Fabric Printing - Elton John adventure

I’ve been wanting to tackle the next stage of this project, but it’s a bit daunting. I have started four different muslin pieces with very subtle background splatter colors on them. Each will become printed/painted fabric in a different palette.

This one is pinks-reds-yellows-yellow/greens. (Not a normal palette for me.) I have an incomplete vision of how I might use this, but I’m waiting to see  how it evolves.

So today’s the day. I put on some Classic Elton John for energy and courage.

“Burn Down the Mission” is filling the studio.

Here’s where I was prior to today’s print/paint session.

I’d done enough to define a direction for the colors. Now I wanted to add more layers and deepen the palette,

Earlier this week I created a few new stencils to add to my regular vocabulary.

Circles, mixed-size-squares, rows of alternating bean-like shapes with sticks, and a cut and sliced box from cream cheese packaging. The first three will function as openings: Paint will go in and those shapes will be printed. The cream cheese box will function as a block-out: I’ll put paint around its perimeter. (I also ended up pulling a large circle shape from my stencil stash and using it similarly.)

But first I wanted to stencil some donut shapes (an existing stencil from my stash) in a deeper green, because I already had bits of that on the fabric in goldish tones.

I printed over these oval donut shapes with a large natural sponge for a loose image.

“Madman across the Water” playing.

Next I blocked out some areas with the cream cheese package. I’m trying to think in positive-negative applications of color. This simple shape is a way to define areas.

Now trying out the new bean-with-sticks pattern with some deeper red.

“Tiny Dancer.” I’m singing along.

I kept working over the surface. I added some areas with the new squares pattern and the new circles pattern.

Here’s where I ended up after a few hours.

I think I want to add a wheat paste crackle to the whole surface to unify all the parts. That will take time to dry and apply. Stay tuned next week for the results!

“Crocodile Rock.” Goodnight Elton.

For all the artmakers: Happy creating
For all the art lovers: Happy appreciating

Thank you for reading. I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi

bobbi@bobbibaughstudio.com

How I keep in touch:

BLOG POSTS  - once a week:  If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,  please subscribe here:  I post and send by e-mail each Sunday evening. BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

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How to Show What’s Behind

Working as a textile artist provides lots of opportunities to create layers. I enjoy physical layers – collaging one thing on top of another – as well as story and content layers.

I completed “Entering Unknown Stories’ about a week ago. I was reviewing it in my “done” pile today. I was pleased that I incorporated several different ways of showing-what’s-behind into this work.

Transparent Fabric – There are two birds in this quilt, and each was created by painting transparent acrylic on sheer fabric, then collaging the cut-out bird onto the quilt surface. They are opaque enough to be prominent, but they are also transparent to allow some of the background to be visible through their bodies.

Transparent Paint glaze – In this section of the house, I painted a glaze (acrylic paint diluted with medium) of blue to define the interior of the structure. At the top, by the red roof, you can see the effect.

To the left of the roof, the trees are shades of gold. They cross over the wall to inside the house. Those same trees show through the blue glaze that begins just under the red roof. The complementary colors – the blue over gold – allows the trees beneath to almost create a glow.

Overlapping – In the trees, I worked to create the effect of close-up and far away

I used the same silkscreen stencil to print all these trees. But the ones in the foreground are showing with full-intensity paint. The ones further away have been positioned to peek through the foreground and are less intense.

Physical cut-outs I am drawn to architectural elements – especially doors and windows.

A compelling photo – The beginning inspiration for this work was the photo of looking through the iron gate.

I was intrigued with the way the photo draws you in, to see what’s in there behind the iron gate. (And I remember feeling that way when I shot the photo, in a city garden in downtown Natchez, Mississippi.) Framing photos with interesting foreground and something behind provides thought-provoking imagery.

This process of looking at a photo for meaning – I don’t mean to stick this on at the end as an afterthought. In every work that involves some layers of meaning, there has to be a starting place. The layered images I seek to create have to mean something. Or they have to stir up some kind of emotion or memory for me. This provides purpose for all of the technical layer-creation that will come.

This was a quilt that evolved as I developed it in my studio. Much of it I planned: the photo looking through the iron gate, the printed trees, the printed water photos, the leaves, and the inclusion of colorful quilt blocks within the body of the image. But, after I had created that much, it just wasn’t done. Working to add more depth and layers of meaning seemed to take the work where it was intended to go.

If you would like to see the completed work or find out more information about this piece, please visit my website HERE.

Thank you for reading. I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi

bobbi@bobbibaughstudio.com

How I keep in touch:

BLOG POSTS  - once a week:  If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,  please subscribe here:  I post and send by e-mail each Sunday evening. BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER – about once a month: If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories, as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts, I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider.  You’ll hear from me about once a month.  NEWSLETTER

Breathe In and Know...

It all came together!

Two weeks ago I posted about the beginning of this quilt. (5-23-21… Wading into Serenity.) The two weeks since then have had a lot of art things pulling me off course: sewing machine breakdowns plus two other works-in-progress that are just busting my chops with frustration. GGrrrrmph.

BUT… this one came together. Sometimes it works out that way.  Aaaah!

I was interested in using this honey-comb stencil printed piece as an anchor between several sections. I remember printing this section: it was at the end of a printing session and I had some leftover paint. I grabbed a long stretch of muslin and pressed some images. I like the way the pattern has differences in intensity from one end to the other.

I added other printed fabrics and photo transfers to this strip, working in a grid and quilting in sections.

Here’s the quilt when it was mostly constructed – on my easel, waiting to discover what would happen next.

This was actually as far as I’d planned. And I liked all the components. But, at this point it looked to me more like a background and not a finished work. There was more to come.

Some of the layering I added included transparent paint over the photo transfers. The transfers are smooth and not absorptive. They create a nice surface for painting.

Right at the end, I decided to add a few characters to this setting. The bees appear in three spots.

I have photos of this completed work, and a mock-up showing how it would look in an interior, on my website. Please take a look if you’d like to see more: BREATHE IN AND KNOW

This week I hope to get back to the works that are frustrating me and hope to find some solutions.  Wish me luck!

To the artmakers….. Happy creating.

To the art-lovers……… Happy appreciating!

Thank you for reading. I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi
bobbi@bobbibaughstudio.com

How I keep in touch:

BLOG POSTS  - once a week:  If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,  please subscribe here:  I post and send by e-mail each Sunday evening. BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER – about once a month: If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories, as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts, I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider.  You’ll hear from me about once a month.  NEWSLETTER

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Backdoor Memories

I was pretty excited this week to receive the digital catalog for the Fine Arts Exhibition of the Decatur Arts Festival. I had two works juried into this exhibit

Both of these are memory pieces, but the memories work in different ways.

