Part II: Still Life Experiments

July 7, 2024

My life as a studio experimenter this summer continues. And I am being very brave. (Brave – in a Cowardly Lion from the Wizard of Oz kinda way.)

The impulse to charge ahead is not coming naturally. I find how much I rely on methods I feel I have mastered.

But here we go.

If you’ve followed along, you’ll remember that I started with a quick and simple sketch of several coffee mugs and a little pitcher. The project: How to develop that into a finished textile piece?

*This is the project close to its beginning. The sketch plus a few pieces of fabric added to background.*

The reason this is a challenge is not subject matter. It’s surface style. A quick sketch with oil pastels and a finished, stitched work are basically two unlike things.

To put them into one composition, there’s going to have to be some adjustment. A painting that has qualities of a textile piece. A textile piece that has qualities of a painting.

Here’s the completed work: “Inside What We Hold.”

Now I’ll back up a bit and share one decision-making point that affected the final direction.

What these two pictures show is the artwork at different stages with a sheet of clear vinyl laid over the top. Onto the vinyl, I have drawn with a sharpie marker some lines I was considering making.

The sketchy lines drawn around the mugs and pitcher are very appealing to me. I love adding that linear look to drawing. But, I intentionally decided not to do that in the finished piece. As a challenge to depict differently. And as a way to force myself to use value changes instead of lines.

(Takeaway: Using a clear overly is just a quick, easy way to try out an idea. It works the same as taking the work into PhotoShop and trying things there. But it’s a bit more spontaneous. I keep large pieces of vinyl in my studio for this purpose, and then re-use them as drop cloths.)

The lines I drew around the rectangular color overlays do appeal to me. I worked to get more of that definition in the final piece.

I’ve learned a lot – both effects that please me and those that don’t – working this piece through to its completion.

On to the next project!

*(Inspired by some of the relief printing in my “Inside What We Hold” piece, I am working with printing from lino-cut blocks in a new composition and a new palette.)*

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: Mostly about what I am creating in the studio. 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: Mostly news of exhibits and my way of introducing new work. You’ll get FIRST LOOKS at new artwork and members-only discounts. You’ll hear from me about once a month. NEWSLETTER

Still Life Experimenting

June 30, 2024

I want to begin by stopping, here: EXPERIMENTING. If you’ve been reading along lately, you may have noticed that word more frequently. I am definitely using some time this summer to experiment.

I have some large works I’ve completed that I like, and I feel that my way of working on these projects is pretty settled. I feel like I know what I’m doing.

BUT . . . I’ve developed an interest in working differently sometimes too. Arer there ways to get more of the feel of printmaking into my work? Can I like whole cloth compositions? Can I draw and paint more?

I’m not sure. But I’m interested in the process. And the project I’m describing tonight is definitely an experimental one. I’m just trying stuff.

This is a little still life sketch I discovered that I drew a few months ago. I worked with oil pastels very loosely on gessoed muslin. It seemed a good candidate for discovery. (I “gesso” – or prime the muslin – with a thin wash of latex house paint. It makes the surface behave more like watercolor paper. It remains stitchable.)

My first step was to collage and stitch some fabric shapes into the still life drawing. Mostly I used scraps from my stash of leftover printed fabrics. The teal strip along the bottom was just plain. I added relief print patterns — a mix of two carved blocks.

Experiment discovery #1 – I remembered how much I enjoy block printing and what interesting patterns it can create. (Blue in foreground of photo.)

At this point, I have a simple sketch-like drawing, integrated with some fabric pieces to create interesting shapes. What now?

I want some transparent layers. (Why? Because I’m experimenting. Just trying stuff.)

I decided to overlay some fairly random color blocks right over the composition. My goal is to make it more interesting, and to integrate the sketch portion with the fabric shape sections. The tape on the composition is providing masked-off border areas. I’ll be rolling semi-transparent paint inside the perimeters of the tape.

Just a note about my favorite red: a mix of cadmium red with alizaron crimson. They warm each other up and the result makes me sing. It’s a strong color, and I know from experience it will work well when I make it transparent.

Here is the first batch of color overlays. Two red rectangles. Two blue rectangles.

As I painted them on, I felt they would be overwhelming. But now I don’t think so. So, to continue the spirit of experimentation, I decided to add some more. Some black – for some depth. Some white – to push objects back a bit.

And this is as far as I’ve come in this project.

I think it looks more painterly. I think it’s interesting to look at.

I have outlined the rectangles with stitch, but I have not done all-over quilting stitching yet. I’m thinking about possible patterns and colors.

And I haven’t finished developing up the mug objects yet.

So, the experiment continues.

. . . . . .

I enjoyed being interviewed by Jennifer Steck of ArtBurst Studios last week. She is an enthusiastic art lover and asks great questions. I talked through my creative process for two art quilts and talked some about artmaking in general. If you’d like to hear the interview, it’s VIDEO REPLAY.

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:

Water Drops

June 23, 2024

Such a lovely morning on my porch Saturday.
This week I’m just sharing some of what I experienced.

Water Drops

The ones that hang on the ends of leaves
Motionless. Present. Ripe with being real.
Left by a nighttime rain
now waiting for sun
to change everything.

Such water drops
seduce painters — writers — thinkers
to respond. To transform them
into some human-created artifact
that will capture their light
their translucent fullness
because we just cannot help ourselves.

I could just look at them. As I am.
Holding their morning magic inside me.
I could taste them. As I just did.
Feeling the liquid on my tongue
as a bird might.

