4” x 4” Mixed Media Digital Collages

 Themes for art trades are a double-edged sword—they can spark creativity or they can squelch it. For me, they are often too narrow and specific and make me feel boxed in. When the idea of doing 4” square art pieces with no theme was posted to heARTist Trading, I felt like I had been released from the box. I toyed with the ideas of needle-felting, “scrappy” fabric, watercolor, collage and even a small paper doll sized to fit a 4” square. At the moment, I have some serious space and time constraints, and my sewing machine is packed up, so I decided to go with my latest loves—layering vintage photos in Photoshop and combining the Photoshop work with stamping, stenciling, chalk, inks and/or colored pencil.Thanks to the abundance of Graphics Fairy free digital vintage images available, I had a great time puttering and tweaking in Photoshop, trying out different layers, brushes and filters. For “Helen” (otherwise known as my mother) I used a pink mum, decoratively scrolled sheet music, an aged promissory note, and a photo booth snapshot of Helen from the 1940s. After laser printing my Photoshop creation on cardstock, I applied an assortment of stamps with white printmaking ink, and then aged it with Ranger Distress ink and spots of chalk for color accent.

The second piece, “Soap,” shows my love of vintage typography and romantic flowers. I layered both sides of an advertising card (one side with a rose and the other with the typography) in Photoshop and laser printed the finished work on cardstock. I was particularly drawn to the advertising card because the soap manufacturer was in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, where, in the 1980s, I spend many hours as a textile print stylist “striking-off” new designs for Leon B. Rosenblatt Textiles.

I used white paint on a variety of stamps—among them two of my favorite: a paisley and a fish—purchased at a Tibetan store in New York’s East Village. After the paint dried, I aged it with a brown liquid chalk ink and Ranger Distress ink. The finishing touch was a strip of my favorite sheer lace from M and J Trim.

Winged Children ATCs for The Trodden Path

Well, I joined a new cyber art group. It was kind of accidental…an artist I know posted a photo of friend’s work to Facebook, which led me to The Trodden Path. http://thetroddenpath.ning.com/ Mostly it is a place to share and learn by taking classes, but it is also social. They recently had an ATC trade called “Winged Children.” I couldn’t resist that. I gathered up my old photos, paper scraps, paints, markers and file of Graphics Fairy  http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/images and got to work.

The top one is a Graphic Fairy angel.

I changed the face in Photoshop, printed it, cut it out, added color and paint and glued it to a background made from recycled teabags that were stamped and painted. The middle card has Graphic Fairy butterfly wings, the stamped background, and words I try to live by: Love what you do; do what you love. Any guess as to who the little blonde-headed girl is?

The bottom card uses yet more Graphic Fairy images for the wings and little girl. I added color to the wings, cut my own dress out of one of my fabric designs and added an OM stamp.

Prehistoric Cave Hunters ATC

 

 

Sticks and Stones—that was an interesting prompt for our April heARTist Trading ATC exchange. http://heartisttradingcards.blogspot.com/ I really had to put on my thinking cap. I googled internet images for all kinds of things made of stick or stone, mulling over crystals, all kinds of wooden items and even puttered with photos of the bands Styx and the Rolling Stones.

Then I remembered an old textile design I had painted with gouache on oatmeal paper. It had hunters and cattle, and was done in a style reminiscent of ancient cave drawings. I googled more images and reignited my love of cave paintings, so I decided to use the old design as my starting point.

I covered watercolor paper with recycled tea bags, and then printed ATC sized images from my inkjet printer onto the 8.5x11 paper. The texture was pretty good, but the tea bags absorbed a lot of color making the image less distinct and the color more muted. So, I punched it up by using one of my hand-carved stamps with Tim Holtz distress ink in olive and sepia. Better, but not great.

Next, I pounced gold acrylic onto them randomly with a round, flat top stenciling paintbrush, which helped give it some magic and mystery. It was still a little blah, so I tried adding color with markers, mostly because I was too lazy to pull out my paint! The markers absorbed into the teabag in some places, but not in others. I added some dark brown Portfolio water soluble oil pastels, and then finished the cards with white Portfolio water soluble oil pastel to make the colors pop as well as add depth and contrast. The sides were dipped in gold acrylic paint.