Here’s a detail of “The Lord Giveth and the Interstate Taketh Away.” It was inspired by a drive through rural South Carolina and photos I took of abandoned houses in small towns.

This back porch was especially poignant to me. I remember walking around the corner of the house with my camera. It was so easy to imagine the Mom of the family standing there calling the kids home to supper. So, I added her figure to the photo. I like the mix of a realistic presentation – the photo of the back porch – with a less fully realized figure. Mom is a memory. We see just the silhouette. And it is slightly transparent. (Overpainted with transparent acrylics over the photo transfer.)

The photos I took looking into the open windows were quite haunting to me. I placed the windows into the story of the quilt, but I did not add to them. You see them as I saw them that day.

What makes this memory story different from many of my other quilts is that this is not my own story. I was there as an observer. I discovered the small towns. They were filled with the stories of other people’s lives. Still, the feeling of a gracious life that had disappeared was very compelling. I want to try to capture the warmth and charm of what that town might have been like when it was thriving, to honor it, and to place it side by side with the images of abandonment.

The second quilt, “Look Through the Memories,” was created for a solo show I presented in 2018 called “Home is What You Remember.” In it I examined memories of home from different angles.

For this particular quilt, the inspiration was the tree.

This tree was in the backyard of a small house I own here in my hometown, DeLand, and the sun illuminated one side like a bright spotlight. The details of the vines were intriguing. In the actual place, I looked through these to a shed at the far side of the yard. That made me think of the process of looking beyond things that get in the way of our perceptions of our own homes, especially a home from one’s childhood. So I created a fictitious house to be viewed through the complexity of the trees.

Memories are powerful. For me, they are the basis of storytelling and a lot of what interests me as an artmaker. It is my hope to create works with both physical layers and emotional layers. I hope that, like a favorite book, they provide things to discover and rediscover over time.

For readers who are near Decatur and would like to visit the exhibit the exhibit at Agnes Scott College, here’s where you can get more information. http://decaturartsfestival.com/. It will be exhibiting till June 13.

If you’d like to see more about these two quilts on my website, please take a look. Find them here:

THE LORD GIVETH
LOOK THROUGH MEMORIES

Thank you for reading. I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi

bobbi@bobbibaughstudio.com

How I keep in touch:

BLOG POSTS  - once a week:  If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,  please subscribe here:  I post and send by e-mail each Sunday evening. BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER – about once a month: If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories, as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts, I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider.  You’ll hear from me about once a month.  NEWSLETTER

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Wading into Serenity

This week I am drawn to gentle grey-blues.

My last several works have had much more intense colors. I want to experience calmer colors for a bit.

These photos are my inspiration

I shot these photos several years ago and had thought they were gone forever.. Rediscovering them has been very exciting to me.

I have also been inspired by the knowledge that I have some already-printed pieces that will work well together in a grey-blue palette. So, I began with transferring my tree photos to muslin, going into my bin for coordinating pieces, and trying out some composition.

I am in the beginning stages of this piece. Still, I have had some helpful discoveries.

ORGANIZING - This is a little thing – I know. No big deal. But, sometimes the little things help one’s studio work practices. These are paper folders I made to sort the fabrics.

 These are the liner sheets from 18” x 24” watercolor blocks – a nice Bristol weight, just heavy enough to act as a file folder, and nice and big. Because I will be working the piece in sections, quilting as I go, after I had it all assembled on my worktable I had to take it all apart to do the assembly. I photographed the composition I had created, then separated the fabrics into folders, one for each section I’ll be creating. So organized!

REPURPOSING

I will be using some strips of muslin I had created a while ago that I did not consider successful printing. The final product was overworked and uninteresting.

BUT.. I took a section of it and overprinted with a different pattern, and I love the result.

I also flipped the piece over to reveal the random, parchment-like markings on side 2. I like those a lot. Now this fabric will get used!

RESTING
This little section of muslin is about 8” square. It is monoprinted muslin – just some subtle color.

At one point I tended to think of these pieces as serving no purpose, just needing more added. And that can work. But I also now try to plan for places of rest in a work. I am likely to fill up much of the space with pattern and images – lots of things to see. So, it is helpful to have places for the eye to rest.

- - - - -

While I was focusing on trees this week, I also created two new paper works using tree motifs, in very different ways. Here are details of the trees.

Detail “Joined In Its Own Music”" Fabric Collage on watercolor paper

Detail “There Before me and Beyond” Fabric Collage on watercolor paper

If you’d like to see more about these, they are on my website Here:

https://www.bobbibaughstudio.com/wednesday-collage/

To the artmakers….. Happy creating.

To the art-lovers……… Happy appreciating!

Thank you for reading.
I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi
bobbi@bobbibaughstudio.com

How I keep in touch:

BLOG POSTS  - once a week:  If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,  please subscribe here:  I post and send by e-mail each Sunday evening. BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER – about once a month: If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories, as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts, I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider.  You’ll hear from me about once a month.  NEWSLETTER

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No Sewing today. Guess I’ll print

My plan was to spend the day sewing. Alas. The accumulated lint and gunk in my sewing machine was telling me to change plans – take the machine in for its annual-or-so maintenance and cleaning – and then do something else.

A bit of screen printing turned out to be the plan.

I have a specific project in mind. A quilt that’s a work-in-progress requires a section of trees. I have already printed it, but I’m not sure the colors are working right. I’d like to have another option.

I began with background. Blue-blue-blue.

This yardage was painted wet with acrylics on natural muslin. (Partially wet fabric and pretty wet paint.) I worked it fast with a natural sponge. I love the way hand painted fabrics are not flat but have wonderful, random variations.

Next I mixed up some teal for the background trees. There won’t be a lot of contrast between this teal and the blue background.

This might be a problem if there were only going to be two colors. But, the teal is only the first color I’ll print and it will stay in the background. Even so, I mixed in just a tad of white in my teal color so that it would show up against the blue background.

Time to print

The screen placed in the first position for printing

The screen in the next printing position.

Now that it’s printed I think these colors are beautiful together. I hope to remember this when I’m planning a palette for another project.

A note about my screens: There are all kinds of ways to get an image into a printing screen. This one is a photographic image: best for fine detail.  I simplified the photo I took, saved it as a digital file and ordered a thermo-fax screen. I get them from Lyric Kinard in North Carolina. https://lyrickinard.com

An important hint for artmakers: When you screen print with acrylic paints, be sure to have your soaking tray for the used screen very close by so you can get the screen in there right away. Acrylics dry FAST! This little tray keeps things wet till I can take things outside to the garden hose for thorough wash-up.

Here are the screens floating in the wash tray.

For the second color I mixed up a pale cream (Lots of white plus a tad of yellow and raw sienna. I chose this to go with the other sections of the project-in-progress.)

