Pat Hardie - Altered Art Studio

Adventures with artquilts, fibres, neckties and 2 very fine flatcoat retrievers - Gypsy & Reo

Monday, March 20, 2006

Crayoning, Part 2




Once I discovered the fun of colouring on fabric, I returned to one of my first artistic endeavours - making tiles, only now out of fabric and not clay. I drew simple images on paper and then traced them onto unbleached muslin. Then I stitched the outlines, coloured them and then used an iron to 'melt' & spread the crayon.
This process brought back memories of all the times when I was sick as a child and required to stay in bed, never on a school day of course, always on school holidays. To keep me entertained (and out of her hair) my mother would give me a stack of white paper napkins with embossed designs on them. I would spend hours meticulously colouring them with my precious Prismacolour pencils. These napkins were something to behold - fabulous colours and each one different although the design was the same. But back to the fabric blocks.
I have actually created quite a few of these types of blocks using birds as the major theme. Stylistically I guess you would call this folkart. Some are quilted onto heat resistance backing as I had though to make them into potholders. But that hasn't happened; to date they remain as separate blocks awaiting an inspiration that would incorporate them into something larger.
If you have any ideas on this, please feel free to comment.