that I finished it in less than a week. Working on small pieces is new for me, but I plan to do more.
Thanks for reading through this one. Enjoy the sunshine. Karen
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