The pale cream is so much stronger in contrast than the teal. The teal tree now almost disappears. For this application, that will be fine. It will function as a subtle additional layer.

Sometimes it is frustrating to find that something that you printed and you like gets overtaken by a next step. But, the time spent on that intermediate step is just about always worth it. The final project will benefit form the additional texture and subtle parts.

Now that I’m done, I’m not sure this piece will work in my project-in-progress. But I am sure it will work in some other project. I’ll just have to give the ideas time to cook for a while.

My wonderful sewing repair shop will have my machine back to me tomorrow, and I’ll be back in action for the original sewing plan.

Thank you for reading. I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi

bobbi@bobbibaughstudio.com

How I keep in touch:

BLOG POSTS  - once a week:  If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,  please subscribe here:  I post and send by e-mail each Sunday evening. BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER – about once a month: If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories, as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts, I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider.  You’ll hear from me about once a month.  NEWSLETTER

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From a Florida (but, not) artist

“I want my feet to be in the water.”

I love this picture of me in the Atlantic Ocean holding a piece of my collaged textile artwork. (This came about as part of a photo shoot of quilters in Florida that will be in Quiltfolk magazine this summer.)

I can still remember the feel of the cold water swirling around my legs, and that wonderful pull of the ocean as it receded readying for the next wave

Water is the best thing about Florida. The beaches are wonderful.  The inland springs are clean and cold and clear.

 Yet, these pictures, to me, shows my experience of living in this place but not being from this place.

The piece I was holding in the water is “Setting a Course.” It is a beach-inspired abstract collage. The piece I held during most of the shoot is “Where it is Only a Memory After All,” a collage built from images that come from my memories and inner experiences.

in the ocean with “Setting A Course”

On the beach with “Where it is Only a Memory After All”

“Where it is only a Memory After All”

I have walked in Florida inland forests – lots of scrub palm, and tall straight pines. I absorb and appreciate the colors and the patterns of light and dark.  I’ve used these observations in some of my work.

“Found There in the Quiet” monotype with acrylics - paper collage

I enjoy these images. But, this is not the landscape that speaks to my soul. When I think inwardly of trees, I think of the geography where I grew up.

Detail “Growing Unseen” - tree, leaves and house detail from memories

“Hearing Wind Voices” - Monotype with acrylics, paper collage. Memory images.

One of the first thing I noticed about Florida when I moved here as a teenager is the way the architecture of homes differ form what I had known. When my artwork pulls on memories of home, I draw from those of my childhood.

“Every One Has a Different Story,” art quilt inspired by Rodgers Forge, the neighborhood where I grew up

All of us carry within us responses to and memories of what we know.  We add to them to images of new experiences. We process them and recreate them in our dreams, in our understanding of the world, and – for many of us who are artmakers – in the images we create.

If you would like more information about the works I’ve depicted in this blog, please visit the galleries of my website. (You can click the title below to go directly to the work.)

SETTING A COURSE

WHERE IT IS ONLY A MEMORY AFTER ALL

FOUND THERE IN THE QUIET

EVERY ONE HAS A DIFFERENT STORY

HEARING WIND VOICES

GROWING UNSEEN

Thank you for reading. I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi
bobbi@bobbibaughstudio.com

How I keep in touch:

BLOG POSTS  - once a week:  If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,  please subscribe here:  I post and send by e-mail each Sunday evening. BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER – about once a month: If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories, as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts, I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider.  You’ll hear from me about once a month.  NEWSLETTER

. . . .

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It began with the two girls

I first wrote some posts about this work just about one year ago. It was near the beginning of staying at home a lot during the early days of Covid and I decided to tackle a bigger-than-normal project.

“What Were We Supposed to Be” is a journey quilt, placing two little girls in an environment rich with images and symbols.

Since then, two nice things have occurred. First, this work will be included in a book written by Sandra Sider, “Quarantine Quilts; Creativity in a Time of Chaos.” It will be published by Shiffer Publishing this summer. I’m pleased because this piece is very wide, and Sandra told me it printed as a two-page spread and looks great. I can’t wait to see it.

Even nicer, a patron has purchased this work. It is on a UPS truck someplace between here and California right now. All of this has caused me to take a look at it again, and remember some of what went into creating it.

I created What Were We Supposed to Be in four panels

It began with the two girls. It’s their story. They are in an environment that’s rich with symbols and possibilities. Yet it is not well organized. There are a lot of parts. And they must figure out the parts and their meaning.

Windows and doors fill the environment. These invite the viewer to look through. But what’s inside is not clearly defined. The windows and doors are also skewed, providing a feeling that one has fallen through the looking glass. Tangles of vines are visible in the background. This is a confusing place.

There are strong architectural elements suggesting history and tradition. Perhaps this is part of a large church structure. Perhaps it is a school. Or a fort. It is big and makes its presence felt. It casts shadows. Yet, it is also appealing and inviting.

Around and through these elements are trees and leaves – signs of growth and nourishment. Parts of the environment are lush and verdant. There are also bees and pieces of a beehive. Lots of activity and work going on.

The two girls sit like dolls. They are posed on a stoop in front of a door, as in a family photo. Mimicking the shapes of the arches in the historical structure, they are beneath an arch, as figures in a shrine.

Some of the emotions in this work are drawn from my own particular childhood. I often felt unreal. My sister and I were in an environment that was frequently overwhelming. Our best strategy was to be good, or to be invisible.

Beyond our particular circumstances, I believe this emotional state was true of many girls growing up in the 1950’s and early 1960’s. We absorbed traditional expectations for girls from teen magazines and sitcom TV shows. Nobody gave us high expectations or talked about the large issues of life, morality, or meaning. Our parents worked very hard and, each weighed down by their own unspoken emotional baggage, tried to forge what they understood to be the ideal little family. They did what they knew how to do and intended for it to define a good life.

I included some text about expectations for women in the 1950’s in the collage

Now I have a heart for girls and their journeys. I want them to be encouraged. I want them to like themselves. I want them to see their own possibilities as limitless. I volunteer in a first grade class. Working one-on-one or in small reading groups I love the opportunity to offer encouragements to growing kids. I never know when the one word I speak is the one word a child needs to hear to figure out her own place and her own possibilities in the reality in which she is growing.

A lot of my quilts are storytelling quilts that focus on the journey of a young girl. If you’d like to see more, please visit bobbibaughstudio.com and browse through the “Journeys and Stories” Gallery: HERE

Thank you for reading.
I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi

bobbi@bobbibaughstudio.com

How I keep in touch:

BLOG POSTS  - once a week:  If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,  please subscribe here:  I post and send by e-mail each Sunday evening. BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER – about once a month: If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories, as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts, I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider.  You’ll hear from me about once a month.  NEWSLETTER

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From Bobbi’s Blog 4-25-21… Inspiration from changing pace

Today feels a little like the day we take down the Christmas tree and put the decorations away.