For comparison, here is the fabric I output from my inkjet printer directly onto cotton that shows the color and texture of the original design.

 

1940s Inspired Mother Tribute ATC

  

Flowers speak to me, and so do vintage photos, especially portraits. Typography, beautiful handwriting, and painterly techniques also call my name. So, what could be better than trying to combine these elements?

 

I started with three images—a vintage photo of my mother, one of those old photobooth pictures, that was taken when she was probably in her mid-twenties in the early 1940s; a giant flower head; and some antique handwriting, both from The Graphics Fairy. http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/

 

I combined them in Photoshop, and puttered around until I had an arrangement I liked. I made the flower oversized because that is what was popular in her day, and flipped it upside down for fun. I added a little soft color to my mother’s cheeks and eyes to give the effect of an antique hand-colored photo.

 

I liked the effect, so I printed it (sized down to fit a 2.5” x 3.5” ATC) out of a color laser printer onto white cardstock. I was able to fit 8 of the images onto my paper. Somehow, the design—although it was pretty—didn’t seem to have my personal touch, so I decided to try adding a little lacey white texture using white printmaking paint with a variety of stamps.

I tried about 10 different stamps so each ATC looks a little different. I laid trading paper over the face and, after drawing the outline, cut around it so and laid the cutout over the face during the printing to mask it out and prevent the face from getting white paint on it.

Adding the white paint over the flower enhanced the 1940s feeling, which was appropriate since that is when the photo was taken. To finish each card, I added Tim Holtz Distress Ink in crushed olive to the edges and smudged a little here and there on the ATCs to give them an aged look.

 

 

Hocus Pocus ATCs: Maltese in a Hat

The Roses On My Table http://rosesonmytable.ning.com/ latest ATC trade had a theme called Hocus Pocus. Naturally I thought of a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat—but wait—what about pulling a Maltese out of a hat? And what better little doggie than my own wee boy, Coco? I mixed him up in a Photoshop collage with some Graphics Fairy vintage images that seemed magical: butterflies, insects and a moon, then added some beaded fringe, faux gems and gold edges. The background is my own painting, an image of my Favorite Abstract Modern Painters ATCs before I cut them down to ATC size. http://lindaedkinswyatt.blogspot.com/2012/02/favorite-abstract-modern-painters.html

Heat-Distressed Recycled Tyvek Inchies

Inchies...I really thought that 1" x 1" would be too small to do anything interesting so I didn't immediately sign up for the exchange in our heARTist trading group http://heartisttradingcards.blogspot.com/. But...I loved the inchies Karen Musgrave and Marie Johansen made and didn't want to miss out on receiving some tiny treasures, so I joined the inchie madness.

I don't usually work huge—I like anything from ATC size to 5"x7" to 24"x24", but really, what could I do on a 1" square? I started by rummaging through my scrap box. The box isn't leftover junk, it has leftover pieces of favorite projects that are too small to use, or unfinished projects that didn't quite come out right but still have interesting elements.

I found a special scrap I had been saving from a project a while back—it was a rectangle of tyvek, made from a recycled USPS mailing envelope. I had painted the inside with an goldish-olive metallic Lumiere paint, splattered it with gold, white, copper and turquoise Lumiere dribbles, then (after it was dry) distressed it quickly with a hot, dry iron. Tyvek, especially the recycled kind, puckers and bubbles and melts unevenly, and you never know what the result will be. (If you try this, please wear a mask and have good ventilation!)

I randomly chopped the piece into 1" squares, then sorted through them to find the most interesting sections. Some I used as they were, and others I hand-stitched together to make them more interesting. I added teeny turquoise seed beads and some tiny chunks of turquoise stone. I backed them with peltex for stability, and instead of using glue, I attached the peltex with tiny criss-cross stitches to add texture. The final touch was adding brown fabric marker at the edges to cover the white peltex that peeked out.

