For Your Inspiration: Crows

Studio Ariegaw

Moonflight by Linda Kemshall

lines - letters - layers

ingrid art studio

Middleburg Folk Art Studio

Blue Fingers Studios

Artist Spotlight part 3: Canvas Remix GIVEAWAY!

Do you remember way back at the beginning of the month when I promised you more about the wonderful artists Alisa Burke? I hope you have been following her adventures on her blog - she is fresh and creative and her photography and whimsical nature lifts my soul.

Today I'd like to introduce you to two of her wonderful creations - a book titled Canvas Remix and her on-line classes.

Canvas Remix is a delightful primer on how to create a number of projects with Alisa's signature layered graffiti and messy paint on canvas style. I absolutely love the way she uses canvas with abandon as a beginning for her art, rather than the end in itself. She begins the book with a great cheerleading "you can do it!" essay then digs right into the nitty gritty of how to apply the paint to the canvas. The pictures are easy to follow for those of us who seem unable to pay attention long enough to follow written instructions. The written instructions are also well done and clearly explained.

But that is just the beginning! With Alisa, a painted canvas is not a sacred thing. She's not afraid to rip, layer, encrust, sew, and restructure her paintings into many a delightful object d'Art! She shows you how to create magnets, cards, monsters, and memoirs. She'll lead you through the construction of art to wear jewelry, totes, and show you how to create boxes, pillows and tapestries.

My two favorites are the MESSY MONSTERS and the BITS and PIECES ORNAMENTS.

From now until Friday, if you leave a comment on this post or the first Artist Spotlight I wrote to introduce you to Alisa, you will have a chance to WIN a copy of this deliciously charming book. 

Now, I had the great pleasure of taking a couple of Alisa's on-line workshops. I'm always curious about how other people run their on-line courses in comparison to how things work over at QuiltUniversity.com where I teach. There things are structured and follow a simple format that hasn't changed in a long time. It's easy to follow and use. (Can you tell I like it?)

Guess what? I LOVED the way Alisa has things set up. She has great introductions to her work on her website so that you can clearly see what you will be learning in class. You can register any time and then have access to the course materials for pretty much as long as you need it. Unless it is a brand new course, in which she gives you one set of lessons per week, you have access to the entire course immediately through a password protected blog. You cannot download the videos or material but there is no need to - you can see it any time.

boards are collaged and paint is applied

This is the part I love - the lessons are written out, but the main teaching method is a long, long, list of video clips where you can SEE exactly how she does what she does. The prices are reasonable and I feel you get a plethora of information for what you pay. I took a class called Graffiti Chic. It did cover some of the same basics as her book but because of the video format I felt it was able to delve more deeply into the subject matter. It teaches you some of the same basics of applying paint to canvas. And knowing me, who chooses not to follow instructions too closely, I immediately pulled out artists boards instead.

words are written

Yes I'm a textile artist but there are times when I long for the almost instant gratification of applying paint to a surface and seeing a thing bloom into being in a fast and furious fraction of the time it takes to meditatively hand stitch my usual work. (boy am I into run-on sentences this morning or what!?) Anyway - Alisa gives you the feeling of permissive freedom to experiment with absolutely anything.

hand carved stamps and drippy paint were my next layer of choice

Alisa is so enthusiastic in her videos that it encourages you to simply play and experiment. My favorite thing to do. With paint, the fun thing is that you can just cover it up with yet another layer of paint if you don't like exactly how things are turning out.

a toothbrush adds a splattering of black paint

So the fun thing about this project is - that this is just the background. You can keep going as far as you'd like to go. Alisa teaches you how to adhere embellishments to your painting, how to write graffiti letters, how to add photographs, etc. I've set this project aside for the moment as I ruminate on where to go next. I'm thinking of adding photographs of my ancestors and some vintage lace bits I have laying about. You can see that compared to Alisa's work mine is monochromatic and practically subdued - but that's one of the fun things. I don't have to make my work look just like hers to learn these techniques. You can keep your own voice and learn from other artists. 

So - I encourage you to head over to Alisa Burke's site to check out the classes she has to offer. Perhaps stop by her blog to follow her many creative adventures. Be sure to leave a comment here for a chance to win a copy of Canvas Remixa. Please do check back on Friday to see if you've won - or make sure that I have a way to contact you.