I used to watch my Mom do this as a kid. I always thought it would be a sad day. Now I find it pleasing – a way to reorder and to move on the next thing.

This weekend I exhibited at a local art event sponsored by the Guild of DeLand Museum of Art. (It was a GREAT day. Perfect weather. Wonderful to talk to patrons face-to=face after a year. And especially nice that several blog readers made a special point to stop by for a visit. THANK-YOU!)

Spending the day talking with people interested in art is very inspiring. When I explain what I create to others, I understand it better myself.

Here’s my set-up at the Garden Art Event. It was a beautiful setting in a nursery. I thought looking through the palm fronds was a perfect shot!

Even a one-day event like this takes a lot of prep energy beforehand. I made some new work. I got existing work ready to be hung. I did some marketing. I packed the car. I went through the checklists. All the stuff you do.

After the event we packed it all up again, drove home and took most of the things out of the car. I spent some time in the studio this morning getting it all put away. AAAAAAhhhhhhhhhhh.

Now my studio is re-ordered and I am focusing on the next projects that interest me.

I generally keep focused on my main body of work. But, now and then, a short-term distraction is OK. I can switch mental gears. I may find some new ideas or perspectives during the project.

The experience is like what I’ve found in creating smaller, matted paper collaged works alongside larger quilts. Each informs the other some. It’s hard to maintain the energy and focus to make just large works that I consider my main body of art. But I would not be pleased with making only small works either.

So, going back and forth is artistically stimulating.

This morning I have just put a photo transfer in the soak bin to remove the paper. Here’s the image:

It’s part of a new work with a secret interior space motif. I now feel ready to dive into this one deeper.

In the process of prepping for last weekend’s event, I created some new smaller paper collages. If you’d like to take a look at all the current ones, they are on my website HERE

Thank you for reading. I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi

bobbi@bobbibaughstudio.com

How I keep in touch:

BLOG POSTS  - once a week:  If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,  please subscribe here:  I post and send by e-mail each Sunday evening. BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER – about once a month: If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories, as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts, I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider.  You’ll hear from me about once a month.  NEWSLETTER

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Art – Poetry – Art

Tonight I’m starting with some poetry thoughts. But it gets to visual art soon.

I enjoyed a new adventure recently, taping a Lightning Talk presentation for the SAQA Global Conference. It’s about the lessons of poetry for visual artists.

 Lightning talks are short presentations with a very specific format: 20 slides x 20 seconds each = 6 minutes and forty seconds. My PowerPoint is done, the taping is completed, and now I get to sit back with my feet up and listen along with the rest of the audience.

This is one of the slides from my Lightning Talk

I took a wonderful poetry class while I was an undergraduate student and many of the professor’s little bits of wisdom and insights come back to me from time to time. I think my favorite insight deals with meter and structure.

Here’s a short well-known, well-loved poem by Robert Frost to help explain:

 “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”

Whose woods these are I think I know.  

His house is in the village though;  

He will not see me stopping here  

To watch his woods fill up with snow.  

My little horse must think it queer  

To stop without a farmhouse near  

Between the woods and frozen lake  

The darkest evening of the year.  

He gives his harness bells a shake  

To ask if there is some mistake.  

The only other sound’s the sweep  

Of easy wind and downy flake.  

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,  

But I have promises to keep,  

And miles to go before I sleep,  

And miles to go before I sleep.

Frost has such a well-developed voice as a writer that you can just imagine him saying these words: a crinkled, wise old man leaning on a fence post, speaking slowly and sharing this memory. His speech would be very natural.

It’s also easy to imagine a school child or the world’s worst poetry reader reading this work aloud getting caught in the sing-song of Frost’s strong meter and obvious rhymes: “Whose Woods these are I think I know, his house is in the village though…” La DA dee da la DA dee da, la DA dee da dee da.

What the professor explained is that both voices are actually in there, in the poem, and they are in tension with one another. When you read aloud with a natural voice, not falling into sing-song, you still can’t help but notice the cadence and the rhymes.

I find that when I read poetry for pleasure, I read inside my head as much as possible in a natural, spoken voice. But where there is interesting meter or the existence of rhyme, it adds a dimension, a little bit of extra of richness and interest.

Skilled poets are ones who handle this tension well and use it to enhance their meaning.

Now to visual art.

This is a work-in-progress image of my quilt, Becoming One with the Night. It’s easy to see the structure: squares stitched together in columns and rows.

I wanted that structure under there, but I wanted another layer of experience in the work too.

Becoming One With the Night

My hope is that the underlying structure of squares creates an element to be discovered and appreciated, and that the layers on top made the squares more interesting than they would be alone.

Good structure – compositional devices, elements of design – are important to hold a work together. But, all alone, they are not sufficient to make a work good.

But, without them, the work will not be as strong as it could be.

. . . . .

Don’t forget: If you are near DeLand, Florida this weekend, please stop by the art in the Garden Event sponsored by the Guild of the Museum of Art – DeLand. I’ll be there showing a few large quilts and some new paper collages. I hope to see you there.

My quilt “Becoming One With the Night” is currently in the SAQA Global Exhibit “Beyond the Mirror.’ If you’d like more information about it, it’s on my website HERE.

Thank you for reading. I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi

bobbi@bobbibaughstudio.com

How I keep in touch:

BLOG POSTS  - once a week:  If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,  please subscribe here:  I post and send by e-mail each Sunday evening. BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER – about once a month: If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories, as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts, I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider.  You’ll hear from me about once a month.  NEWSLETTER

A Secret Garden (Re)Discovered

I have discovered – again – a wonderful secret garden, a walled space full of shadows and overgrown with vines, hidden just steps off an alley in downtown Natchez,  Mississippi.

When my daughter graduated from college we drove from her school in South Carolina to Natchez where she was to begin an art residency. The housing provided was a very quirky apartment buried behind an out-of-way garden accessible through a locked gate in an alley downtown. As it turned out, the apartment had both quirky charm and a lot of mold and mildew. It was not to be where she stayed for long.

But, while I was there, I took many photos of the fabulous untended garden behind the brick walls. Even now, seeing them again, I remember how swept away I was by the experience of being in that place.

I loved the evocative gates. I loved the sense of things partially hidden, partially revealed. I loved the warmth of the sun on the bricks. And against all this age and mystery, vibrant green spring leaves.

Through a series of hard drive clean-ups, I lost the original photos. Then, just this week I discovered I have good quality color paper copies. I can capture them digitally and use them in artwork.