It is interesting that a man-made fiber—tyvek—can have such an organic quality when it is painted and melted. The technique doesn't work as well using ordinary acrylic paint—I have found that only Lumiere gives me the effect I like.

Now I'm ready to do more inchies! They are the perfect way to use up the itty bitty scraps that are too pretty to thow away, but not big enough for any other project.

Manhattan Skyline

 

Sky. That was the theme in my new ATC exchange group, heARTist trading cards. http://heartisttradingcards.blogspot.com/ I struggled with the concept for weeks, debating whether to use sky as a color—and if so what color? Blue of a sunny day? Gray of rain? Night sky? Day sky? Sunset? Or things that are in the sky, like airplanes and hang gliders or snow and hail? Should I use a country sky or a city sky? And then there was the question of whether to use an actual sky image or whether to use the word sky as a graphic element. I worked on it on my lunch hour, on my small window of art time on Sunday afternoons, and a little in the evening after work. I counted 13 different ideas in my digital folder, and a couple more ideas that I did with paint, fabric and paper that didn’t quite work out.

I collected photos of skies that inspired me, artwork with a sky theme by current and past artists. I decided to do what I know best, what is dear to my heart, and settled on the New York City skyline. I began with a photo I took of an antique boat that was cruising up the East River one afternoon. It was such a strangely delightful sight to see on my lunch hour—the modern Manhattan skyline contrasted with the old ship going under the century-old 59^th Street Bridge.

 

I manipulated my photo in Photoshop®, and added layers of several unrelated photos. Some layers were artfully added with soft brush strokes and semi-opaque color, others were added with rectangular shapes and sharp edges. The end design that I printed from my color laser printer was a combination of Monet softness, Mondrian shapes, and Sheeler industrial paintings.

I edged the ATCs with Tim Holtz sepia distress ink, and also added accents of the ink to each piece, along with a bit of yellow ink for subtle highlights. The last touch was enhancing the ATC with chalk pastels—white on the ship and pale aqua and white to the sky and water.

Zentangle Paper Dolls

With the moving/packing/downsizing that has been going on in my life in the past few months, I was too exhausted to do anything creative on most days, even if I could find a free hour. I missed some possible publication opportunities and art exchanges, but happily, my creative mojo is back. Last night I pulled out three different unfinished projects, located some of my supplies (I am pretty much working out of a closet!) and got to work. 

The first order of business was Zentangle Paper Dolls for my Roses on My Table trading group. Doll #1, wearing a halter top and long skirt, is Elena. I drew her clothing on my lunch hour a couple of days ago, then added arms from a template available on the Roses site. Her face is also from the template, but I added some eye details and Zentangley hair. The bracelets are snippets of ribbon, and the shoes are from The Graphics Fairy. http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/

Doll #2 is Peanut, because her face reminds me of the old Mr. Peanut ad. (I also used Peanut’s face for my Steampunk dolls.) I doodled zentangles on leg and body templates one night, added a hat and shoes from The Graphics Fairy, and used Adobe Illustrator patterns for her arms. I added a pleated miniskirt made from checked ribbon because she looked like she had one giant body tattoo without any clothing.

Making art paper dolls never fails to energize yet relax me. It is the perfect combination of child-like play, collage and fashion design. If I am in the mood to play with faces, I draw a bunch and keep them on hand, mixing them later with crazy outfits. I often scan the faces so that I can print them out and use the favorite ones, like Peanut, over again.

Sometimes I use my fabric designs or leftover pieces of other projects to create retro dresses, skirts, pants and blouses. The charm comes with happy accidents—faces that are too large or too small for the bodies and shoes that have no relation to the dress. I also like adding whimsical elements like hats and wings. I usually don’t start with any end result in mind, I just rummage through my collection of doll clothing, body parts and scraps of fabric, paper, lace and trim until I find just the right element.