Quilting Arts FREE e-book

Over at QuiltingArts.com - an art quilter's social networking resource, they put out a free e-book every few months or so. This month's book features an article of mine titled: Picture It Framed along with a number of other great articles on the subject of finishing your textile art.

It's free, easy to download, and as with all of QA's stuff - looks great. I love their graphic design team - talented folks over there. So pop on over and pick it up at http://quiltingarts.com/media/p/17544.aspx. I do believe you need to register on the site to have access.

I also have more picture tutorials on mounting and framing methods over on my website: 

http://www.lyrickinard.com/tutorials.html

What a Day

Teaching can really wear a person out. Bonnie McCaffery (who teaches beginners to make amazing painted portraits on fabric) is taking a break waiting, and waiting, and waiting to see if our plane would take off. Remember those tornadoes in the middle of the country a week ago? They really messed up air travel. Our plane was delayed for a good two hours. Esterita Austin (one of my favorite artists!!!) was so stressed out by her teaching schedule (she had another gig in Vancouver, B.C. to get to) that she immediately aged forty years - thus the wheel chair. No. Just kidding - it was just a comfy place to sit.

No worries. We, and the whole rest of the crowd, were well entertained by Australian Quilt Artist (last year's Best of Show winner in Paducah and teaching there for the first time this year) Mariya Waters and her sweetheart of a husband. Yes, things get silly after three hours waiting for a plane.

Then they asked for four passengers to voluntarily give up their seats to they could take on extra fuel. That didn't sound good. I was imagining myself circling for hours over Chicago and missing my late flight out to Raleigh. Stuck in the airport overnight isn't fun. A quick call to hubby (who is the lucky recipient of the free ticket) and I happily gave up my seat. Melinda Bula (another fantastic teacher) and a couple students joined me. I really think that between Melinda and I and our five thousand pounds of teacher luggage that we could have counted for all four. I think Bonnie and Esterita were very happy it wasn't them.

I've gotta say how much I love tiny little puddle jumper airports. They usually have a staff of three and a half and every one of them earns their salary about three times over. Our ticket-taker/gate-agent/all-around-make-everything-work girl took great care of us. She found a hotel, arranged for a hotel, got meal vouchers and generally went well above and beyond the call of duty. We got back to the hotel, had a nice dinner, and I got a good nights sleep for the first time in a week.

Next morning? Sleeping in. Aaaaaaah. Then lounging in pajamas and playing on my computer. That never happens at home. Late in the morning our little crew got together and headed into town. Now, Paducah is not a big town. I think they all heave a very big sigh of relief as soon as the quilters leave and happily close up shop for a week to recuperate. That said, this IS the South and people are sooooo nice. We just picked up the phone and they opened right back up just for us.

Helene Davis' studio is a little bit of fabric heaven. Well, actually, a very large bit of fabric heaven. Who wouldn't drool over shelves and shelves of the eye candy that greets you when you walk in the front door. Oh, and all of the day trip photos are courtesy of Melinda Bula. I understand how my daughter feels when we are on a trip and her camera runs out of batteries. I hate it when I forget my camera! Thanks Melinda!!!

Helene is a gracious woman and an amazing artist with an amazing studio. She has prodigious talent in the shibori arena and I left a good chunk of my hard earned cash behind with her. Happily. 

I think our little group would have been blissfully happy if we had stopped right there. But wait. The day gets better. Left to right - Teri from Florida, Melinda from California, Lyric, Karen from Michigan.

For lunch we thought we'd stop at a Tea house I had eaten at earlier in the week. We enjoyed the walk (in the drizzle) into town and sadly discovered that pretty much every place is closed on Mondays. Sigh. As we stood pondering what to do next a group came out the door that had just had a specially catered event. None of us noticed the intrepid Terry (who shall forthwith be called "She Who Gets Things Done!") slipped in and talked the owner into feeding us poor wandering, leftover quilters, some amazingly yummy leftover food. 

SereniTea's building was an Elks Lodge, built during prohibition with a secret door to the booze and gambling den in the basement. The owner of the establishment and her friendly waitress were delightful. When we were done she asked us if we wanted to see upstairs. Oh my. She was just beginning renovations on a ballroom with the most amazing pressed tin ceiling I've ever seen. 