What inspiration!

Other photos I might find or purchase of old walls and gardens would not be the same. This was a real place that I’d really been in and photographed myself; and it was part of a journey in the lives of my daughter and me. 

Before this discovery, I’d been sketching a new series that will incorporate silkscreened trees and limbs and stenciled rocks and leaves. But I wasn’t happy with the way they were coming together. The idea of incorporating photos of the Natchez garden has breathed new life into my concept-development.

Around 2010, I began experimenting with fabric and paper collages. At that time I created Portals, using one of the Natchez photos incorporated into an imaginary journey composition.

I looked again at this work this morning, and remembered creating it. I also began to think about my work and how it’s changed, and my life and how it’s changed.  All of this – plus the rediscovery of the garden photos – will be a part of what comes next.

That’s how the journey works.

If you would like more information about Portals, it’s on my website HERE

If you’d like to see more work in the series I call Journeys and Stories, that gallery is on my website HERE.

Thank you for reading. I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi

bobbi@bobbibaughstudio.com

How I keep in touch:

BLOG POSTS  - once a week:  If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,  please subscribe here:  I post and send by e-mail each Sunday evening. BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER – about once a month: If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories, as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts, I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider.  You’ll hear from me about once a month.  NEWSLETTER

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Some unexpected monotypes

I received my second covid shot on Friday. (Or “Jab #2” as they say on the BBC.)

Yayyy! (As we say here in the states.)

It meant most of the weekend I felt a little like I was walking underwater. A price I am happy to pay. I took many naps and just puttered in the studio. No big projects brewing.

But I did have a little serendipitous printing on paper to share.

I had spread out a large vinyl drop cloth to protect my worktable from some wet fabric painting. When I lifted the wet fabric off there were wonderful puddles.

I recently cleaned out and rearranged the storage under my table to make room for a stack of packing boxes. It was a refreshing exercise. I threw out all kinds of old scraps I’ll never use and put the pieces that really interest me in a big plastic bin with a good lid that I can get to easily.

It’s a little thing, but I’m very proud of cleaning out underneath my worktable. Amazingly I added a lot but made more room!

So, when the puddles appeared. I popped open the plastic bin and pulled out a few sheets of tissue paper. For paper collages, tissue paper is magic. It picks up the most delicate images with just the slightest pressure. Little cracks and textures that other papers would miss are well defined.

I thought these puddle snippets suggest water nicely.

I can envision them in an abstract landscape with some sky and water. Maybe a wading bird.

Pressing the paper into the puddles took less than three minutes. But, now those delightful, random shapes are in the bin waiting for me.

(Warning – while I sing the praises of tissue paper, I must also admit it rips and falls apart just by looking at it. Learning to incorporate it into work is challenging.)

……………..

A few things coming up that I look forward to…

Art Event April 24. I’ll be showing work at this event sponsored by the Guild of the Museum of Art DeLand. It’s a small pop-up show (approx 20 artists) in a beautiful setting under a pavilion at Select Growers, on US 11 just north of DeLand. If you are in driving distance of DeLand I hope you’ll stop by.

Lightning Talk at the SAQA Global Conference. This year the Global conference is all virtual. I submitted a proposal for a Lightning Talk. (20 slides x 20 seconds each = 6 minutes and 40 seconds.) I’ll be speaking about What Poetry Can Teach Visual Artists. I’ll have my practice recording session later this week. For readers who are SAQA members and will be at the conference, I hope you’ll mark your schedule for Friday April 23  8:15 pm.

Thank you for reading. I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi

bobbi@bobbibaughstudio.com

How I keep in touch:

BLOG POSTS  - once a week:  If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,  please subscribe here:  I post and send by e-mail each Sunday evening. BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER – about once a month: If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories, as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts, I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider.  You’ll hear from me about once a month.  NEWSLETTER

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What to do When You're Stuck

Well, I’m just stumped.

That’s how I’ve been feeling this week, trying to get the wheels churning for a  new series I’ve been thinking about.

Everybody’s creative cycles are different, and we all get stumped at different stages. I never seem to get stumped at the initial idea stage—I have all kinds of ideas I’d like to implement. I do sometimes get stuck when I’ve got the idea, but what I’m trying so far to make it work just isn’t going anywhere.

Detail of a recently completed quilt. I want to do more with this idea.

I put up the recent work I created featuring trees and stared at it for a long time. I just let it live there as I went on to other projects. I like this work, and I love the tree patterns, but to build it into a series I feel like it needs to have some place to go. I’m looking for more creative ways to use the trees with other patterns.

Nothing was coming.

So I went back to my sketchbook and tried working out different arrangements of the elements I have in mind.

For me, sketchbook work is like a shorthand. I draw enough detail so I know what each section  means. These are records of ideas. I don’t intend at all for them to be finished.  (I might do some of that later.) This allows me to draw a lot of different variations without being invested in any one. I just keep mixing things up to try out new compositions.

This convinced that I want a few new patterns in addition to the regulars in my toolbox.

I cut three new patterns from Tyvek envelopes that I can use for various kinds of printmaking. For me, it’s helpful to limit my printmaking methods enough that I know each one well. I use stencils a lot. So, even as I cut these, I can envision them either painted directly light image on dark background, or painted directly dark image on light background, or monotype printed on sheer for a more translucent look, or used with wheat paste resist or glue resist to get an altogether different effect.

Sometimes, at this stage, it helps to photograph the shapes and play with them in Photoshop.

I haven’t determined a palette I want to work with yet, so I tried out just a few different color ideas.

As I look at these, the “what’s next” wheels are beginning to turn.

When you reach an impasse, don’t despair or expend any energy kicking yourself. It is, I believe, a normal part of artmaking and creating generally. For me, relying on a few things I already know and working with those will help me to get into the stage that I don’t know yet.

Happy creating.

The finished work “Listening to the Language of Trees” is on my website if you’d like to see more.  Click here; TREES

DeLand-area Art Event coming in April… I’ll be there

For those who are near Central Florida I hope you will mark your calendar for Saturday, April 24 for a small outdoor art event sponsored by the Guild of the Museum of Art – DeLand. (A GREAT organization.) It will feature about 20 artists and be held at the nursery of Select Growers, on US 11 just North of DeLand. Enjoy outdoor art strolling in a beautiful setting. You can look at art and look at beautiful plants—and shop for both!  This will be my first face-to-face art event in over a year. Can’t wait! See you there.

Thank you for reading. I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi

bobbi@bobbibaughstudio.com

How I keep in touch:

BLOG POSTS  - once a week:  If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,  please subscribe here:  I post and send by e-mail each Sunday evening. BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER – about once a month: If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories, as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts, I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider.  You’ll hear from me about once a month.  NEWSLETTER

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From thought to Underwater Sunlight

Today is chilly and drizzly. It’s a good time to be thinking about warm tropical waters. And I am.

