Today was my last day as guest artist at Collabery Art Gallery. What a beautiful space with lovely, talented interesting artists. Some pieces found new homes and I made some new friends. I hope to be invited back one day.
Next stop is our biannual Frog Hollow Art Show. The month of May will be spent making new wearable art clothes and other fiber pieces.
Update: These are before and after photos of the two collages made for Barnstone, created and got them into the frames and ready for auction in 45 minutes! Was happy to see many people bidding on them.
During the event, spectators have the rare and exciting opportunity to watch artists move through their creative process, witnessing sketches evolve into completed artwork that is immediately available through an auction! This event consists of two 45-minute rounds where 20+ artists will work in various mediums to create one of a kind art on the spot!
Artwork created by children from the Barnstone community
will also be on display and for sale.
For the past few months I have been exploring a new medium, with the materials, tools and techniques of traditional rug hooking. First off made some vases with flowers. Then moved into some big stuffed 3 D angel sculptures and now making chickens. Kind of random with the chickens but saw a wooden chicken and got inspired to make some. I have an art exhibit coming up in April and in addition to other art planning to do some kind of an installation with the chickens......making a flock including more chickens, a rooster and some chicks. Chickens are 13" high, created with all cut wool strips. Backing is wool. Brainstorming right now on how to integrate chicken wire, straw and maybe cardboard to make some kind of a chicken coop display.
It's amazing that each of these little loops is hooked one at a time. This process is very time consuming but oh my I just love the way it looks! I've found so much inspiration looking at other people's rugs.
This one is 24" x 34" hooked wool on linen.
This is the second rug. Drew the picture on linen and hooking away. She is 24" x 34" Pretty big!
I love learning new mediums but this particular one has me hooked!
It is so relaxing and meditative.
Hooking is completed on the birdie rug. It was a great learning experience. Next one will be bigger, working on a design now.
This wound up being 14" x 22".
So excited to find a rug hooking group in my area and there is a hooking event coming up in October! Can't wait to meet other hookers and see what they are doing. Also now in the market for a large standing hooking frame.......
It's exciting to be working on my first hooked rug. I am obsessed with this new medium. Once the sky is completely filled in a border will be added. I designed it so that parts of the branch and bird will extend into the border. This is 100% wool and when finished will measure 14" x 20"
I have been working with bird images lately so it was a natural progression from painting them to drawing one on special rug hooking linen to hook.
I posted a picture of the bird on linen to some rug hooking group pages on FaceBook and have so far had about 400 people love/liking and many comments, and so am considering selling patterns of my designs. My daughter knows how to get images into PDF files so people can just download, print and tape together.
Once the drawing was done the hooking began.
I've recently been interested in rug hooking as an art form and wanted to learn how to do it. I bought a special hoop and started watching tutorials online. As the world works in mysterious ways an email from Pennsylvania Guild of Craftsman mentioned an upcoming Rug Hooking Workshop in Lancaster PA. Not too far from me and a lovely drive. This is my fourth workshop there (sewing, silkscreening, and fraktur drawing). Off to Lancaster a couple of weeks ago to learn how to hook rugs!
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| My hooptie |
We worked on bird coasters. When I got home I sewed some more material on it so it would fit into my hoop. The backing that you hook into is heavyweight linen which feels really nice to the touch. AND apparently lasts forever. It takes a long time to finish a large piece so you really don't want it to fall apart. Apparently the ones from years ago were made on burlap which does fall apart.
After a few tries, this was my best coaster, and once it was cut out and the back put on it was mailed to a special friend. I'm not even going to show a picture of the teacher's sample! I kept threatening to take the it home and brag to my family "Look what I made today!"
After finishing the birds, I just went crazy thinking of all the possibilities for integrating this into my art, and started assembling all the materials needed to make large pieces. Serious rug hooking is a big production.
Say hello to this professional nifty gadget that cuts wool into noodle strips of varying sizes, depending upon which blade you use. Thank God for my dear husband who figured out how to change the blades. (Of course I bought a used one with no manual). I already bought the beautiful hoop that allows you to hold it in your lap and put your hand underneath to feed the strips into the hook that you hold in your other hand and pull up. I've amassed a good stash of wool including blankets, skirts, big mens suit pants etc from thrift shops to cut up. They have to be washed in hot water and dried in dryer to prepare for cutting and hooking. Eagerly awaiting the first issue of a rug hooking magazine subscription, also bought several books on how to hook and how to dye wool, plus ordered some high quality linen. As soon as the linen gets here a big piece will be coming down the pike!
Right now it's all practicing, making coasters for my family whether they need or want them or not, but the master plan is to use my own images from paintings and drawings to create large wall pieces. One of the best features of rug hooking is that it is completely portable and can be worked on anywhere. These coasters were hooked while shlepping aprons at our local farmer's market today.
