Hello!

Well, I got off track again with blogging for the 31 Day Blog Writing Challenge. It’s easy to do when I’m in the middle of sewing for the holidays. I’m behind on my holiday sewing and I’m pushing out a couple things til after Christmas and the gifts will be new year gifts. Is there such a thing?

To give myself a mental break, I’ve been watching YouTube videos from Alisa Burke. I wrote about her last week and I’ve continued to be inspired by her. Alisa Burke paints on canvas and then draws on the painted surface with permanent markers and white paint pens. Instead of painting on canvas, I decided to pull out some scraps of ice dyed canvas I had and try my hand at drawing on it.

My first attempt is a little bit of a hot mess. Because I’m using a permanent marker you can’t erase so you have to get creative. I also felt like it was a good way to channel some quilting motifs to fill in open spaces. I did try to fill in every inch of the canvas and I think I did too much and it feels like it’s too dark. I haven’t gotten out the white paint pens yet but I’m hoping to do that after the holidays and maybe that will lighten things up.

I looked at a little bit more of Alisa’s artwork and saw she doesn’t necessarily always fill the whole canvas or page with drawn elements. Sometimes they’re sprinkled in or the elements are connected to one another and they take up most of the page but there’s still open space left around the perimeter. It’s balanced but not symmetrical. Something I don’t feel like I’m very good at but I’ll keep practicing because I’m having fun doodling on fabric.

Here’s the beginning of my second attempt:

I worked on it while the pasta water was coming up to a boil tonight. I’ve gone a little bigger with my flowers and have tried to leave some space. For example, the largest flower doesn’t have a lot of detail on it’s petals because I didn’t want to overdo it. If I find I need to add a little something to it later on, I can go back in and add some more lines. I also decided to throw in a mandala. I haven’t finished it yet because the pasta water boiled and I had to finish making dinner. I tried playing with different elements so I wasn’t repeating the same motifs over and over again. I’m going to continue making the mandala larger so it connects/intersects with the flowers and maybe it will be my main element but we’ll see where it takes me.

What am I going to do with canvas that’s been drawn on? I’m going to make it into zipper pouches. I’ve been on a bag making kit lately and have making them more than quilts because I truly enjoy it just as much as quilting. Most of the holiday gifts I’m making are bags but one of them has quilting elements in the design and the fabric is quilted. I guess you could call it a hybrid.

Happy creating!

Camille