Actually, this thought began in a completely different place. I have been working on artwork created by patterns of tree limbs. I find them very interesting. I like the way individual static images, overlapped and repeated, build a sense of movement.

So my next step was to ask: Can the pattern of static images – overlapped in patterns – create a sense of movement in things that are actually moving. Like wildlife. That question inspired my current project.

Have you ever been to the beach and held up a piece of bread, only to find yourself in the middle of a flock of very hungry seagulls? Being immersed in that frenetic energy can be fascinating, but a little overwhelming. It’s a whir and blur of activity. That’s the kind of energy I want to create.

And this work will have birds – above. But, I am beginning with the area below the sea. I want to have that sense of immersion I imagine there would swimming right in the middle of a school of small fish moving through the water.

This is new subject mater for me, so it’s all an experiment. I began with the fish because it’s the smaller section, and I want some of the things I work out there to dictate how I handle the area with the birds. The only thing I felt sure about was that I wanted to use sheer fabric and create a watery-luscious environment.

First – creating the patterns for the fish.

I printed a few yards of yellow and gold and orange fabric to be the fish patterns. I worked fast and randomly to get an overall pattern. It is mostly monotype printed with some relief printing and a little stenciling.

Next – creating the shapes of the fish

Working from several reference photos of swimming fish, I drew a large stencil of a school in movement. I cut out each fish. This way, I can place the whole stencil over the yellow fabric and look through the holes to fins an interesting place for the patterns to fall inside the fish. Then I rolled a wheat paste resist into the fish shapes.

(“How-To” detail: Wheat paste is flour + water. Just pour flour in a bowl and add water till it’s the consistency of pancake batter. You can spread it all over a fabric or use stencils or block outs to apply it in patterns. Once it’s dried, you can crack it a bit. It will block out whatever the second color layer is, but allow some interesting crackle patterns to show where the second color seeps through. After the second paint layer is dry, you wash out the wheat paste with warm water. It does not hurt or stain the fabric.)

Next – overpainting the water.

I mixed a nice teal color and made a portion of it tinged with yellow for a greener hue. I sponged this over loosely so the green and blue merged. The magical part, I think, is the way the underneath colors of the yellow and oranges appear faintly through the blue water. That feels like sun and light penetrating the water.

When this paint dried, it was time to wash out the wheat paste resist and reveal the fish in their watery world.

So far, I am happy with the answer to my question, “Can static patterns create a sense of movement in wildlife?” I think yes. I’m interested in seeing how this works out with the birds and the sky. Stay tuned.

If you would like to see more of the tree-limb piece that started my thinking, it’s on my website HERE

An invitation for my central Florida friends:

I  hope you will mark your calendar for Saturday, April 24 for a small outdoor art show sponsored by the Guild of the Museum of Art – DeLand. (A GREAT organization.) It will feature about 20 artists and be held at the nursery of Select Growers, on US 11 just North of DeLand. Enjoy outdoor art stolling in a beautiful setting. You can look at art and look at beautiful plants—and shop for both! See you there.

Thank you for reading. I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi

bobbi@bobbibaughstudio.com

How I keep in touch:

BLOG POSTS  - once a week:  If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,  please subscribe here:  I post and send by e-mail each Sunday evening. BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER – about once a month: If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories, as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts, I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider.  You’ll hear from me about once a month. NEWSLETTER

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Between Make-Believe and Memory

Today I am doing some looking back. Back into make-believe. Back into memory.

As I recall being a young girl, I remember how powerful the world of make-believe was for me. I frequently played alone, with paper dolls, Barbies and drawing pads to create new universes and new stories.

“Between Make-Believe and Memory” is a quilt I completed this year that walks into this memory world. I am so pleased that it was recently accepted into the SAQA traveling exhibit, “Connections,” which will premiere at the International Quilt Festival, Houston 2021 and travel for about two years.

The beginning of this work was my discovery of the photo of the rowhouses. (© 2014 Alana Semuels, as originally published in The Atlantic, used with permission.) It’s very powerful. These row houses are in downtown Baltimore, the city where I grew up. My family also lived in a row house neighborhood. It was not the same as this one; this neighborhood is older and has clearly fallen on hard times. Still, the image evoked a pang of recognition. Bricks. Concrete sidewalks. Cracks. It spoke to me at once as a way into the exploration of traveling back to childhood stories.

I was interested in using the sidewalk cracks as a way to bridge the divide between the two realities. I monotype printed cotton muslin with a very drab grey-brown color to match the sidewalks in the photo. There is a clear vertical line of delineation through the piece, but it is crossed over by the sidewalk texture and cracks.

I was pleased with the way the sidewalk texture interacts with the little girl’s shadow. Lightly painting the shadow shape allowed the texture I had created with machine stitching to show through. They are now actually a part of the little girl.

What is the meaning of the section with gold and green and tree forms?

It is intentionally undefined. The lines suggest trees, but they are not a literal forest. This is the world of make-believe.

Beneath the row houses, the roots were printed with a screen of linear tree-like lines that mirrors the make-believe section. The underground life of the houses. The inhabitants of the houses. What’s remaining now that they are gone.

The surface of this work is very much like a painting, although it is constructed as a layered and stitched quilt. The house photograph was transferred to muslin manually with acrylic medium. It is stiff and created a good surface for the acrylic paint touch-ups I did on the surface.

I am so grateful for the opportunities provided by SAQA to its artists to stretch by creating works for call-to-entries. I like thinking of this girl traveling to a number of venues, hoping she will speak to those who see the exhibit.

When you enter a juried exhibit, you have to submit an artist statement. Here’s what I said about this quilt:

“I can imagine the insistent pull within a migrating animal to return to its place of origin. I have felt similar longings. Having lived my early childhood in a row house section of Baltimore, I experienced a visceral response to this image of abandoned row houses in a downtown Baltimore neighborhood. Make-believe (my imaginings as a child) and Memory (the real events) live side-by-side, overlap, rearrange and conflate, creating a powerful emotional connection.”

I have explored the journey of a young girl in many ways in my artmaking. If you are interested in seeing more, please visit the Journeys and Stories gallery on my website, HERE.

Thank you for reading. I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi

bobbi@bobbibaughstudio.com

How I keep in touch:

BLOG POSTS  - once a week:  If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,  please subscribe here:  I post and send by e-mail each Sunday evening. BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER – about once a month: If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories, as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts, I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider.  You’ll hear from me about once a month.  NEWSLETTER

Doing the Work

Here I am in the studio this morning. Sewing. Standing up.

