F A N T A S Y G A R D E N
| Fantasy Garden Series |
The Fantasy Garden Series started as a fun project to unwind after finishing a very difficult
piece. The intense subject matter, the incredible amount of thread work and the technical problems
on the piece left me physically and emotionally drained. I was in my studio one day and started
to play with painting and stamping fabric. I had never done any painting before and I never really
liked working with fabric dyes, so I had no idea what I was doing. I made a lot of mistakes.
In fact some major rejects. I worked small just to see where it would go, I didn’t want to
spend a lot of time on each piece. I wasn’t even sure this painting process was something I
would be interested in. I also did a lot of experimenting with markers, colored pencils, stamps,
and stencils.
Then I started to layer bits of fabric, netting, onion bags, yarn and thread
work on top of the painted fabric. Some of the early pieces I turned into small purses.
As the techniques started to come together and I started to add organic botanical images.
The “Fantasy Garden” series was born. I started to frame some of the smaller work and sold
everything I made. I thought, I must be on to something. So I continued in that direction
and started to work bigger. The whole idea for these pieces is to be fun and free form,
with lots of color and texture. I am not looking for perfection along the way I
accidentally became a painter even though I had no intention of doing so.
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Creative Process |
To create my painted fabric with machine embroidered thread work I start out
with a white sheet of fabric. I do a light wash of acrylic paint to get the basic
background colors. Then I do large background stenciling and stamping, leading to
smaller stenciling and stamping. Next I bleed inks in certain areas to create depth.
After all the painting on fabric dries I go back with markers and tiny stencils and stamps,
to bring everything together and highlight certain images. When all this dries I heat set
the fabric with a steam iron.
All of my painted fabric is backed with a light quilt batting
and medium to light weight stabilizer. At the bottom of the art quilt I will add pieces
of fabric to create the ground imaging. This is a layering of rough edge scraps of fabric,
netting, nylon screening, anything that will give me the texture I’m looking for and allow
my machine to sew through. Now I start my machine embroidery to create the botanical images
made out of thread. It is done in the same layering process as the paint. I start out doing
large background work and continue to work smaller and smaller. The machine embroidered thread
work is just as important as the paint because it allows me to add color and texture to bring
the whole art quilt together. I use my machine embroidery stitches like a paintbrush. They
are layered and sometimes distorted. I’m not afraid to push them in whatever direction is
needed. I then finish up the art quilt with the gathered twisted yarn. [ Top of Page ]
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