An old woman I knew
inside the house after a hurricane passed
found a space in plywood-covered windows
to look out at last.
Leaves on the fence were covered in water drops.
Sun illuminating them.
“Oh my. Look at that. Somebody
has put diamonds all over the fence.”

A clear-eyed response
from one who had lost her connections
to what in the world was real.

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:

NEWSLETTER – about once a month: Mostly news of exhibits and my way of introducing new work. You’ll get FIRST LOOKS at new artwork and members-only discounts. You’ll hear from me about once a month. NEWSLETTER

Simply. Pleasing. Printing

June 16, 2024

Saturday I met with my local art group for our monthly get-together.

It was a reminder of the simple pleasure of the hand printmaking process. Its pleasing rhythms.

While conversations and artmaking of other kinds hummed in the room behind me, I set up the few supplies I brought: Three different substrates to print on (Kraft paper. Sheer fabric. Muslin.) Three ink colors. (Raw Sienna. Burnt Sienna. Black.) A gelatin printing plate. A few of my favorite stencils.

I kept it intentionally simple.

Then I just printed. Ink up the plate. Press. Pull. Repeat.

Do again on the same sheet – different color. Press the ghost of that print to a new sheet.

I’ll show you below some of what I printed. And they may look familiar. This is a repeat of some work I started a few months ago to create yardage for a work that will be the sense of loss in a burned house. I just needed some more.

But what I want to communicate here is not so much the finished product as the process. Creating these textures by hand, with simple methods, concentrating on it for a few hours, was pleasing work.

The results of those few hours will be collaged onto backer fabric so I can use them in the large quilt.

And I will be spending time thinking about how they go together, and how I want it to feel, and all the things I consider when I put a work together.

But I will also just remember the pleasure of pressing my hands into fabric to create images. That experience and the memory of it will be part of the finished work too.

. . . .

This week I received an update from SAQA with the exhibition places and dates for the “Gastronomy” Exhibit. I am happy to have work in this exhibit. (Graphic above – mine is the breadmaker on the far left.) If you are near any of these venues, I know you will the exhibit worth visiting.

Original Sewing & Quilt Expo:

Dallas - Irving, TX | Aug. 1, 2 & 3, 2024

Fredericksburg, VA | Sept. 26, 27 & 28, 2024

Nashville - Lebanon, TN | Oct. 3, 4 & 5, 2024

Cincinnati - Sharonville, OH | Oct. 10, 11 & 12, 2024

Detroit - Novi, MI | Nov. 14, 15 & 16, 2024

The Historical & Cultural Society of Clay County, Moorhead, Minnesota: October 4 - December 31, 2025

. . . .

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:

Pod Image Experiments

June 9, 2024

This week I’ve been working out some ideas through experimentation.

I want to create some fabric collaged pieces with organic and nature-based shapes. I need more raw materials. More “stuff.” So, I began thinking of pods and how interesting they are.

I looked at some photos of actual pods. Got their shapes in my head, then put the photos away and drew some pod-like things (not intending to be realistic) in my sketchbook.

The concept of small shapes (the seeds) contained within an outer shape appeals to me. This could work as a relief print (carved print block) or as a stencil. I decided to create some stencils just to get the feel for the image.

I actually cut two shapes. On the left is the opening without detail. This will be the background. On the right is the one that will define the shape of the pod.

First, I printed backgrounds, repeating the shape 3 times. (I used a soft paintbrush for this, letting colors blend naturally within the shape. Not too wet or it will slosh under the edge of the stencil)

Once the backgrounds were dry, I rolled the second hit on with a foam roller and a darker color mix. I could see through the stencil edge to line up this hit with the already-printed background. But, I didn’t work too hard at perfect fit. I liked the way it looked for the darker hit and the background to be just a little “off” in fit.

I decided these are interesting enough to keep playing with. I added a geometric shape in the background.

Then a few more shapes and some linear outlining.

Finally I added some all-over spatter to kil the flatness.

I can see possibilities for incorporating these shapes into a larger work. Next: I will probably cut a few more – different – pod and pod-like shapes, and work on composing something interesting that uses them together.

. . . . .

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:

Printing Patterns – Same and Different

June 2, 2024

Once upon a time there was an interesting pile of sticks in my driveway. They caught my eye.

I photographed them, simplified the design in PhotoShop, and prepared them in two versions: a positive and negative.

Then I ordered the images as printable silkscreens, about 7” x 9” image size each. This was several years ago. Since then I’ve incorporated the twigs into a number of my artworks. I like them a lot. I like the way the positive and negative speak to each other. I have used them in fabric works and in small paper works.

I am looking ahead to a submission due in August for a SAQA Global exhibit on the theme of Fire. I want to depict the loss after a fire. I am in the beginning of inspiration-for-the-composition stage of this new work, and I turned again to my faithful twig printing screens.

But… with a twist.

The paper stencil placed on the fabric is one I hand cut from card stock, based on an enlargement of the twig pattern in its usual size. I want to mix and match the same patterns in different sizes.

And now for some printing.

Here is painted fabric, rolling acrylic paint with a foam roller over my new stencil. After the first position, I just moved the stencil around so the twigs would appear randomly placed.

The bottom section is screen printed, using my usual size image of the twigs. I have overlapped the print hits in this section too.

I had one piece left of the fabric I had pre-painted with the olive and red splashes, and on that section I screen printed the twig negative image, so the background is dark and the underneath colors form the twigs.