It’s not that standing while sewing is all that unusual or a bad idea. If you get tired and shoulder-achey while sewing it can provide relief.

But I’m sewing standing up because this piece is big, and heavy, and hard to handle, and the tree I added is toward the middle of the piece where it’s a stretch to reach. This is hard work both for me and my little sewing machine, and quite a slog.

I am not complaining. I choose my materials and my working methods and I could have chosen to work some other way. But, well, you’ve got to make work in a way that interests you and that’s pleasing. It’s not about being logical.

I have great admiration for textile artists who create beautiful and sensitive small works, often including hand sewing. They can be just lovely. But it’s not who I am. I like to work big. And I like to collage.

So, sometimes, at least part of the creation process is just – work. It’s stuff I have to do to get to the end, or to get to other creative parts I enjoy more.

Artmaking is a wonderful mix of experiences. There’s the emotional longing to create. There’s the inspiration of putting an idea onto paper in a sketch book. There’s the challenge of decision-making along the way. There are the hours of solitude int the studio – just you and some music. There are tasks that are just work. And there’s the pleasure of seeing work develop before your eyes.

This afternoon I got to sit and sew for a while. This is a small portion of the same quilt. I have collaged its fabric layers and now I am using the machine stitching as a form of drawing, a loose outlining and defining of this young girl. Aaaah! Just artmaking pleasure. The piece is easy to handle. My sewing machine is not stressed out. And I can see the shape take place as I sew.

These are the moments artmakers live for.

The most not-logical project I have created was just about a year ago, at the beginning of pandemic seclusion, when I wanted to tackle a large, 4-panel quilt. I had a vision for using raw-edge panels and an intricate mix of photo transfers and other kinds of imagery.

It’s What Were We Supposed To Be. Here’s a detail.

If you’d like to see more, the whole 4-panel composition is on my website, HERE

I have a few new ideas for projects in the studio this week. I look forward to all parts of the process.

Thank you for reading.
I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi

bobbi@bobbibaughstudio.com

How I keep in touch:

BLOG POSTS  - once a week:  If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,  please subscribe here:  I post and send by e-mail each Sunday evening. BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER – about once a month: If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories, as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts, I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider.  You’ll hear from me about once a month.  NEWSLETTER

We Keep Our Homes Inside Us

In my studio now is a work-in-progress that’s emotionally autobiographical. It does not depict an actual event. It does depict remembered states of being. (A few weeks ago I posted about the drawing I had made of a young girl’s face. That drawing is part of the work in progress.)

When I work on storytelling pieces, it helps sometimes to go back over previous works I’ve created that explore similar territory. I see connecting threads. I remember how I worked out ideas.

So, this weekend I have been looking again at “We Keep Our Homes Inside Us,” a quilt I created several years ago.

A few things that that I am seeing.

Family memories are complex. To deal with them in a visual storytelling work, there needs to be some visual complexity.

This quilt had a large photo transfer of a bird’s nest. It is about as complicated an image as I can imagine; Parts physical intertwine with one another.

MOVEMENT I felt that this work succeeded in having a sense of movement.

The nest stayed in house number one. The branch connects to house number two. The houses are slightly askew: movement, as opposed to stability. The diagonal horizon line also suggests direction.

Subtle connections are important

The background yellow sky is filled with very faint leaf shapes. Being printed on sheer fabric adds to the watercolor-like effect. Leaf shapes are also evident inside the windows of house number one. Even if not consciously, I believe the viewer sees the pattern in both places and connects the parts to each other.

Color counts

This work is built on a basic primary palette: red-yellow-blue. But none of the colors are pure. I mixed all the colors for this work (as I do for all my textile works) and used a raw umber as a constant in each hue. The blue background in the lower half is an out-of-the-jar blue hue mixed with some raw umber. The yellow background in the top half is a yellow-from-the-jar mixed with raw umber. And all of the read and orange tones have some raw umber mixed in. This is a very strong palette, but – to me – it also feels unified.

Seeing things over time

It is especially interesting to me to look at this one several years after I created it. The work itself is like a memory to me, in addition to having subject matter built on memory. I see things I did not see before. It’s my hope that when someone invites one of my artworks into their home they find new things in it to discover over time.

If you would like more information about this work, it’s on my website HERE.

I have another large work that is also built around a bird’s nest that you might enjoy seeing: “Because That’s Where It All Begins.” The two pieces have some things in common, but are also quite different. It’s on my website HERE.

Thank you for reading. I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi
bobbi@bobbibaughstudio.com

How I keep in touch:

BLOG POSTS  - once a week:  If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,  please subscribe here:  I post and send by e-mail each Sunday evening. BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER – about once a month: If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories, as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts, I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider.  You’ll hear from me about once a month.  NEWSLETTER

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Variations on a (Printmaking) theme

For the past few months I’ve been collaging up a storm. I really like the process of combining paper and fabric iinto medium-sized compositions.

And, in this batch, I’ve introduced a few new printing elements. I ordered some small screens for silkscreen printing with images I had photographed and simplified in PhotoShop.

So, my challenge to myself… How can I incorporate these new images, but not make all the works the same? I’ve been answering that question with some variations on a theme.

Here’s are my basic tree shapes, next to the printing screens

.And here are a few of the works I’ve created so far.

As Day Becomes a Presence

AS DAY BECOMES A PRESENCE
In this collage, the tree appears in two places. On the right, it’s upright, and printed against a piece of brown muslin. As I’ve been experimenting with the screen printing, I am learning that every pull won’t look the same. The amount of paint in the screen and how hard you pull the squeegee are just two of the variables that affect the appearance. In this section, the black forming the tree is a bit faded out. In some applications, this would be a reject. In this piece, I think it adds a sense of depth. In the lower left, same screen – same paint – same brown background. But the pull was thick and dense. Now these two sections in the work speak to each other and add unity.

Imprinted in the Earth

IMPRINTED IN THE EARTH
This one shows some of the serendiipitous events that occur in hand printmaking, I pulled out both blank fabric and previously monotype-printed fabric to print these trees onto. This green rock-filled piece of sheer fabric has haunted me from the scrap bin for awhile. I love it but hadn’t found  a place to use it. So, I printed the reverse-image (Black background, underneath color showing through) thinking I would use it and cut it off of the green rocks. It turns out I really like how they go together. So I incorporated the whole piece as the center image in the collage.

Knowing We Are Made of This

KNOWING WE ARE MADE OF THIS
Back to the whole-tree image. It’s printed on a piece of scrap muslin I had with a wash-looking section of olive green in one part and blank nothing-printed on the rest. I was pleased with the look of the tree crossing those sections. And the no-print area of the muslin became the perfect place to collage the positive shapes from the honeycomb pattern. (I had printed those as monotypes earlier on very thin tissue paper.) I also Like the repeat of the honeycomb shape with a different feel at the bottom where it was printed olive green on muslin.