Melinda noticed a funny, little, lone blue lightbulb. 

Hmmmm. 

The stories it could tell.

Once again. We called the day blissful and decided it was a complete success and worth missing a flight. But wait, there's more! Another call, another door unlocked, and we were welcomed into the quilt teachers dream home of Caryl Bryer Fallert. I want to be her when I grow up. I've been saying that for a very long time. It was one of her quilts that started me on this amazing and surprising journey.

Once again we were treated to a private tour and showed such kindness and generosity that we thought perhaps we HAD died and gone to heaven. There are angels living in Paducah my friends and some of them have gorgeous red hair. 

And yes, the next morning we all got right on our sweet little plane and uneventfully arrived home to our families. And in my case, a long, long list of things to catch up on and an awful lot of laundry. It was worth it.

Showing Your Work: part 5 packing it up

I've worked for a number of shows, curating, hanging, organizing - climbing right up on that ladder and hanging the things on the wall. I've hung shows in public art galleries,  cafes, local and national quilt shows. I've worked with local guild shows, the International Quilt Festival (in chicago), and group shows that traveled around the country.

The part I like the least is the packing and unpacking of the quilts. I'm grateful that there have always been others to make the checklists and make sure that everyone has sent all the stuff. Let me talk just a bit about ways that you can make things easier for the show organizers and for yourself. 

You know how to roll your quilt right? Swim noodles are a textile artists best friend. Lay down a sheet or cloth, lay the quilt face down, then roll the whole thing onto the noodle, tie it up and throw on a plastic sleeve. Or -use the grey pipe insulating tubes from the hardware store - they are a bit thinner than a noodle and might let you wrap more quilt into your box. I have to say that I prefer square long boxes to tubes for ease of handling. We can stack them on top of each other or against the wall without their rolling away.

If your quilt is too long for the box, lengthen the box.


















I have heard of instances of pieces being accidentally thrown away, mistaken for garbage. If you have no other choice a garbage bag will protect your work from moisture. Just label it in great big letters. It's much better that the bag be clear.

Please don't use packing peanuts. They come out of the boxes all over the place and are a major mess to clean up. Bubble wrap is better if you need to fill some space in the box. 

(I've blurred out all names and addresses by the way - these are all well labeled!)

Here is one of the best packaged pieces I've seen. Multiple pieces were packaged in one box. Each was placed in a clear plastic bag. One quilts was wrapped on a swim noodle, wrapped in cloth. A smaller piece was creatively sandwiched between two pieces of foam core. Every last piece was labeled with the artists name, address, contact information, and the name of the quilt. Noodle, cloth, bag, box, hanging apparatus - every piece labeled!!! And (I thought this was clever) they all had a visual so that you could take a glance and know that they all belong together.

This was wonderful. A smaller piece that needed to be shipped flat was pinned to a thick piece of foam board then protected with another piece of foam board. They were held together by stick on velcro straps. It was simple for us to undo the velcro unpin the artwork and keep everything in it's box so we could find it later. 

Some other tips - include a self addressed stamped postcard for the show to send so you know your work got there safely.

Any other tips for packing quilts? 

Here are some of the nightmares:

• A quilt pinned to insulation board that we couldn't fit back into the box. Pinned every inch. (That said it was my favorite quilt in the exhibition.)
• Peanuts, peanuts, peanuts. A very large box for a small piece... peanuts, peanuts, peanuts.
• No labels anywhere. No hanging stuff. I could go on. I'm sure you could go on.

Tell me what you think. If you've been involved in the packing and unpacking process what was your best and worst? How do you pack your pieces? Did I leave anything out? Let me know.

In Paducah - still....

Weather isn't always kind to air travelers. Our little puddle jumper from Paducah to Chicago was delayed (and delayed and delayed) because of all the nasty weathery mess up there and down here and all around the country. After a quick consultation with "Mr. Mom" at home I volunteered to be one of the four passengers they needed to bump so that they could take on extra fuel to spend extra time circling up there. So here I sit in a paid hotel for an extra night or two instead of stuck in the airport up there waiting to see if my late night flight would be delayed or canceled.

So here are some more of my photos from Paducah.

For Your Inspiration: Paducah

I had a little time to wander today.

Quilt Man!!!