For now, these pieces are on my work table, next to more pieces I have printed over the last few months. I have a vision for the new work, but not a composition yet. I’m interested in letting it evolve.

. . . .

Meanwhile… I completed a few collages using the bright green fabrics I wrote about last week. (Plus two other collages in a slightly different palette)

Thanks for the great comments. Looks like the color bright green has a big fan club!

I hope you’ll take time to visit my website and see how these turned out. COLLAGES

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:

Diving Into Green

May 26, 2024

Inspired by the big green leaves I was working on a few weeks ago, I’ve just been thinking about that wonderful bright green.

This is a bit of reverse inspiration. Generally, I work out ideas in smaller paper collages, then figure out how to use those ideas in a larger textile work. This time, the larger textile work is inspiring some smaller paper collages.

Starting with COLOR:

I’m looking for a bright, sunny green – a mix of blue and yellow, weighted to the yellow. Here’s my mixing space on my plastic drop cloth. (I have slipped a piece of white cardboard under the clear plastic so I can see the color accurately.)

Any time you mix a light color with a dark color, it helps to start with the lighter color (here – yellow) and mix the darker color into it just a little at a time. If you start with the dark and add light to it, it might take a long time to get to the color you want and you have to mix up too much.

I’ve got about two spoonfuls of yellow here to a little less than half a spoonful of blue. But, notice when it’s mixed, I still only used about half of the blue. A little goes a long way in this mix.

Now I’m inking up my gelatin plate. My goal will be to create some thin, tissue paper monotypes to use as collage backgrounds.

I’m pulling up a printed sheet to see what I get. It’s a loose, all-over parchment-look color. Just what I wanted.

Clean up time. If you have watched monotype printing with gelatin plates on YouTube (there are MANY great videos available,) you’ll probably notice that they generally show the paper removing ALL of the acrylic paint of the gelli-plate. There’s nothing to clean. That does not happen for me. My homemade plate is slightly different consistency than the commercial ones. And, I am using super thin printing paper. So, some paint remains on the plate.

I wipe off the surface with a paper towel and a little water, then do a final wipe with rubbing alcohol. This keeps mold away. (My plate is stored non-refrigerated and I’ve been using this one for about a year now.)

Here are some of the papers I printed. I love the bright, watercolor-like transparency of the monotype printed pieces. For contrast, in the little cereal bowl is some blue I mixed up for another project that includes white in the mix.

That blue was a useful color mix, and adding white to a color can make it more pastel and also opaque. But, adding white is not the way to get the light, bright color. I find that brightness requires transparency.

At the end of this studio session, I began collaging the thin papers to watercolor sheets, which will be the substrate for the collage. I tape down the watercolor papers all four sides while I work, and generally work on two at once, side by side, as I have them here on my plywood sheet.

More to come on these projects. See ya next time.

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:

Workin’ Fast N Loose

May 19, 2024

This week the Florida landscape called to me to get out of the studio and do something different.

A friend and I went to a nearby County Park at Gemini Springs and set up to sketch next to the water. We did not take full plein air set-up — just some sketching utensils and pads of paper. We found a picnic table near the water and responded to what we saw.

No finished artwork resulted.

No masterpieces.

Just experience. The experience of air and water. And the experience of drawing.

I started with just color and random shapes, to get the feel of my materials. I ended up using water-soluble oil pastels and a brush dipped in water. Sometimes dip then draw into the wet. Sometimes make some marks then mush them around in water with the brush.

Once I got the color response bug out of my system, I had more fun sketching actual things.

I started close-up, concentrating on a nearby plant with leaves.

Then I looked across the water at a group of fishermen on the dock. I enjoyed doing these a lot.

My takeaways – things I rediscovered.

Quick and unfinished is OK. . . just getting the sense of a subject and then moving on to the next one is an acceptable procedure. There was no need for me to “finish” these – to color in all the parts.

Work as big as you can. . . That’s a good rule for me, though I know other people really enjoy working small. I don’t. These pads are 18 x 24 and that was big enough to get some arm movement going and create some loose shapes. Working small makes me want to do little back and forth movements of the wrist and to concentrate on detailed aspects of an image. That’s not what this outing was about for me.

Drawing wrong-handed . . . Another friend introduced me years ago to drawing with my non-dominant hand. I’m right-handed. I drew all these with my left hand. It’s just a way to re-wire your brain and help you get more freedom of expression.

Could something more come of these drawings? Possibly. I could rip them up and incorporate them into a paper work. I could collage more paper or fabric onto them.

Or I could just leave them as they are – experiments and experiences. I believe those also will find their way into other larger, more finished projects. For example . . .

Remembering my responses to being outside and looking at sunlight inspired this work: “Why I Wake Early.”

“Why I Wake Early” is part of the SAQA Florida Regional exhibit, “Awakening” exhibiting at Visual Art Center in Punta Gorda through May 24. I invite you to go visit this interesting and varied exhibit of work if you are near this venue.

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:

Bringing Leaves to Life

May 12, 2024

A week of experimenting.

(I’m not sure if that sounds surprising to those who follow my work. After all, I’m in the studio putting paint on fabric all the time. But a single technique – used in a new way or for a new purpose – can mean experimenting happens all the time too.)

Last week I was looking down into water and creating watery patterns.

This week I worked on the companion section – something to suggest the feel of plant life above or beside the watery patterns.

I came up with – and then rejected – several possibilities. I ended up guided by the graphic character of the underwater section. I also wanted just a few strong shapes to balance the intricate goings-on of the underwater section.