Reiki Pyramid Treasure Box

A few months ago Cloth, Paper, Scissors Magazine had a challenge called “Make Mine Mini”. You could make anything, but the one rule was that whatever you made could be no bigger than 4”. I decided to make a mini pyramid treasure box out of some purple stretch velour fabric that I had screen printed with gold acrylic paint. My screenprinting was done with Thermofax screens that Lynn Krawczyk made for me in her Esty Shop called Fibra Artysta. http://www.etsy.com/shop/FibraArtysta
On the outside of the box, I alternated a spiral leaf and an energy symbol. The leaf shape with a spiral inside it is my own design…it is something that I doodle a lot. I am not sure exactly what it means, but it seems to belong to me. The one that looks like a musical note is the reiki energy symbol. On the inside, there are four heart shapes that have a spiral design in them, which is also an original design. The purple color is the reiki healing color.

I glued the fabric to heavy cardboard that I had pre-cut to make the pyramid. After I glued it all together, I put 2 grommets in each triangle top and threaded a shimmery gold ribbon through to make the closure.

The pyramid is intended to be a safe place to keep little pieces of paper inside—things that are hoped for, dreamed of, and prayed for. It seems a quite magical, with the special symbols and the healing color, so I hope that the all dreams and wishes I write down and put inside will come true.

Three Months of Downsizing = One Journal Page

Our family has been downsizing for at least three months in preparation for the sale of our home. I knew we had a lot of stuff, and I have been really, really stressed about it. The Kelly Clarkson song “What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger” keeps running through my head. The hard part wasn’t what I expected. It wasn’t getting rid of old clothes, books and toys. It wasn’t the packing and unpacking and cleaning. It wasn’t the dumpsters and the storage pod. It wasn’t the hours and hours I spent sorting, tossing, and donating.

The hard part was a combination of the heartbreaking local regulations—most of them enacted after we purchased our little ranch house—on what you are required to do BEFORE you can sell, and the fact that our realtor did NOT inform us. It took months to reopen permits for work that was done 17 years ago, arrange to get additional work done to bring the house up to code, thousands of dollars to get it done, not to mention the anxiety of trying to find an available certified carpenter, electrician, and handyman.

The sale finally went through on Thursday, and we have moved into modest quarters, and are surrounded by boxes, boxes and more boxes. The dog is confused but finding his way around. I am sleeping well for the first time in months, and we have all vowed to keep our lives simple and streamlined from now on.

24 hours after we closed, the big blizzard hit Long Island. We were moving boxes in the snow, driving through slush, filling the pod and dumpster as the blizzard picked up intensity. On Saturday afternoon while I was snowed in, I rummaged through boxes and found some meager art supplies, and made my first journal page of 2013 in my new studio space.

 

I used the supplies I could find—inexpensive multipurpose paper, water soluble oil pastels, cheap markers, commercial and handcarved stamps. The piece was random and unplanned, and simply meant to be therapeutic and document the moment. I did not intend to make great art, I only wanted to express myself and do some art again.

 

I started with the stamps, then added words and color. I realized that I didn't have any watercolor brushes, but finally found a package of unopened oil brushes that did the trick. The numbers represent the day we closed (7), the day the blizzard hit (9), our old house number (36) and the new house number (8). I didn't intend for the face and butterfly stamp to represent anything, they were just what I had in my box that appealed to me. However, the butterflies DO represent my daughter, whose middle name is Kamama, which means butterfly in Cherokee. The partial face stamp probably subconsiously represents me and my anxiety about the whole experience.

 

 

1960s-Inspired Verdigri ATCs

When artist Sonja Hagemann suggested the color theme of verdigri for the January Arts in the Cards ATC exchange, I had to look it up. Well, it is a very cool color, and a very creative prompt. Think of the Statue of Liberty or old copper pennies and you get the idea—the special green-blue that copper gets when it is weathered.

I am in the middle of a huge project—selling our house and moving to smaller quarters— so I had 17 years of accumulation to go through over the past few months. (If anyone wonders why my last blog post was December 2012, now you know why!)

As I was going through the top shelf of my bedroom closet, I found an old glass jar that at one time had some air freshener in it. The jar wasn’t very special, but the top had a pretty floral design cut in it, so I saved it.

