Not Afraid to Try

Fear. It holds us back from big things and little things, from life-changing, difficult decisions to small daily choices. Fear stops us from making a phone call or sending an email. It stops us from applying for a dream job, speaking up when something is wrong, initiating conversation. It stops us from wearing our prettiest outfit, trying a new haircolor or hairstyle, traveling somewhere exotic.

For artists, fear makes us hold on to beautiful fabrics and papers that are too pretty to cut. It makes us afraid to go further with a design or painting for fear of ruining it. It stops us from using the really good watercolor paper. Fear makes many of us work small, keeps us from making large bold strokes on giant canvases.

When I saw Gwen Lafluer's stencil called "Not Afraid" the words called to me. In my life, fear kept me from trying and doing many things. For a long time, panic disorder controlled me--an unseen force, a petrifying, reasonless fear ran through me and ran my life. It nearly kept me from a career as an artist. As an adult, I am constantly pushing myself through fear and making myself move forward.

I tried using Gwen's stencil several ways. I knew they were powerful words, yet the pieces and journal pages didn't do the words justice.

This piece has a background collage of vintage sewing items, and reflects my interest in fashion design--a path I was afraid to try. The purple stenciled floral shapes represent overcoming fear, and my resulting career as a fabric designer.

A journal test page with the Afraid to Try stencil and the Scribble X mask.

An unfinished journal page, testing the Art Deco Peacock Feather and sections of the Afraid to Try stencil.

This is a collage of random papers, handwritten thoughts (on the underlying page) about overcoming my claustrophobia and fear during a recent MRI.

As I was cleaning my art space one Saturday morning, I found an abstract painting that I had made a few years ago. It had started with a piece of 12" x 12" cardboard packaging from saved from some commercial scrapbook paper. I had covered it with gesso. When it was dry, I carefully peeling the paint skins off my craft mat and adhering them with matte medium. It was done pretty randomly and instinctively. I wasn't sure if it was finished or not--I liked it, but not enough to hang on the wall as an abstract painting. Something was missing but I didn't know quite what. I put it aside for a long time...almost two years before rediscovering it.

This was the finished abstract painting that eventually became the background for "Afraid to Try."

Dried paint was peeled off my craft mat and placed on a gessoed cardboard using matte medium.

These patches of dried acrylic paint became the background.

I rifled through my boxes and bins and discovered that the recycled paint skin painting was exactly the right size for the "afraid to try" stencil...serendipity! I grabbed my black ink, a cosmetic wedge, a mini dabber, and got to work. First, I put the words in the middle.

Next, I added designs on the left.

 

 I flipped the stencil over and finished the right side, mirroring the left.

I liked it so far, but thought it needed a little more. I decided it needed some kind of frame or finished edge.

I love the combination of bright colors with black and white patterns known as Zetti, so I pulled out some gingham fabric and black and white papers. I also considered some black and white painted lutradur that I had made a few years ago.

The brightly colored sari scrap corners matched, but the black and white painted lutradur sides overpowered the center design.

Some gold paper Dresden Medallions were tested in the corners.

I removed the Dresden stars and tried colored sari silk and a gingham diamond, but still didn't love the border.

The large harlequin border seemed too bold and overpowered the artwork. I liked the way the squares of silk sari scraps looked in the corner and matched the center piece though. I didn't have enough black and white gingham fabric so that was vetoed.

I decided finally to keep it simple, and cut some thin paper strips of a black and white diamond pattern, then glued it around the edges. That worked--the delicate diamonds didn't overpower the central image...the thin border finished the piece without fighting it.

   

Last, I decided to sharpen up some of the white areas, especially dark orange under the O in DO, which made the words a little hard to read. With white acrylic, I used a very small brush and enhanced the circular letters, the large shape under the words, and the centers of the cross-shaped designs.

This piece speaks to me in so many ways. The words reminds me of the times I beat fear, and forged ahead anyway even if I was afraid, especially with a decision to become an artist, to move to New York alone, and go back to school to study textile design. The designs surrounding the words remind me of fabric designs, my first art career. The colors are pure and clean, and remind me to be true to myself, to the colors I like and that make me happy. The whole piece reminds me to stifle my inner critic, to believe in myself, and to be true to the designs and ideas that resonate with me.

Courage and Memories

 Life got in the way of blogging. Holidays got in the way of blogging. Work got in the way of blogging. Art and journaling got me through the holidays and life's curve balls. In August, our beloved fur baby Coco, aka Coconut Jenkins Wyatt, got sick. Had to be rushed to the Animal Medical Center hospital. He was treated (fluid drawn off sac around his heart) and they said to bring him back in three months for a checkup. In about a month we were back. More treatment, seemed okay. Then he had a seizure. Again rushed to AMC. Then he got sick again, this time the fluid was around his lungs. We couldn't touch his tummy, couldn't put a coat on him. Couldn't bathe him. Then he wasn't the same, got sicker every day. Wouldn't eat his favorite foods. The day after Christmas, we took him to AMC. He crossed the rainbow bridge. Somehow that week I managed to get to work and push my way through the loss. Concentrating on work was better than walking around the apartment crying. Every little thing was a trigger for crying and feeling the loss.