To follow the inspiration and process: Here is a section of the underwater section I created last week:

Here’s the sketch I came up with for the above-water section

Before jumping in, just a note about process: using hand-cut stencils. There are lots of other ways this image could get onto fabric. I could have just hand-painted it, for example. But I like the flat, super-thin paint layers that come from rolling with a foam roller. And I like the clean line edges.

I used a stencil cut from freezer paper. Step 1: Cut it out.

Freezer paper is magic! Even though I have used it a number of times, I am always amazed that it works. But it does. You place the waxy side face-down to come in contact with the substrate fabric. Then iron it in place. It sticks, it will create a clean edge, and it will peel right off. (And, frequently, you can use a freezer stencil more than once.)

I’m working from the background, light to darker over-print. Yellow is the underneath layer, the lightest. Here I am rolling it over the freezer paper.

Without moving the freezer paper stencil, I am over-rolling a green on top of the yellow with a linear pattern which will show through yellow. Then I rolled a third hit, a transparent lime green color over all of it.

Here’s the first reveal.

I will be rolling on one more layer: the dark blue-black. Before doing that I had to cover up the green and yellow I had just painted. I wanted the dark color to show around it, not on top of it.

(Compare this photo to the fist one showing the stencil. Picture one: The leaves and lines were the open part for the paint to go in. Now, picture 2, the leaves and lines are what’s covered up.)

After the four rolled layers, plus a bit of spatter, here’s how it looked.

This work is not done, but it’s pretty close. I quilted the leaf sections with lines that follow and enhance the shape of the leaves. Then I sewed the leaf section to the underwater section.

I had an enjoyable few hours of stamping an energetic linear pattern all around the perimeter in two colors. I like the way this is unifying the sections.

Working out patterns and composition in large, almost-whole-cloth works is quite different from creating patterns on individual pieces of yardage then cutting them up and stitching them together. (Although I like that too.)

I needed some new artistic energy. This experimental project is giving it to me.

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:

Looking into water

May 5, 2024

I have spent a good deal of time this week just looking into water.

Such a wonderful pastime! There is something magical and calming about being by a body of water, looking down through your feet to moving water, seeing its patterns and movements as you feel it wash over part of you.

Creating a section about 24” x 30” with water patterns has been an experimental activity. I have in mind I’d like to develop up some whole cloth works with more emphasis on painting. For this week, the water panel is a first-step experiment.

It did not go at all in the direction I had expected. But as I kept adding layers, I liked what I got. Here’s the current status:

Take a moment to look down into the water. Can you identify the layers – working backwards to figure out the steps to get to this point? (It started as a background of a plain natural color muslin.) Here’s a close-up look.

I created a second panel, which I had planned to put with the water. But – well – I just don’t think it’s going to work. (My vision was a section of trees, to function as an above-ground complement to the below-ground section of water.) But the character of the section just isn’t fitting with the water. It’s like two different landscapes.

Then this afternoon as I was driving home from a swim in the springs, I came up with a different idea. I’ll spend some time with my sketchbook this evening to see if I can bring it to fruition. If so, I’ll thank the water of the springs for the inspiration.

I’ve included elements of water in lots of my quilts. It’s a favorite element.

This one, Looking Below the Surface, contrasts a photograph of water (I transferred it to muslin) with the life of water and sunlight I imagined to be below the water.

This one is Revealing the Invisible, which also contrasts a photographic image with other non-photo surface design elements.

The above-and-below theme is the basis for Nor Could our Hands Catch Them.

I did not use any photographic elements in this one. The underwater section is a single whole cloth panel, monoprinted in yellow-golds, then overpainted with transparent blue-green with the fish shapes blocked out in stenciled wheat paste resist. I enjoy the sense of light in the water.

This week I hope you find pleasing waters, pleasing pastimes, joyful splashes and maybe some inspiration to fill your week.

. . . .

And here is an invitation:

I am happy to have a quilt in the Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) Florida Region Exhibit, “Awakening” which opens May 13 at Visual Arts Center in Punta Gorda. If you are near that part of Florida, I hope you’ll visit this interesting and thought-provoking exhibit of work by Florida artists.

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:

Side by Side Composing

April 28, 2024

Compositions that work their way across several panels have become interesting to me in the past few years.

I confess that, initially, it was more a matter of necessity than inspiration.

I like to create big works. They are hard to handle in my studio and costly to ship when I create them in one big piece. So, sometimes, I create them in sections.

I had no idea when I first began to work this way that it would be so interesting. There’s just something about working out a composition in pieces that’s slightly different from working in a single picture plane. There’s work to do to be sure the sections speak to each other. I find it challenging and creative.

So I was interested last year when I saw the call-to-artists from Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) for works created as diptychs, or 2-panel works in which the content related to each other in some way.

This was also out of the ordinary for me because the works are small. Each panel was to be just under 12” square. And they are going to an exhibit in Australia. So, I thought: “I’m in.”

I was delighted to have a piece accepted. I’ll show it here. And, I created two additional works, and I’m sharing those too.

(Just a fun diversion: I took all three pieces with me last week to the meeting of my local art group. I laid them out on the floor and asked members to guess which piece of the three was accepted. Votes were pretty evenly split between each of the three. Just a reminder that we never know what’s important or interesting to a juror. And everybody likes different things.)

This is The Flying Wallendas, the work accepted for exhibit.

I began the work as another experiment, a day last year when my local art group had a morning dedicated to creating from bits in our scrap piles. It meant that right from the beginning, I had a “Why not? I’ll give a try” attitude of playfulness. I picked things that did not appear to go together at all and just stared collaging.

