A Little Southern Sass...

 

Meet Sal. Granted, she's not your standard cuddly soft doll, but she has her own special style. And she did enjoy sitting on several people's laps when she made the rounds at show-and-tell at our Fiber Art Bee meeting recently. So she is kind of cuddly. Or at least huggable for sure. Sal is my project made in Kecia Deveney's online class called Southern Sass. Kecia teaches her students how to design a pattern and pull together the elements and mixed media techniques to come up with a one-of-a-kind fabric art doll. I've been working on Sal for many weeks. Half the fun is searching through my stash to find the bits and pieces I thought belonged to create Sal's personality.

Sal looks good both coming and going. Even her backside got plenty of attention with fabric and embroidery accents. The fabric base is one I learned to make in Liz Constable's tutorial as part of Fodder School, a year-long online class featuring a different teacher each month. The fabric involved scorching and painting which was quite fun. Online classes have pretty much replaced tv for me. I find so little I want to watch on television, but never tire of learning new art methods and techniques via these classes. I'm sure I won't be able to stop at making just one, so Sal will have at least one sister soon.

Down By The Seaside...

 

So many things about the ocean seem to draw us. For me it's the freshness of the air, the sound of waves, and the fascination of the far horizons. We flew from Florida to Maine- "down east"- for several days in June. This photo was taken from the rocky coast of Southern Maine.

The Marginal Way in Ogunquit offers a walk along the coast with many beautiful views. It was cool and overcast some of the days, but we had a couple of sunshiny ones, too.

In a happy coincidence, mixed media artist Lenna Andrews offered her By the Sea Swap of Artist Trading Cards right about the same time as our travels. ATCs are small works of art about the size of a baseball trading card- 2/12" x 3".  Nearly two dozen participants took part. We each made three ATCs to trade and sent them to Lenna, who sorted and returned three cards made by others. I received this happy shark on a printed fabric background made by Pam Gonzalez from Illinois.

Sabine Schneider from Germany stitched this little storm-tossed sailboat. She incorporated a lot of fabrics and stitching in such a small space.

Catherine Mommsen Scott who has a fine art shop on Etsy called Imajica Amadoro, used the photographic process of cyanotype to create her card and added inked details.

 

Some participants made more than one set of ATCs in the theme. And Lenna also recieved many extras of the cards sent in. She generously included a fourth card along with some collage materials in the return envelope. I found this ocean blue, hand-stitched beauty made by Siri Hauge Opdal from Norway in mine. These swaps are fun to participate in, and of course the happy mail you get in return really brightens up the day.

As I thought about the swap theme, "almost monochromatic" kept coming to mind. When I found this evocative vintage image of a woman reading her book beside the ocean, it seemed made for a "by the sea" challenge. I used watercolor background paper along with bits cut from security envelopes to frame the image, and then sewed on the tiny flower sequins for a touch of color.

 

I think she's reading and dreaming of travel to those far horizons. The only things that changed in the three ATCs I made were the background papers and the colors and position of the sequin flowers. This was great fun and I look forward to another swap with Lenna in the fall. She made a YouTube video showing all of the work of the participants. It's less than three minutes, so take a look if you get a chance.

When you're by the sea, there are so many charming buildings and scenes inviting photography. Don't you love the Harbormaster's cottage at Perkins Cove?

We've visited Maine many times over the years with our children, and I think I take this shot every year. All these boats at anchor in the cover are like a postcard.  By the sea is a refreshing place to be.