FOG Starts Another Year

The kids are back at school and the poplars are turning yellow so it's time for FOG to get back into the swing of things for another year.

As with any arts group we belong to and workshops we might take, we end up with a plethora of neat samples, but rarely to anything with them. To that end we have come up with a Master Plan for the year and that is to do a book, using past samples as pages and altering them as we go. It was suggested that we think of a theme for our samples to create a more cohesive book. In June we will assemble our pages into a bound book.

Not to be considered too strict in our approach and to avoid the Fibre Arts and Mixed Media Police 😉 we will spell off sessions and do some fun projects through out the year.

As in the past where we worked with new products and techniques, we will continue to do that as we work on the pages of our book.

For September we altered pages and fabrics with paint to give them some new life. We did come up with some interesting samples.

Just when you thought that your 1970's quilting fabrics (you all have them) were too ugly to use or that gingham might never be cool again, add some paint and a large rubber/foam stamp and you have created a wonderful new fabric ready for use.

Diane - Vintage 70's red print and gingham prints.
Off white and red acrylic paint with fabric medium.
Foam stamp.

Fabric upholstery fabrics are also great to work on and they are a great size for a book.

Betty - Two upholstery fabric samples.
It's hard to see on the left, but the large flowers are very dimensional.

I tried my hand on a piece of cotton, decorator weight fabric using both sides for much different looks. I used craft acrylic paints and fabric medium. Both foam and red rubber stamps seemed to work about the same. I used my Gelli Plate™ and brayered on the paint. The slight give of the Gelli Plate™ allowed the paint to cover the stamps.

Same fabric, two sides.
Foam and red rubber stamps, craft acrylic paints and
fabric medium.
Top - metallic paint
Bottom - craft acrylic

Marie - Top - red rubber stamps.
Bottom - wood block stamp.
Marie used a foam brush to paint her stamps.

Everyone uses a drop cloth or paper towel to paint on or clean up. Karen took hers to the next level with some interesting stamps on her very colourful drop cloth.

Karen - Paint splattered drop cloth and stamped images.

Top - Joyce - using a spatula to print.
Bottom - Meredith - Foam stamp on decorator fabric.

Lastly, Karen gave us all one signature from a library discard book so that we can also work on another project throughout the year. While we were stamping we cleaned up the extra paint by brayering onto the pages or pulling a print from a Gelli Plate™.

Karen - a couple of painted and altered pages.
Top - painted paper towel, looks almost like netting.
Bottom - Food colouring on coffee filters.

I think it is safe to say that we had a good time for this first session and I look forward to the year ahead. We are to bring back one finished page to our next session in October.

Catching up with FOG Posts

I must confess I have had a lot going on in my life through all of 2016 and the most of 2017 and have not been posting at all. We have continued to meet on our FOG Tuesdays throughout that time and I have diligently taken and edited pictures, but I have not headed down to the computer to do a posting. I hope that for the remainder of 2017 and into 2018 I will keep up with our current projects and might even get some of the old posts done as we did some very neat things throughout the year.

In June 2017, one of our members, a very talented artist in her own right, gave us a lesson on Abstract Art. This was quite  departure for all of us and I must say that it was a learning curve for me. Mostly having done quilting, fibre arts and mixed media pieces over the past many years, abstract painting left me wide eyed like a deer in the headlights.

I did learn that it was not best to scrimp with the paint and that abstract art can be a work in progress allowing layers to dry before adding new ones so you might want to work on more than one project at a time. Choice of tools can enhance your efforts and are certainly not limited to brushes. We had credit cards for scrapers, modified brushes, hand made stamps, drywall tape to name just a few.

My efforts on one of the two pieces I started are show below. I have yet to compete either one.

Left, first effort, scrimping on paint.Right, new layers, more paint, more interest.

I walk each morning around the hood and always have my phone with me so I can take photos of interesting things I see. About a week ago I was on my walk and came across this table on the edge of a lawn and could not resist a photo.

Abstract Art as its best.

I marvelled at the artist, most certainly a young child, able to produce this perfect mess that could most certainly be hung in any gallery and there was likely no adult intervention in the process, just a childlike joie de vivre while messing about with some paint.

I wish as adults we could capture some of that feeling.