Paint & Stitch Magic

Over the past weekend, Sue had great fun in a 2-day class at Artistic Artifacts with Libby Williamson of Blue Denim Design.  Libby is from California and has a unique approach to art quilting, which combines painted paper collage, free motion thread sketching, machine applique and painting on cloth.  We created 2 different projects using related but different techniques.

We started with getting messy by painting some papers to use in the collage work.  Libby uses deli paper as a mainstay of her painted papers, but also recommends maps, book pages, sheet music, etc. She even gave us some Monopoly money to paint! 

Paint can be applied with a brush or fingers (or both) and stamps and other objects can be used to add additional color and pattern.

Here is Sue's friend Paula getting messy!  We also worked with gelatin plates to create papers and fabric prints.

Here are some of Sue's painted papers, some of which you may spot later in her collage.

This is one of Libby's collage samples.  The background is a heavy canvas that is fringed on the edges.  The colored pieces are all painted papers that are applied with matte medium.  Details are added with free motion stitching in black thread.

Here's the piece Libby did in class to demo the collage process.  Notice the 3 segments that make up the house are the Monopoly money.

We did so much in the 2 days, that I decided to break the post up into 3 parts, so be sure to check back for more.  Libby is a fun, relaxed, and generous teacher and I highly recommend her classes.  Here is a link to her blog.  Libby will be teaching at Craft Napa in January 2018, so if you are contemplating attending this 4 day retreat, check out Libby's classes.  (Sue and Paula attended Craft Napa this year.)