As it evolved, I added more paint and collaged on layers. Here’s a close-up.

One note about works in multiple sections: It’s very important that they display as they are designed. If there are elements that need to line up in a certain way (in this work, the black linear elements) it’s up to the artist to put some instruction on there so the gallery art-hanger or eventual patron knows how the work should go. If these two pieces are butted right up against one another, the lines don’t connect correctly.

Piece #2:

Allowing playfulness to direct this experiment, I created a nature-based scene. This is Different Lunch Plans.

(You might remember that I wrote a blog post about this one in January, as I was creating the artwork, about working out the color relationships. You can read it HERE if you are interested)

Piece #3

Finally, I wanted something simple.

This is Floating Into the Place of Dreams. I enjoyed creating a work so different from the other two.

The Flying Wallendas will fly off to its Australian adventure next month. I have made the other two works available on my website, and you can find them HERE.

You might be inspired to take a look at the other works in this gallery too. There’s a mix of work in multiple panels as well as single picture plane works. Maybe you will discover interesting similarities and differences.

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:

Musical Patterns

April 21, 2024

My soul has been filled this weekend by visual art and music.

What could be better?

On Saturday I spent most of the day with my local art buddies, a group called Arts Etc, doing experiments in fabric painting with stencils. There was no pressure to create a finished work.

In fact, I told them it was very unlikely any of us would create something that worked as a finished whole cloth piece. But maybe we would create interesting bits. We were allowing the patterns to happen and to discover the rhythms of shape working together.

Then Saturday evening I went to a piano concert at Stetson University, here in DeLand. (Stetson is my alma mater and I am always happy to give a shout out to their spectacular school of music.) Guest pianist Anton Nel took us through Bach as intricate as bobbin lace to Beethoven filled with heart pounding fury.

As I looked at what I created this weekend, and remembered the experience of the music, I’m putting them together in my head. So much of what makes patterns in music pleasing and memorable is what makes visual patterns pleasing and memorable too.

Here’s the whole piece I printed:

What I see:

A composition works well when sizes vary. Something big. Something medium. Something small. And in values, something dark and something light. (In fact, as I led the stenciling exercise with my group, we had that as part of our instructions: begin with a big white circle and a medium sized dark square. Then depart from there.)

In music, if everything is a big crescendo then nothing is a big crescendo. The brain needs a rest between these. And if a work is all light and spritely, it can feel trite. A mix of dark and light gives voice to each emotion more fully.

Other take-aways;

Repeating patterns are pleasing. (Like a melody that reoccurs.)

The pattern itself can have repeating element, and then that group of things can also reappear elsewhere on the composition, perhaps with a variation.

Note the rectangles in a row: The unit is itself a repeating pattern. It also repeats within the whole piece. Dark in one place. Light in another.

A mix of positive and negative. It’s interesting to print a circle. It’s even more interesting to see that same shape used elsewhere as a negative image, printing its perimeter. These places create depth.

Geometric shapes and organic nature-based shapes can interact nicely

Finally, in the midst of all this diversity and variation, there needs to be some unity. This piece of painted fabric has very limited color choices. A neutral background plus a dark and a light. This holds the whole work together.

I could, at this point, introduce a bit of splash someplace: maybe an orange or red element. It wouldn’t be confusing because so much on the piece is already unified.

A color splash would work like the “ting!” of a triangle at just the right place in a musical performance. Timed right, used judiciously: perfect! But if there were triangles tinging and tubas blaring and cellos going all at once, all throughout the performance, it might be a lot to take.

I’ve been working diligently all week on the large House of leaves quilt I’ve written about a few times. I needed a mental break. Thank you, art friends! Thank you music! You were just what I needed.

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

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Bobbi’s Blog 4-14-24… Absorbing – The vocabulary of life.

April 14, 2024

This morning as I spent some time reading on the porch a picture came to me of my mother’s profile reflected in the window of a train. Outside her window was the landscape of the American South one sees along railroad tracks. We traveled from Baltimore to Florida in trains many times when I was growing up. I must have seen my mother’s face like that.

But I don’t know where that image came from today.

Some word in the poetry I was reading triggered a nerve which touched off another which conjured up an image.

I was listening to the sound of the little wren in the birdhouse just above my head outside the screen porch. It has a wonderful and recognizable warble when it lands and calls out, “Here I am.” I am sure I am not the one she means to notify. But, so far, I have not seen a partner.

Sometimes the wren also pecks on the birdhouse, a little like a woodpecker, but she’s not digging for food. She just likes to peck-peck-peck after she lands.

And the air was very cool as the sun was coming up. I noticed how it felt on my arms. My feet were comfortable under a blanket.

I was also remembering an NPR interview I listened to while working in the studio this week. An author who teaches writing was talking about “A Thousand Words a Day.” As you might guess, she advocates breaking down your BIG writing goals – like writing a novel – into small pieces. What you can reasonably accomplish in one day. And then do it again the next day. (Sounds like artmaking.)

I am about a third of the way through James McBride’s memoir The Color of Water. Having just read three of his novels, I was excited to dive into this book. It is even more wonderful than I could have hoped. There’s so much to love. His writing craft fills every paragraph with rich details: smells of the house, sounds of the neighborhood. His clarinet. The rough interactions of the twelve siblings.

He absorbed these details and worked them into his art. It becomes a revealing and insightful portrait of his mother.

