finals sneak peak

I know I havent been around on my blog much lately but Ive been working hard on my finals. My fingers are pricked from all the hand quilting and burned from working with encaustic wax but Im pushing through! Here are some of the things Ive been doing that I would love some feedback on. These are 4 x 7″ encaustic on wood.

 

 

 

 

The stacked circles in these pieces represent the spine and I am using collage elements with the wax in some of them.

 

This last piece was made with layered fabric and then I poured hot wax over the surface. I dont think this is very successful and the wax is way too thick. I think when I use collage elements and fabric I should use thinner layers of wax.

I made a small trapunto sample to lay this little bird on that my friend Andrea found for me. Im hoping as it decomposes it will leave an imprint on the fabric. Ive tried this before but the neighbors dog got to it. We’ll see what happens, its getting cold outside and there arent any insects interested in it yet, but it is such a beautiful little bird, poor thing.

Ive finally finished the hand quilting on the travel quilt. I may do more but for now its ok. The blue lines on the yellow fabric will disappear when it is washed and you will only see texture. I cant wait to finish the binding and sew on the buttons!

This quarter has been a little different for me because I allowed myself to make functional things without thinking too much about concept. I think I am a conceptual girl at heart because as much as I liked designing the quilts and pillows, I think I need more ideas behind it. I would love to make functional fine art pieces so I am thinking about how that would look and will start experimenting with that soon.

Even though the quarter is ending this week, I dont really think of it as a stopping period. I am still thinking of new ideas to experiment with and will continue to work over the break (most of it may be knitting though!) It’ll be nice to have a long break this time, but then I leave Jan 2nd for Paris to spend a week before going to LaCoste! I had my orientation last Friday and I am so excited! It is a mixture of emotions though because no matter how excited I am, I know I will miss Chris and Sawyer terribly, I just have to remember that 2 months will go by very quickly and I dont want to lose focus.

I hope you are all doing well and enjoying this beautiful Fall weather! We’re a little late in GA but its finally here!

quilting and encaustic weekend

Hello darlings! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! I had a productive weekend working on a new quilt and experimenting with encaustic- the process of painting with hot wax.

Here is how I started with the quilt:

I pieced 1.5 x 3.5″ strips together. My idea for this is that it would look like a running stitch of color.

The piecing took way longer than I expected! I even cut the white strips in between so that I could piece those together as well. This whole strip will be placed about 3/4 of the way towards the bottom of the quilt and the rest will be white.

I love the way the piecing looks on just the white strips and Im planning on piecing the rest of the white areas also to break things up a little.

I have been wanting to try encaustic for almost 2 years now. Last weekend SCAD had an art supply expo and Enkaustikos, an encaustic supplier, was there and showed me what materials to use and how to use them.

Encaustic on wood.

Paper, razor blades, encaustic on wood.

Encaustic, bird bones, feathers, wire on wood.

I love the texture of the wax. I am going to keep experimenting with collage elements and wax. I’d love to hear what you think about the progress of the quilt and the encaustic work!