For the verdigri cards, I used the jar top as a stencil and applied printmaking paint to watercolor paper. I quickly sprinkled rust-colored enamel powder, and zapped it with a heat gun. I used a combination of two different Lumiere paints to get the verdigris color, then gave it an aged effect with several stamps using Tim Holtz Ranger distress ink in vintage photo. I added some gold dots and gold edging, some chalk and paint here and there to intensify the aged effect. Even though I started with a cookie-cutter 60s shape, each card came out very different, yet they make a distinct group.

Indulge Your Senses ATC

Some artists shun any commercial use of art—but I have always loved beautiful, commercial work. Packaging design is one of my favorites. A display of items to scent the home caught my eye in a local drugstore. I snapped a photo, which sat in my camera photo file for about a year. When the color prompt “Tiger Lily” came up, I flipped through my photo files and vintage images for inspiration, and found the drugstore photo.

 

 

I began with a photo of an orange, and, in Photoshop®, mixed some vintage images from Graphics Fairy http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/ with some of my own fabric designs. The words “indulge your senses” came to me as I looked at the design, so I added that in a calligraphy style font.

After I printed the various arrangements on cardstock, I added sheen with Modge Podge® and a gossamer strip of sheer gold ribbon, which I attached using colored mini brads. The finishing touch was a little gold acrylic paint on the edges. It is not exactly like the original photo—mine is darker and has less calligraphy, but the mood is similar. My New Year's resolution might be to practice my calligraphy so I can get exactly the effect I was aiming for.

 

 

Dreaming of Art

 

A few months ago there was a Cloth Paper Scissor challenge for quilted postcards. I have been making them for years, so it was right up my alley. I combined an old photo [my kindergarten portrait, circa 1960] along with a Graphics Fairy http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/ hat and a pair of clipart scissors. I used a background of newsprint, and made skyscrapers out of more newsprint. A little lace for a pinafore and accents with water-soluble oil pastels, a little stitching, and the postcard was done.

The basic design was done in photoshop, and I output it directly on fabric. Somehow streaks appeared in the face, but I kind of liked it because it reminded me of lined paper that schoolchildren use. In the background is a portion of my favorite quote, from Buddha, which says: “Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it.” If five year old Linda knew that she would make a living one day doing art [fabric design, newspaper & magazine layout design] she probably wouldn’t believe it possible.

Marie Antoinette-Inspired Paper Doll

Emeline, the Marie Antoinette-inspired party girl, is made of paper, tyvek, fabric, lace, ribbon, sequins, brads and glue. Her head, shoes and the roses on her skirt and bodice are Graphics Fairy http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/ royalty-free images. The arms and legs are cut from cardstock, with an overlay of “faux lace” that I make using dried, recycled tea bags stamped with white printmaking paint.

The skirt was pieced together with an underlay of recycled tyvek (from a USPS shipping bag). I painted the inside of the bag with Lumiere turquoise acrylic and a touch of gold swirl. Four panels of a vintage French rose were added, and pink ribbon covers the join marks. Some sheer pink and silver lace creates the bottom skirt border.

Emeline’s face and hair were enhanced with markers and chalk. The legs, arms and head are attached with mini brads so that the parts are moveable. The finishing touch was the addition of tiny sequins to resemble jewels, which were glued to her hairdo, and also applied to her wrists, shoes and skirt.

Shabby Chic Angel Tag Tutorial

Just in time for the holidays, I made a batch of “Shabby Chic” angel tags. The shabby effect is achieved with several techniques—using recycled tea bags for the background, unevenly applying white printmaking paint to the tea bags, and using an intentionally torn effect on the angel images. The shabbiness is contrasted with the chicness of delicate, sheer laces and gossamer pastel ribbon trim.

Here’s how I made the tags:

1-use a commercial tag as a base (I got mine at Staples), or cut your own from a beige, smooth poster weight paper.