And so now I am back again to an image of a mother. My mother’s face is now in the window of the dining car, where there is a small vase with flowers on the table silhouetted against the window, and she is enjoying the smoke she could not have in the regular coach compartment.

To write. To make art.

There needs to be time to absorb details and process them.

Then do the work of arranging and rearranging them.

At least in some small way, faithfully. Every day.

….

One last thought – inspired by the sentence about my mother and the vase on the table. I discovered this week, while volunteering in kindergarten class, that “vase” is not a word kindergarten children know. Not the children in my class. (A worksheet with a picture asked the children to identify the beginning letter of the item depicted.) Most called it a jar or a bottle.

Pour into every child you know as many details, images, stories, words, explanations, questions, smells, sounds, touches and experiences as you can. For many children, their vocabulary of life is very small.

…..

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:

Learning from the Paint

April 7, 2024

After a very productive fabric painting session this week, I stopped for a break and to give the fabric a chance to dry. I only straightened up enough to be sure that paint jars all had lids screwed down tight and paint brushes were soaking in water. Then I left.

A delightful chaos of fabric lessons awaited me when I returned.

I spent time walking around the studio, picking up what I had created and looking at it, putting the pieces in piles defining what I thought I might do with each one next. This was a chance to see what worked and what didn’t, and to receive the lessons the paint was telling me.

Lesson 1 – The value of a unified palette.

These fabric pieces are not at all alike. But, as I see them here on the table, I am confident they will work well together. They were all created from the same paint hues, mixed in varying amounts. So, they will harmonize well in the finished piece.

Lesson 2 – The versatility of a good stencil pattern

Here is a tree shape cut from a manila file folder.

The brown section shows what I had just painted with a medium brown paint. When I was done I thought it looked good.

Then I thought of how I could make it better.

I flipped the stencil ninety degrees from the position I used for the first print and mixed up a slightly different brown. I painted this over the first layer.

Then, to add one more layer, I created energetic lines in black printing with a thin cardboard edge. The result is far more complex and interesting than the simple first layer I created with this stencil.

Lesson 3 - A color does not have to be solid

This piece was printed with a foam roller and another favorite stencil. (A stencil cut from a card stock like a folder can have a long and productive life. I’ve had some of my favorites for years.)

I had a mix of reds and oranges on my mixing surface. I used the roller medium wet and rolled it to pick up bits of each color. So, with a single pass when I applied the roller to fabric, I got a subtle mix of oranges and reds. Allowing this to happen spontaneously created a much more interesting result than a single flat color would have been.

Lesson 4 – Going back and forth to the big project

While I am interested in the results of the individual parts I created, I need to remember that they are not the final product. The final product is the artwork in which these pieces will be used.

I have been keeping it pinned up on my easel as I work on other things.

I want to envision these pieces in the final composition.

Beyond that … is why I am creating these images with these colors in the first place. How do these patterns and colors make me feel? What story do I hope to tell?

Getting that right will be the most important lesson.

. . . . . . .

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

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Colors: Neutrals and Complements

March 31, 2024

This week I’ve been in the backbone-basics stage of my quilt project depicting a house of leaves.

Time for some palette decisions.

And time to print some yardage determined by those choices.

Here’s how I began:

I’ll be mixing up a neutral yellow/gold color built from yellow and black. (You might notice that my jar of yellow is a very intense cadmium yellow – like a very deep mustard. This is not my usual brand of paint. It’s a jar I acquired once and don’t really like. But, from experience I know it will work well in this particular color mix. So I’m using it up.)

Yellow + black = mustard gold. Less black = more gold-ish. More black takes the hue to olive green.

I’ve decided to monotype print on my gelatin plate. This yields a very delicate hue (because the paint is so thin on the plate) and some interesting random textures (because my plate now has some nice wear and tear in it. ) I mixed up the color right on my vinyl drop cloth and rolled the brayer through it.

First I printed some individual paper sheets – a nice thin tissue paper. These are great for collage.

Then I printed some yardage – what I’ll actually use in my quilt-in-progress. This is a sheer polyester. First I ink up the plate with the brayer, press down a fabric section, pull it off, ink up the plate again, move the fabric down a bit and press the next section. All the sections will overlap a little to create a delicate, random texture on the yardage.

(Vocabulary lesson: I am using the word “ink” as a verb, the way a printmaker or printer would use it. To apply the color to the printing plate. But I am not using inks. I am printing with acrylic paints.)

The usefulness of a delicate, neutral color is discovered by pairing it with an intense color, especially its complement.

On the color wheel, pure yellow is the complement of pure purple. So I know that these mixed colors “yellowish” and “purplish” will work as complements too. They bring out interesting characteristics of each other.

Here’s an application I found for that thin tissue paper. I ripped an uneven edge and cut it to fit under the roof angle, to provide a subtle touch of color to the house. (I also collaged the deep purplish-sky and leaves patterns inside the window so the parts will speak to each other.)

Next up in this project is some stitching. And some more collage. I expect to be living inside this project for a while. (Good thing I like the colors!)

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

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About bravery

March 24, 2024

Sometimes I am brave. (In artmaking. In life.)

Sometimes I am not brave at all. (In artmaking. In life.)

I admire bravery and I respond to it, often, at a gut level that’s a combination of emotional response and conscious thought.

This weekend I went to see an exhibit by three quilt artmakers I know from SAQA in Florida, and I encountered artmaking bravery. It’s always good to visit exhibits and learn from the work of other artists.

Here are some takeaways.

