Sunday collage

African Sun

digital collage

Hi,

The photo above concludes my series of yellow collages. My intention was to bring a little bit of sunshine into the winter world that many of you live in. It was fun to make them, it was good to work in this structured manner.

Now the pressure is somewhat off the fiber work, I will return to paper collage for some time. Yesterday I received some books on collage (I love Amazon!) and they are chockful of info, inspiration and techniques.

I also have been thinking of another series, not art this time, but very Caribbean. The name of this series might be: SXM - the other side, more on that tomorrow...

Have a great Sunday,

Regina

Take a chair, have some drink...

After a week of sewing four (!) pants (me), after the usual Saturday chores like e.g. gardening and running all kind of errands (you maybe) have been completed, I invite you to take a chair, have some drink

and

enjoy the sunny side of life...

Chairs

digital collage, clickable

Have a wonderful weekend!

Regina

Habaai

Day 4 in my series of 'sunny' collages, to bring a little spring into the homes and hearts where it is much needed...

Do you remember this picture? I made it when I visited an art gallery on the island of Curacao last October. The venue is an old plantation house, Habaai, that is being restored and the wall you see in this photograph is from one of the buildings on the property. I'm not sure if there is going to be built another floor on top, but as it is now it looks very photogenic to me.

it inspired me to make this digital collage

Habaai

I hope you enjoy your day!

Grtz, Regina

Caribbean woman

digital collage

Since I remember from the time we lived in Europe how one can long for the first signs of spring, and especially because this winter has been long and cold for so many people, I thought to bring into your life a little bit of sunshine. Right from the Caribbean here it is, the 3rd collage of this week that is mainly in yellow:

Caribbean Woman

Her grandfather

digital collage

No. 2 in this week's yellow series,

to cheer you up!

Grtz, Regina

Pueblo

digital collage

This week I am busy sewing clothes. It has been a long time since I have been doing this, but over time I collected some nice linen and batic fabrics and now these are being turned into pants. No fiber art this week, just sewing, learning my Spanish lessons and

reading, lots of reading!

Right now I am reading: Haar naam was Sarah (Sarah's key), author Tatiana de Rosnay. I started yesterday and am half finished by now, it is a fantastic, sad but true story, written in a way that you hardly can stop reading.

I made some sunny collages and decided to show one each day of this week from today on, especially for all folks who live in cold climates and long for spring.

Some collages have similar subjects, some not at all, but they all share the same sunny yellow colour: today it's

Pueblo

Vancouver

digital collage

A quiet Saturday night at home, television programm not attractive. Too early to go asleep, then what to do? Never a problem for me, making a new digital collage! Composed of pictures I made in Vancouver last summer ( e.g. the bridge in the sidebar), from the Vancouver Lookout and one of my latest panels. Actual now, for me, for almost everybody:

Vancouver

Enjoy your Sunday!

Amsterdam

pillows before recycling

Amsterdam

diptych

In this post I wrote about recycling the blue pillows of the first picture.

This is how it turned out!

Why this title I can almost hear you think? Well, they bear the three Andreas crosses of the city logo, there are the famous canals (quilted in the grey blue linen), the multicultural population respresented in the various coloured fabrics, and: you can even see the red light district (which I think every foreigner knows!)

Almost sixty years ago I was born in this city and although our family left it when I was about eleven, it will always have a warm place in my heart!

Thanks for visiting, I wish you a very pleasant weekend,

Regina

Encouraged and aknowledged

These words come in mind when I have to describe the overall idea that is left with me after participating in Art in the Park. There was a big amount of visitors and there more and more artists showing their work, the event is growing and successful. Big compliments for our parttime island lady from Boston that organises this all, thank you Barbara!

These panels were sold the very moment they were hung, what a start! And I felt sorry for the folks that were disappointed when they saw the stickers SOLD.

detail

The weather was fantastic (no rain this year), there was live music and all in all I look back at a very busy day with lots of interested people, surprisingly there were many men too which showed real interest in my art. There might be a few commissions following, I even met two nice ladies that live on the island and want to work with me.

I have been talking with people from Canada, Rhode Island, Colorado, St. Louis and many more places, so at the end of the day I was thinking in English (that being Dutch), I felt like having done a workshop and maybe you recognize the feeling that your head is full with all this new information.
So: back to work now, in the direction that is more clear for me. I feel encouraged and aknowledged by the words of some of the visitors that said (a little stunned!)

this is amazing, this is eh... this is ART!

Thanks for reading!

USE Update (2)

While I am in the day after :-) of Art in the Park, the only thing I did today is (apart from household chores of course) ...

USE

my newly bought sandals as their soles are wonderful (I already discovered in the shop, always on the lookout), my heat gun, and some foam blocks I ordered online last year. Sorry folks, for me no diamonds on the soles of my shoes, though I love that song ...