2-take dried tea bags, carefully open them, empty out the tea, and flatten. The uneven tea stains give a nice aged look. Do not use damp tea bags—they will rip. Any kind of tea is fine, but take the bags out before you add sugar, lemon or milk.

3-select a variety of stamps—lacey textures work well but any stamp will do. French fleur de lis or English classic designs also make great 'faux lace.'

4-apply white printmaking paint to the stamps. You can experiment and mix the patterns.

5-drape the tea bag over the stamp and press lightly, then carefully remove the tea bag and repeat until it is all covered. You can get usually get two or more images from each paint application. I call the painted teabags ‘faux lace.’ Depending on the size of the tea bag, you may need several for each tag. Printmaking paint works best, but you can use any white paint, just be sure to clean the stamps carefully when you are done so they don’t get paint stuck in the crevices. Printmaking paint works well because it stays wet longer than regular paint, which prevents it from drying on your stamp.

6-when the painted tea bags have dried, glue them to the commercial tag, covering the base completely. It is okay to layer the tea bags or rip little pieces and fill in where necessary to get complete coverage.

7-select a center image and glue to tag—I used some angels from The Graphics Fairy. http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/

8-add strips of lace—thin, sheer laces work well. Thicker laces work better on the edges since they will obscure the subtle textures and colors of the tea bags and ‘faux lace.’ These laces are from M&J Trim.http://www.mjtrim.com/

9-if desired, add a little chalk pastel to enhance the center image, and also to soften the background color.

10-add a bow of shimmery ribbon at the top, and some extra lace or rick-rack at the bottom.

Well, Hello Dolly…I’m in Just Steampunk, Volume 2!

If I were someone who follows numerology or plays lotto, I’d think there was some meaning to two dates—1/11/12 and 11/1/12. The first date is when I posted to my blog about the art paper dolls I made for the Roses on My Table group’s steampunk paper doll trade. The second date is when I opened my mailbox and found a complimentary copy of Just Steampunk, vol. 2, with my dolls on page 101 of the magazine.

Several months ago I sent an email to the magazine with some jpegs of the dolls that I kept for myself. (I made five, traded two and kept three.) I hadn’t heard one way or another about the dolls other than getting a polite response thanking me for my submission. So, I was jumping up and down, twirling and squealing when I opened to page 101 and found a full page with my three steampunk dolls!

One of the dolls (top photo, doll on the left) is particularly symbolic. Back in 2007 I wrote an article in Cloth Paper Scissors called “Painting Out the Panic.” One of the pieces used to illustrate the article is a figure I call “Broken Chakra Girl.” BCG symbolized my struggle with panic disorder, particularly the fifth (throat) chakra. My anxiety would cause my throat to constrict and I wouldn’t be able to speak. I also got frequent sore throats at the time.

 I used BCG’s face for one of these dolls, cut her hair, gave her a top hat, changed the color of the turquoise throat design to match her steampunk style, and made her neck a normal length. Somehow the steampunk version represents healing, with her strong, mechanical, shiny body and bold stance. Her green broken heart is no longer exposed, and is protected by her steampunk armor.

All of the dolls are made with original faces that I drew or painted. The bodies are made of painted, recycled coffee filters, painted and stamped recycled tea bags adhered to fabric, or paper. The metal textured legs and arms are cut paper from Just Steampunk, volume 1. The body with the corset and the clockworks are also cut paper from the first issue. The body parts are attached with tiny brads so they can be posed and played with.

I would like to extend a special thank you to Karen at The Graphics Fairy http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/ for the use of her vintage images of butterfly wings and top hats; to Zinnia at Roses on My Table for creating such a wonderful online art community; and to JoAnn at Roses on My Table for running such a great group. http://rosesonmytable.ning.com/

Fuscia Zetti Self Portrait

Back in 2000, I was an emotional mess. I had very bad panic disorder, and was trying many methods to rid myself of it—from traditional medical treatments to all kinds of alternative therapies. I decided to spend a lot of time doing art in order to heal. One of the first things I did was an oil self portrait. True, it doesn’t look exactly like me, but I painted the way I felt, which wasn’t pretty. Needless to say, no one but me liked the portrait.

However, it was a starting point. I decided to scan it, alter it a little in photoshop, then digitally embellish it. I called the first variation my Picasso Self Portrait. I later used a variation of it to do one of my first art quilts, and it was used to illustrate an article I wrote for Cloth, Paper, Scissors magazine called Painting Out the Panic.

I decided to add my favorite yellow fabric design behind the Picasso Self Portrait, and use that image for my business card and also for some of my mini quilt Art-O-Mat blocks.

Recently, I had an ATC trade with my Arts in the Cards group. This month, the color prompt was fuscia. I drew a blank on the color fuscia, so I started looking through my stacks of fabrics and papers and unfinished artwork for inspiration. Nothing really struck me, so I decided to revisit an old theme: self portraits. For reasons I don’t fully understand, I keep coming back to my first self portrait. I have painted other self portraits over the past 12 years, but this one speaks to me the most.

I took out the yellow background and added several other fuschia designs—a scan of a page from a journal that I painted with beet juice, a fuscia mandala that I drew during my lunch hour, and a photo of a wet leaf on a sidewalk that I manipulated in photoshop into shades of fuscia. I also changed some color on the face.

Since I have been enamored of the Zetti trend, I added, in photoshop, the black and white harlequin band at the top. After printing the design, it seemed to need something extra, so I added inspirational words printed on Extravorganza, along with some ribbon and seed beads.

Semi-Steampunk Paper Doll With Beet Juice Clothing

This weekend, I tossed all my "should do" lists of projects aside and just did something to make ME feel good. Somehow making paper dolls frees my mind and relaxes me...especially when it is not for a trade, but just for me, just for fun.

I started by sizing some Graphics Fairy http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/ images that looked interesting onto anbegan with a basic paper doll template that I found through my trade group, Roses on My Table http://rosesonmytable.ning.com/. Next, I reduced or enlarged the pieces that interested me so they would fit the doll template. I have been collecting Graphics Fairy images, especially shoes, hats and faces. I printed a bunch of the vintage clipart out, cut them, then started playing with them to see which ones my doll would wear.

I had no plan, which was part of the fun. I started with the bottom of the body, and chose some boots with vintage advertising on them, which I attached to my paper legs with tiny brads. I used a template torso, and cut a leftover ATC to fit it and make the top, which I glued over the template piece. Another ATC made the skirt--it was from a journal page that I made a while back when I was experimenting with painting with beet juice. I scanned the beet juice painting and printed it in a small scale for an ATC.

I glued half a Graphics Fairy butterfly to each arm to create wings. The face was a vintage child's photo. I topped her off with a man's hat trimmed with a band of the beet juice ATC design. The arms, head legs, boots and hat are all attached with mini-brads so they are moveable, and can be changed if I am ever in the mood. In total, there are four Graphics Fairy images: the butterfly wings, the hat, the face and the boots. I have not named her yet...any ideas?

Dare to Be an Artist—Art Quilt and Tutorial

After making my first Zetti-inspired ATCs a few weeks ago, I felt the need to go bigger. The little ATCs (2.5” x 3.5”) seemed too small to show all the detail. I also felt, for the first time in a very long time, inspired to do a series from my Zetti ATCs. Fortunately, I had designed them in Photoshop at 5” x 7” with a pretty high dpi, so enlarging them was not a problem.   I wanted to translate them into fabric and combine them with my own fabric designs, which I printed at Spoonflower a couple years ago. This is the first piece I did. Another Zetti art quilt is finished, and two more are cut and pinned.  I haven’t decided if I will keep them as separate pieces or put them together into one big piece. Here is a little tutorial if anyone is wondering “Hmmmm…how the heck did she make that?”

 1-Find images you like, either of your own, or some royalty free clip art. I used two Graphics Fairy images http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/, the teacup and the bird, and combined them with some of my original artwork that I scanned—a small painting called Mystery Woman of the Flowers and a pink monoprint. I also used a b/w harlequin on the left, which is a pattern from adobe illustrator, and the b/w positive/negative “expanded square” on the right, also known as a notan, is my own design.