Here’s a shot of the exhibit space at the Southwest Florida State College Museum of Art and Culture. The artists exhibiting are Ellen Lindner, Gabriele DiTota and Sue Robinson.

It’s good right at the beginning to stop and take a breath. Wow. Any artist or group of artists who have a group show in a beautiful space are brave souls. Somebody had to make the proposal. Or if a request was initiated, somebody had to say yes. And get the works together and delivered. And have sufficient confidence to show the works and do all the required PR.

(Making the work is just PART of the process, and sometimes the easiest part.) I applaud artists who have made the work and then tackle exhibiting opportunities.

One wall displayed one work from each artist that I experienced as a wall of bravery.

This is Sue Robinson’s work, Light from Above.

Bravery in composition. It’s very hard to leave that much negative space alone to let it speak. Always tempting to fill it in with stuff or crop differently. The powerful, empty background of this work is part of its strength. This work is haunting and memorable. I love it.

This is Ellen Lindner’s work, Raking Season.

Bravery in vision. Ellen has been a quiltmaker for a long time. In the last several years she has created a new body of work created from her experiments in hand-dyeing fabric and creating with improvisational construction. This work is bold and unexpected. I love it.

This is Gabrielle DiTota’s work Bothered.

Bravery in surface design. Gabrielle showed a body of art focusing on fabric printing techniques that evolve in unpredictable ways: cyanotype (sun) printing and breakdown screen printing. The artist has to learn and master some techniques, and then stand back and let what happens happen. The result is great spontaneity. This work has lots and lots to look at. I love it.

Back home, I am planning on some days in the studio bringing along my current large project depicting the house with leaves. I hope I will be inspired to make decisions and create bravely!

Finally: the staff at SWFSC made a terrific video interview of Ellen, Gabriele and Sue. It’s very well done and well worth watching. Pop some popcorn and take a look:

https://youtu.be/2IWN7CIHWYU

If you are inspired to see even more wonderful textile art, I invite you to explore the new Gallery of Textile SAQA-FL website. You’ll find more art by Ellen and Gabriele, and me, and about twenty other textile artists making interesting – and brave! – work.

https://www.gallerytextileartsaqafl.com/

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

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In the beginning was…

March 17, 2024

In the beginning was the idea.

At this stage in the creation of a new large work, it’s not hard to focus on the idea. That’s mostly all there is. All the physical parts are just in the beginning stages of being created.

My plan is a series that develops my works about a girl’s journey. These will focus on images of a house as a metaphor for emotional realities.

The first one, completed earlier this year, is “Living in the House of Blue Shadows.”

“Living In House of Blue Shadows” Art Quilt 2024

Now I am at the early stages of “Living in the House of Leaves.”

I wrote in last week’s blog about the process of stream-of-conscious writing on prepared fabric to create words to incorporate into the work. More of that continued this week. (Turns out I wanted more yardage prepared this way.)

My second stage of writing sit-down sessions became more contemplative. It takes a long time to fill up several yards of fabric with hand written text. I let ideas flow about the leaves.

What do leaves connote? I will be depicting them as autumn leaves, orange and brown and fallen from the trees. Fall leaves are pretty. People drive up into the mountains to see their color. Their crunch on a sidewalk can be pleasing to walk through. Children like to jump in them.

They also represent transition. The tree is going from one stage to the next. The leaves are in the process of dying. People gather them up in piles and burn them. They are not in control of what happens to them.

And the specific memory I have which connects me to the leaves is walking from the bus stop to home in fall evenings, scuffing and kicking the leaves as I walked, and looking at them gathered in piles near the sidewalk. What that part of my life felt like is connected inside me to the images of leaves.

After writing, I have accomplished a few more beginning steps.

This is a photo transfer-in-progress.

I’ll be putting some large photo images in this quilt. This one leaf will be created from four 11” x 17” size color copies. I tile the image into parts in PhotoShop Elements, have the sections printed at a local copy shop, then tape them back together to make one big image. I will transfer it to fabric as one large piece.

I have done the same thing – but larger – with the house-and-leaf image I have taped up on my easel. (Right now this is about 40” x 40”)

I enjoyed creating layers in the digital image to blend the house and the leaf into one another.

I am leaving this up for awhile to let the ideas cook a bit. I like the integration of house and leaves, but I am not sure I want to keep it as a single big image in the quilt. It might be more interesting cut or ripped apart and appearing in several places in the quilt.

More thinking and planning to do.

To take the beginning … the idea … and make it come to life.

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:

Experiencing Rhythms. Patterns. Bummers.

March 10, 2024

This week I am experiencing how much artmaking (like other elements in life) is subject to evolution and change.

Rhythms. Patterns. (And bummers!)

Last weekend I hosted my studio on the Artist’s Studio Tour in the DeLand Area. What a great experience! Lots of visitors. Wonderful conversations. Good Sales. Working the event is like being onstage for two days. Constantly “on!”

Monday I put my studio back in order. Took down most of the display panels. (I decided I like having a few up and will leave them.) I cleaned. I sorted. I did computer follow-ups.

This morning when I walked in my studio, it looked beautiful to me.

I had cleaned and organized prior to the tour. So when I put it back together I had good trashcan-quantity of less stuff.

Aaahhhh.

Several weeks ago, I had also built a small shelf in my primary work and storage pallet rack sections. Such a little thing. Such a wonderful difference!

And as I looked around the studio this morning, at the artwork I had decided to leave displayed for a while, I took a moment to think about pattern.

This is one of the new works I created for the tour.