Journal memory written on December 30 after meeting a little girl on the 6 train

It was the Friday before New Year's Eve, a little after five, Coco had died just after midnight three days before. I was riding the 6 train home from work. A mother with a baby boy in a carriage (not a folding stroller, so they must have been from out of town) and a little girl about four got on the train and sat next to me. The girl was wiggly and jiggly and even with my headset on and iPhone music cranked up I could hear the mother asking her repeatedly (and patiently) to sit down, to turn around. After a few stops she was still wiggly, so instead of playing a new game of FreeCell, and grooving to my oldies, I went to my photo album and clicked on pictures a four-year old might like: paper dolls with wings, handmade sock monkeys, some of my more whimsical art and craft creations, and the occasional silly Barkpost dog doing silly human things. We didn't say anything to each other, just looked at photos together.

After a while the little girl--who interestingly looked a lot like me at four--pointed to a picture of Coco, so I made it larger for her to see. She bent over and kissed the screen and smiled at me. My heart melted. I felt like she was a little messenger from Heaven telling Coco that he was loved and remembered.

With all that happened in 2016--the changes at work, family health issues, the loss of Coco, the social and political climate in the country--I chose the word "courage" for my 2017 word of the year. I know I will need it and I hope I will find it when needed.

Courage journal page, with Dina Wakley face stamp and Artistcellar Om stencil.

Zetti...Me! Paper Doll

 One of my favorite things to do is make paper dolls. Another favorite art theme is self portraits. So, it makes sense that self portrait paper dolls would be right up my alley. When I am not sure what to do, or need some art therapy, I like to rummage in my box of paper doll parts and my box of random scraps. Today I used some leftover pieces--a head from an old black and white family photo taken when I was about 11; a body made of my own fabric (available on Spoonflower.com), and I cut arms and legs from a cast aside painted piece of watercolor paper. I added a steampunkish/zetti hat made by covering a Graphics Fairy hat with checkered paper, and some Graphics Fairy http://thegraphicsfairy.com/ antique boots. The body parts, wings, boots and hat are all attached with mini brads so that they are moveable and removable as well.

Zetti Turn of the Century Bathers Paper Dolls

For the Roses On My Table Paper Doll art group’s July challenge, the theme was Zetti, which was right up my alley. But wait—the twist was that it had to be a couple in turn-of-the-20^th century bathing costumes. That threw me a bit of a curve ball. So, I researched turn of the century fashions and old postcards from the seashore to get an idea of the clothing style, and then started rummaging through scrap boxes madly for the right elements.

Usually I gravitate to female dolls, but this time I started with the man. I used a face from a Graphics Fairy http://thegraphicsfairy.com/   image called PartyPeople, altered the top of his head in Photoshop, and added color. A moustache seemed very 1900s, and I couldn’t resist some faux tattoos (from one of my fabric designs) on his skin. The female doll also uses a Graphics Fairy face, this one called the ArtNouveauLady; I added color with watercolor pencils and markers. The end result for the male bather is rather Freddie Mercury meets James from the 1970s version of Upstairs Downstairs.

Both dolls use paper printed with my original textile designs, “skin” made of teabags stamped with assorted commercial and hand-carved stamps using white printmaking paint, wild-west style words stamped on with Distress Ink, and some harlequin b/w patterns from Adobe Illustrator. The butterfly accents are also from Graphics Fairy images.

Romantic Distressed Tags and Zetti ATCs

Tags are so much fun…even though I have almost no art space to work in and most of my supplies are crammed into a tiny closet I couldn’t resist joining the June heARTist Trading group's side trade. I returned to the techniques that I love and find soothing and therapeutic—designing collages in photoshop with vintage images Graphics Fairy images http://thegraphicsfairy.com/  overprinting by stamping with white printmaking paint; and using recycled teabags that have been stamped with white printmaking paint. I added a rusted folk-art heart and subtle lace to the teabag tags, and distressed all the tags with liquid chalk stamp pad to get an aged effect.

Zetti is one of my favorite themes, so I had a lot of fun with this month’s theme. The top one uses a Graphics Fairy vintage angel image. In Photoshop, I layered in a different face, added some Adobe illustrator black and white patterns, a hand that came from a small carved wooden Tibetan stamp and inserted the word “believe.” I finished it with gold acrylic accents. On the left is my alter-ego Esme, who emerged while I was doodling during a lengthy phone call with an old friend of my husbands who claims to have psychic abilities. I was inspired to add the “fish hat” after seeing the work of Deborah Burnahm (Land of Nod Studio). The words “strange things on my mind” seemed particularly appropriate. The ATC on the right is a five year old me, who was very, very shy and dreamed of being an artist. I added the words “trust yourself” because art was a path that was discouraged by my parents, and not encouraged by a teacher until I was a senior in high school. The design was done in Photoshop, and the background color added with water-soluble colored pencils.

 

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.

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.