 2-Combine the designs in photoshop or similar program. I used a soft brush eraser to take out the background from the teacup and bird, arranged the bird on the edge of the cup, and arranged the cup on the head of the mystery woman. I put the pink monoprint in the background and the notan and harlequin on the sides.

 3-Add any words you choose in fonts that please your eye. I added the words in photoshop.

 4-I was working in photoshop and saving it as I went along as a TIFF, which allowed me to have different layers for each image that I could adjust as needed. When I was done, I saved the image as a jpeg.

 5-The artwork I made for the ATCs was 5” x 7”, and I wanted to make the art quilt larger, so I increased the size in photoshop so that it would fit on an 8.5” x 11” paper in my inkjet printer. My printer cuts off about ¼” on all sides, and about ½” on the bottom, so I sized to 8” x about 10.25” so that nothing would be wasted. [NOTE: You can also do a drawing or painting that is about 8.5” x 11”, scan it, and print it out of an inkjet printer.]

6-I flipped the enlarged jpeg image in photoshop, then printed the flipped design out on Avery t-shirt heat transfer sheets.

7-I trimmed the white edge, and ironed the design to 100% kona cotton—heat only, no steam.

8-After it cooled, I peeled away the backing. You can also use printable cotton or silk sheets, but you do not need to flip the image. With the t-shirt transfer sheets, the finished design feels thick and rubbery, but the colors are brighter than with printable cotton or silk. NOTE: Please do NOT iron the design once you have transferred it to cotton. It will melt and be ruined!

9-Next, I chose strips to edge the piece. I used 1.5” pieces of various cotton fabrics and puttered with them until I found an arrangement I liked, then pinned them together.

10-I used some felt-like batting behind the design and a piece of cotton to back the quilt and create the “quilt sandwich”. Next, I carefully pinned all the layers together.

11-I used a zigzag stitch to connect the middle to the fabric strips, a straight stitch to quilt the middle, and a random curvy stitch to add a little visual interest and give it loft.

12-I trimmed the piece and used a machine blanket stitch on the outside edges.

Making Zetti-Style ATCs Using Photoshop

At the end of 2011, when the list of ATC themes for my Roses On My Table ATC group were posted, the November theme was Zetti. Zetti? What? Never heard of it. Well, I Googled information and images and fell in love. I couldn't wait to give it a try. The Zetti style came from artist Teesha Moore. http://www.teeshamoore.com/ She has a unique style that combines black and white graphic elements like stripes and harlequin diamonds with punchy color and writing. The style really appealed to me...but it turned out to not be as easy as I thought. My first attempts were pretty clumsy--I didn't have the supplies I wanted handy, and couldn't find the right colors, my markers ran, my paper was lumpy. I was seriously disappointed after waiting months to give it a try. Then I hit on the idea of working in Photoshop, and mixing scanned jpegs of my own artwork with vintage clipart from The Graphics Fairy. http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/ I added a photo of me as a 5-year old and a favorite photo of my dog Coco--also known as the "pink pup" http://lindaedkinswyatt.blogspot.com/2008/10/pink-pup.html from the day he "helped" me dye some soy batiks. It was a good chance to revisit some of my own favorite old images: Broken Chakra Girl http://lindaedkinswyatt.blogspot.com/2008/07/broken-chakra-girl-for-saqa.html and Panic Portrait, which I wrote about in my Cloth Paper Scissors http://www.clothpaperscissors.com/ article "Painting Out the Panic" a few year ago, as well as Mystery Woman of the Flowers, which I made a big quilt of and also make small quilted pieces for Art O Mat. http://www.artomat.org/ I found some good black and white patterns in Adobe Illustrator and puttered with combining all the elements into a Zetti piece. I have been in a bit of a funk artistically, but now feel inspired to try some larger pieces and incorporate fabrics and stitch...maybe not huge pieces, but certainly bigger than 2.5" x 3.5" ATCs.