Still Life - Intersections with Two Bottles

I enjoyed creating several of these small quilts and presenting them in framed shadow box frames. (Another simple pleasure of accomplishment: I took standard frames and built half-round molding inserts behind the glass along with ½ x ½ square dowel additions on the back to transform them into shadow boxes, for a float mount presentation.)

And then this morning I stood back and looked at the new small works hanging next to a large work, “Stepping on the Cracks,” which incorporates some fabrics printed with the same branch-pattern silkscreen.

I love this. I love how a simple pattern can be used in different ways, in different colors, on different artworks, yet provide some continuity between pieces in a body of work.

And now I am in between stages. I do not have short-term deadline projects facing me. I do have several large works that interest me, and I am beginning the mental preparation of beginning them.

I spent several hours over the weekend beginning the process of incorporating words into fabric. One of the next pieces will be a semi-autographical storytelling work incorporating images of leaves. So I wrote and wrote, in a stream of conscious style, about leaves. Walking in them. Kicking them. How they remind me of other things. What they symbolize.

I am hoping that incorporating these into the background in places will add both visual texture of writing plus depth of meaning to the finished work. (If you look carefully, you can discern a few words. But it is not really my intent that a viewer will read the text. It’s just there. An underlyng pattern.)

And, as life happens, into this week of reorganizing and finding my way, a bummer. My digital camera and my computer have stopped communicating to each other (again!) and my first round of attempted repairs at the computer store did not solve it. Not the end of the world. But very frustrating. (Taking images from my camera into my computer is a regular part of my working.)

So, I did what I could do. Took the computer apart. Sucked out gobs of dust into the shop vac. Reassembled it. And I will start again at the beginning with my camera manual and googling trouble-shooting advice to attempt to solve the issue. (Not my favorite thing.)

Wherever you are in the rhythms of artmaking and life you may be this week.. May you find your way to the next stage and find meaning in it.

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:

C’mom in!

March 3, 2024

I set up my stool in the corner of my studio this weekend for the Off-The-Beaten-Path Studio Tour. I could greet visitors as they came through the door and engage in conversations. So, this was my view for much of this weekend:

In the foreground, on my big worktable, is a small bin of printed fabrics and papers I showed visitors to explain how I create.

Beyond that are displays of completed artwork.

And around it all were great hours of:

questions about process

questions about what the art means

questions about how long things take

questions about supplies

as well as shared insights: I like the way the colors go together in this one. This one reminds me of my home growing up. I like the way textile art has interesting surface texture. Aren’t birds fascinating?

I am grateful for the many visitors who took time to show interest in artwork and I am grateful for the ones who became patrons by taking home a piece of artwork with them.

Now I think I’ll take down my directional signs, then put my feet up for a bit.

See you next week.

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:

Saying (Writing) The Next Word

February 25, 2024

This week I spent a day at the AQS Quilt Show in Daytona Beach as a volunteer representing SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) at the SAQA table next to its Global Exhibit, “Haven.”

It was great. My four-hour shift went by fast.

Things I learned, that I think are important enough to talk about some more:

Women’s journeys in creative work.

Women’s roles in supporting one another.

About the journeys

First, about my focus on women in particular. Almost every person I talked to was female. Quilting is a creative endeavor with mostly-female participants. So, while I know male creative artmakers experience a journey as well, I was talking almost exclusively to women. (And I believe women still experience creative journeys differently than men.)

And many of the women I spoke to – especially middle aged or older women – were quick to describe themselves as non-creative, with phrases such as “Oh I could never do that!” This quilt show featured a large number of traditional quilts, beautifully made and beautifully representing the traditions of quiltmaking. These attracted a lot of visitors, women who also make traditional quilts and want to see examples of the best.

When they discovered the art quilt exhibit, we had great conversations about how it’s not the same as traditional quiltmaking. (Not inherently better. But inherently different.) How the artists come up with their own visions and patterns. How they don’t all follow the established rules of finishing or material use. How they can be playful. Or emotional. Or statements on social issues.

I especially enjoyed the conversations that felt like lightbulb moments, when a person suddenly realizes that some other way of working is possible.

Just knowing what is possible – what other people have tried and are doing – can be a powerful beginning.

About women supporting one another

As it happened, the SAQA table was right next to my artwork that is part of the “Haven” traveling exhibit: “Writing the Next Word.”

When I noticed people looking at it, I introduced myself and engaged in conversation about the work.

It was inspired by my weekly writing group, and it depicts one of my friends who is part of the group. The surface shows suggestions of a journey (beginning on the left with warmer colors and patterns of road-like lines) contrasted with the haven on the right. I depicted the safe harbor of my writing group in cool, welcoming variations of blue, and used them to depict my friend as she is: comfortable in her own skin, relaxing on the porch couch.

The conversations I had about women supporting other women were very warm. Inevitably my conversation partner would give me a knowing smile. Yes, this is important, she would nod. Yes, this is powerful.

Perhaps you have two voices in you. One is “Oh I can never do that.” One is the “my friends are here for me if I fall short.”

I hope your journey is teaching you to listen more to the second voice.

Just this morning I re-discovered a poem I had not read for some time. I think it’s just the thing to fit here. This is a portion of “The woman in the ordinary,” by Marge Piercy.

. . . . .

One-Week Countdown: The DeLand-Area Studio Tour is March 2-3. You are cordially invited to visit my studio. Please visit the tour website for information and maps to studios or contact me if you need information. I’d love to say “hi!” in person.

. . . . .

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: