Mandalas at Lunch

My art time has shrunk since I started my new job (when is a new job no longer new? hmmmm...) so I have been sneaking in some small drawings at lunch. In my little sketchbook, I trace around a CD with pencil, and randomly draw what ever flows out. Since I mostly have on hand yellow highlighters and pencils, many of the mandalas (circular designs) are yellow. After a while I broke down and bought some markers in other colors that I tucked into my drawer. Unsurprisingly, textiley designs emerged.

The drawing process calms me down and is very meditative (check into Jung and his mandala work...very cool) so these are pretty much the opposite of what I usually do. I printed a few out on fabric, and made this triptych with woven brass and copper mesh (with an underlay of colored fabric--pink under the copper and olive under the brass.) I stitched it all to peltex so it would be firm and be able to stand.

Lately I have been so busy that I don't even have time for my full lunch hour because I am working on a "Strength and Memory" Quilt as a breast cancer fundraiser. I have taken orders for different size pieces and printed the messages out on pink or white cotton with calligraphy fonts, then fused it to some glue-backed felt (nasty stuff, but I was required to use up the supplies that were left over from last year). Unbelievably, I was forbidden to SEW it (my boss once made a quilt, so she knows how long it takes.) So, I'm almost done...just waiting for a few last minute orders from the nursing department. Then I can have my lunch hour back!

grrrr...RGB and CMYK are driving me crazy

Well, hopefully this is the turning square in the colors I want. I saved it as CMYK, but it is showing up on the blog all ugly and blueish.

Spoonflower...have I died and gone to Heaven?

Someone from my SAQA visioning group pointed me to Spoonflower, a site where you can send them a design and they will print your fabric. It seems a little expensive, about $18/yard, but when you consider that it costs thousands to commercially print a design, its pretty cheap.

So, now I have to decide: out of my gazillion paintings, drawings and textile designs, what do I start with? Will they put it in repeat right? so there are no "track marks" running up and down the fabric where it repeats? Can they do watercolor effects, color traps or will it be just flat color?

Well, these are a couple old designs I am toying with sending. My question is...how can they do this for only $18 a yard? What kind of equipment do they have? and where can I get some so I can do it myself?

Oh, GRRRRR, got my CMYK and RGB color mixed up. Hopefully the turning square will have the right colors now!

Random Design

When I first discovered that there were markers made just for drawing directly onto fabric, I could hardly contain my excitement. I was skeptical, so I left Sam Flax, went out into the streets of NY, and purchased an "I love NY" t-shirt from a sidewalk vendor. I scooted back into Flax, and tested the markers on it.

Sure enough, it worked, with no bleeding or smearing. I spent the evening doodling on the fabric, and this design flowed out. I haven't decided what to do with it. Any suggestions? (well, I did cut a little bit off and make postcards...and one was in Cloth Paper Scissors back when I wrote my article "Painting Out the Panic"...but I still have a couple big hunks of the design left over.)

More Visioning Samples

I stumbled on some old designs as I was looking for something else on my bookshelf. I was putting some recent graphic work in a binder and, while looking for more clear plastic sleeves to go in my binder, pulled out an old binder full of designs. I step and repeated this red design and printed it on fabric, which can be seen on my SAQA visioning page. Here is the original design and a possible colorway. I did them from a couple of little doodles that I scanned and arranged in a fuillard (traditional set, uniform layout, like in a man's tie) pattern.