Encouraged by the lovely people I met yesterday, I looked up the How To I had saved on my computer and gave it a try now, minutes ago, hot from the pr... eh heat gun:

it looks promising to me

but will need a while to cool down!
More tomorrow,

Thanks for visiting,
Regina

Painted quilt

In this post I showed the above quilt. It was too neutral to my taste, lacked a hint of color.

A visiting friend agreed and when both of us took a detailed look at the quilt's fabrics, we came up with this rusty color. And yes, when the bubbles had been emphasized I could not resist to add some bronze acrylic paint too. I like it this way, it can be hung and shown, but I don't think it is for sale because I see it somewhere in my home, sometime...

Thanks for visiting!

Panel quilts

Hi all!

Although I only have shown beginnings of new work and some painted experiments, I have been working hard from the day we returned to the island. I have been sewing, stamping, quilting, measuring, putting on bindings, recyling and USING. Today I have to sew sleeves on the many quilted panels that I have made recently. This is a new quilt format I have been longing to exercise with, to study its possibilities, advantages and of course for balancing everything also disadvantages. In painting you see this size more often and for the triptych I show here, I got the idea from a book on interior designing. I thought: why not try it for a quilt? Why not? And why do I never or hardly see one? Even Googling did not show many results, and then mostly in the traditional or figurative style. Next Sunday is Art in the Park. I look forward to meet art interested people and hope to meet St. Maarteners too, for the last few time merely tourists and people from Europe visited.

To prevent disappointment, I have downscaled my expectations: paintings ? Yes, jewelry? of course, we ladies always dive on these, but fiber? Don't know... On one hand it could be positive that there is no fiber art tradition here, OTOH it might help if someone already has visited museums and/or galleries and recognizes fiber as an art medium. Anyhow, I go for the feedback and if I can inspire only one person to look at fiber in a different way I will be happy!

Circles

Panels 1 and 2

The length of each panel is different. The one to the right is shortest, the second one is one width longer

Circles

Panel 3

This one is the longest. Together they can be hung in (along) a stairway and they will follow the 45% slope of the steps

detail of panel 2

detail of panel 3


idem

Now I have to rush to do my final stitches. Hope to be back here soon.


Have a very good day!
Regina

Sunday collage

New Mexico Sunset

digital collage

Recycling

First: a big thank you for the very positive feedback on my most recent quilt (previous post). Thank you Penny, Gina, La Dolce Vita and Rayna, you made my day!

Today I share what I made in December last, after the first experiment.

Fabric bottom part: an old (but still very good) skirt I have always liked but have not been wearing since ages (see I'm using things? :-). Linen pants are more comfy here. Turned into this wallhanging.

Painted with acrylics and bubbles emphasised with bronze. It is less blue than in this picture.

I love it. It will come with me to Art in the Park.


(p.s. images are clickable)

Enjoy your day!

Regina

Experimenting results

In November last year I have been experimenting with painting the fabrics after the quilt has been finished. If you are new here, more can be seen here and here

This first picture I have shown before. I must say that I liked the quilt already here and really had to stick to my goal, or I would not have dared to do it!

However, it did not meet the image or idea I had in my head, so I started to paint...

Painting such a thing as a finished quilt feels like committing a sin, that is if you do it on a beautiful quilt, o.k. let's say a quilt that has been made for it's own beauty, for the patchwork pattern or the colours of the fabrics, the overall design.

But this experiment was to create a canvas first and then paint. So I put aside my traditional quilters attitude and a wash of very diluted Peynes Grey went on

followed by a Burnt Sienna in the bottom and Neutral Grey in the top part.
Hmmm...mostly an artist's eye is veiled somewhat upon viewing his/her own work, but I had to say that this interim result was downright ugly. Looking up close there were some parts of the quilt that still looked promising (to me!), but at first glance: Bah.
So the quilt has been laying during our holidays, and I have had plenty of time to think about it. Last week a friend of mine visited and I had the courage to show my failure. And while telling about the process and the joy I felt in the former small works and the pleasure how they came out, I decided to give it another try. It was this or throwing the whole thing away, so what was there to loose was the question

This afternoon the moment of truth had come.
After mixing Mars Black and Peynes Grey I started brushing bravely.
Though it is not finished yet (I think) it is getting more in the direction of my goal, you can see that the different fabrics all take the paint in their own way.
The quiltwork consists partly of a cross pattern of bubbles, one in vertical and one in horizontal direction. Maybe I will emphasize these bubbles slightly by painting them neutral of off white.
To be honest I must say that it took quite some courage to show my struggle with this experiment to you. But I know there are many talented and accomplished artists on the Web ,so I really hope to receive some feedback!
Longing to hear from you,

Regina

Evolving...

Playing, randomly placed fabrics

trying to find balance, in the meantime having fun

sewing them into a new panel,
(to be continued)