When the Song Broke Through

Just a bit of happiness. The sky-with-clouds was monotype printed on sheer fabric. I like the pale green dome on top that allows the sky to show through. It looked like a good background for some tree shapes. I printed the green trees with a hand-cut stencil. Those limbs are not nearly as detailed as the photographic images on my screen. But they are a good backdrop. This idea evolved as I worked. I had not intended to add the red-orange trees. But, the green ones just weren’t enough. Once the orange-red colors were there, the complementary color pattern made everything “pop” and become quite cheerful. I added the dark fabric to anchor it, and the red bird to bring it all together.

I was absolutely thrilled to have some good sales on these works after I uploaded them to my website. So, here’s one of my really-and-truly happiest accomplishment of this week:

Tadaaaa! All the orders are boxed and ready to ship. Off to UPS I go tomorrow.

If you’d like to learn more about the works in this blog or see more collages, please visit the gallery on my website, HERE

https://www.bobbibaughstudio.com/wednesday-collage/

For the rest of my day, I’ve blocked off some hours to start on my taxes. UGH. (I guess since I’ve written that down here in public  now I’ll really have to do it.) Have a good week.

Thank you for reading. I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi

bobbi@bobbibaughstudio.com

How I keep in touch:

BLOG POSTS  - once a week:  If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,  please subscribe here:  I post and send by e-mail each Sunday evening. BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER – about once a month: If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories, as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts, I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider.  You’ll hear from me about once a month.  NEWSLETTER

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Some Surface Design Basics

This week I presented (via Zoom) a program to the Florida group of Studio Art Quilt Associates on the subject of acrylics – mixing up the variables.

(Just a note about zoom. Who knew I would ever look so forward to these online meetings! With “real” contacts down to almost nothing – except for an occasional outing to the  grocery store – I’ve discovered that friendship and camaraderie are alive and well on the internet. I’m grateful.)

Because I use acrylic paints for all my fabric surface design, I’ve accumulated a lot of images of the fabrics. And I hope I’ve discovered a few insights and working methods worth sharing. As always happens when I teach or make a presentation, I learn again some important things when I go through my notes to put things together.

So, here are a few basics.

First; I create all my own fabrics.

I only purchase blank fabric by the yard. This is not all that unusual; many textile artists enjoy the process of doing original surface design. And they may choose completely different methods: dyeing and digital printing, for example. It’s an important part of the process to me. I generally create yardage specifically for a particular work. This happens early in the thinking about the meaning of a new work. I print just about what I think I’ll need. It becomes a way of thinking through palette and values. And – delightfully – there are almost always some leftover scraps. So, those will appear in other works. It’s a way for all my work to have some things in common and to be recognizable as mine.

Second: Low tech and simplified. I am intentionally limited and simple in my methods. I use a limited palette.

Some of the tools for getting acrylics on fabric: brushes. Sponge. Roller. Brayer.

I use hand-cut stencils and simple mark-making tools. I’ve just introduced a few silkscreeed images into my works. I limit my materials to just acrylic paints and mediums plus fabric, and challenge myself to create a variety of interesting textures and patterns with those tools.

Third: Color.

 Learning to mix colors was probably the most important skill I ever developed in artmaking. I took an oil painting class from a very good teacher who stresses the fundamentals. I did not like oils at all. But I ended up creating a very thorough color wheel in acrylics. I refer to it all the time. I use it as a guide when I need to experiment with colors interacting with one another.

Fourth – playfulness and the unexpected.  It’s in the creation of fabric that the most serendipitous things happen in my studio. Unexpected results add interest to the works I eventually create.

Right now I have two large quilts-in-progress in the studio. I’ve printed some of the fabric for each. I’m looking forward to seeing how they come together.

Thank you for reading. I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi

bobbi@bobbibaughstudio.com

How I keep in touch:

BLOG POSTS  - once a week:  If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,  please subscribe here:  I post and send by e-mail each Sunday evening. BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER – about once a month: If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories, as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts, I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider.  You’ll hear from me about once a month.  NEWSLETTER

The face on my easel

For several days now, this drawing of a girl has lived on my easel.

She will be the main character –  the storyteller in my next large quilt. I created her as a loose sketch with pencil and marker on salvaged packing paper from a package I received.

When I’m working on pieces in the series about journey and memory, it helps to give things time. These works are not autobiographical in a literal sense, but I certainly draw from my own emotion and experiences. I want to remember how it felt to be a young girl. I need to remember feeling things going on around me that were beyond my control. That way, I can universalize the character and give her a voice.

When depicting a child, every little line and shape is important. I like the very slight angle of this girl’s head, and the way one shoulder is just slightly above the other. It gives her just a hint of expression, in an otherwise rigid pose.

“Hint” is also what I’m going for in facial expression. I hope to depict as little of the actual facial features as possible. Just enough to establish the face structure. I don’t want to depict a particular little girl. I want it to communicate about girls more broadly.

I’ve worked over time to find a way to depict skin tones and human forms in a way that pleases me, working in layers of fabric. I generally use gessoed muslin as a base layer, and trace my drawing onto the muslin. I will do some pencil and oil pastel drawing on the muslin to create the form. Most of the values will be created loosely as monotypes on sheer fabric, layered over the muslin and collaged. There is a lot of serendipity in this part of the process. The patterns and colors appear randomly on the fabric and I move the pieces around till they end up in the right place.

This is one of the first works I created using this method: Neither Here Nor There

Detail Neither here Nor There

I worked in a similar way in these works: Look Through to the Memory, From the Place Where We Landed and Saying the Magic Words

Detail Look Through to the Memory

Detail From the Place Where We Landed

Detail Saying the Magic Words

I will stay in conversation with this character in the weeks ahead as the work progresses. (I am also intrigued with the environment I am planning to create around her and I’m sure to be writing more about it in future posts. Stay tuned)

If you’d like to see whole images of the work I’ve detailed in this post and learn more about them, you can find them on my website Here:

NEITHER HERE NOR THERE

LOOK THROUGH TO THE MEMORY

FROM THE PLACE WHERE WE LANDED

SAYING THE MAGIC WORDS

Thank you for reading. I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi

bobbi@bobbibaughstudio.com

How I stay in touch:

BLOG POSTS  - once a week: If you would enjoy receiving blog posts by e-mail,  please subscribe here:  I post and send by e-mail each Sunday evening.
BLOGS-BY-EMAIL

NEWSLETTER – about once a month:
If you enjoy more detailed behind-the-scenes stories, as well as FIRST LOOKS at new works and members-only discounts, I hope you’ll become a Studio Insider  
NEWSLETTER

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