Elaine's Day at Montana Art Quilt Retreat

Here are some of Elaine's art fabrics from the Montana Art Quilt Retreat. Techniques included here: fabric painting, screen printing, paintstick rubbings, foil with screened adhesive, screen printing with paint, and stamping.

The next three pictures show Elaine in the process of making a print with a gelatin plate.

For the Montana Art Quilt Retreat, gelatin was poured into aluminum casserole covers from the party store (these come in various sizes and shapes). Once the gelatin set up, the edge of the aluminum cover was folded away, and paint was applied to the surface of the gelatin plate.

Elaine placed grasses and mesh ribbon in a design over the paint on her plate.

She carefully pressed white cotton fabric over it.

When she lifted the fabric, it was imprinted with the image of the grass and mesh ribbon.

Here are a group of Elaine's gelatin prints.

Jan's Day at Montana Art Quilt Retreat

Jan, from Great Falls, Montana, displayed some of her art fabric on the design wall. Techniques shown here include sun printing, screen printing with resist and paint, stamping, and foiling.

Here, Jan is working on her rubber stamp. She has traced her design onto the plumbers rubber gasket material using Saral paper (artists wax free tracing paper). She is using a Speedball cutter to carve her image.

When the image is completely carved, Jan will cut the stamp out with scissors. She will use double sided carpet tape (water resistant) to mount the stamp on the small wooden block you can see sitting on the table near her right arm.

Jan made some really incredible prints with the gelatin plate. She took a nature walk to collect the plants she used for these prints.

Wow! What a great looking group of gelatin prints!

Karlyn's Day at the Montana Art Quilt Retreat

These two pictures of the design wall show Karlyn's work with Setacolor painting techniques, screen printing, foiling, stamping, and sun printing (without the sun).

In the next two images, Karlyn is cutting her own rubber stamp using plumbers gasket material.

The rubber sheet can be drawn on, cut with scissors, and carves easily with a Speedball cutter.

The finished rubber stamp is mounted onto a wood block using water resistant double sided carpet tape.

Below, you can see Karlyn in the process of making a gelatin print.

Karlyn painted her gelatin plate with Setacolor paints, and placed native grasses over the paint to give a detailed print of the grass. Karlyn used silk organza for this print.

These beautiful gelatin prints were made by Karlyn on silk organza. The picture does not do them justice, but you get the idea . . . . fabulous!

The next Montana Art Quilt Retreat takes place October 5 - 7 in Billings, Montana. The pdf registration form is here.

Space is limited.

Montana Art Quilt Retreat - The first two days in review

Elaine screen prints using foil adhesive.

Here is Jan washing up after stamping and painting this smashing piece of fabric.

Karlyn painted a number of stunning pieces in warm vibrant shades.

Here is Elaine with a piece she painted with Setacolor textured with salt. She is using iridescent Paintsticks for the rubbings.

Friday afternoon, Karlyn and Elaine spreading their vinegar soaked fabrics with rusty objects for rust dyeing.

By Saturday afternoon, the fabric was dry, so the participants unwrapped it. Karlyn is opening her fabric dyed with concrete ties and Jan is removing spikes from hers.

Jan used a variety of objects for hers - tire chains, grid, spikes, rebar. Stay tuned to see the final results!

Shrimp cocktail was center stage for the Happy Hour snack.

Preparations: Montana Art Quilt Retreat - Spring Session

I've spent days preparing for the Spring Session of the Montana Art Quilt Retreat. This is an event that is being held at my home workshop. The classroom space is on the second level of my husband's shop. It has been rustically finished with the intention that paint could be splattered on the floor, etc. and nobody would need to feel bad about it. The North and south walls are finished as an extensive design wall. For the retreat, I have pinned up a grouping of quilts I've done using techniques I will be teaching at the retreat.

This view of the south wall shows gelatin plate printing, Tyvek, painted fabric, computer printed fabric, rust dyed fabric, screen printing, and stamped fabrics.

This view of the North wall shows glue gel resist painted with Setacolor paints, computer printed, screen prints, rust dyed, after-image painted, and Tyvek.

This is the view from the deck that is part of the classroom. Hopefully, the weather will be nice and we will be able to set up work stations outdoors on the deck.

This is the class kit. It includes 8 colors of Setacolor paint, a pack of Jacquard Lumiere paints, foil and foil adhesive, rubber gasket material for making a rubber stamp, screen for making a printing screen, a paint stick, Angelina fibers, glue gel resist, cassava paste resist, shaving cream, 3 yards of cotton broadcloth, 1 yard each of silk organza, raw silk, and haboti silk, Tyvek, Wonder Under, Misty Fuse . . . . as well as the use of many materials that stay at the studio - such as rusty objects, etc.

Here is the view of the West wall. This is where I have set up my demonstration station. I've also set up a "For Sale" shelf of hand dyed fabrics and miscellaneous extra supplies in case anyone wants to make a purchase.

Here is a drying rack that accomodates a lot of people painting fabrics at once! The shelves are made of pegboard for ventilation.

Here is the view from the North window. You can see my house with the sandstone cliffs in the background.

This view out the other North window of the workshop looks down at the walkway leading to the house, where we will have lunch each day.

The participants arrive tomorrow, with the retreat continuing through Sunday. I hope to be taking pictures each day. Not sure I will get them posted daily, but that is my goal. Stay tuned!

Sacred Threads

Earlier this week, I put this quilt in the mail. It will be included in the Sacred Threads Quilt Show taking place in Reynoldsburg, Ohion June 16 through June 30. Vikki Pignatelli is the founder of Sacred Threads and she has a new article published in the July/August edition of Quilters Newsletter Magazine. My quilt, "Goodness Gracious, Great Balls of Fire" is included in the article. I've yet to see it, but am very excited, as it has been a goal of mine to have something published in QNM. In fact, it was one of the goals I specifically recorded last fall when I was reassessing my career goals.

I also recently received the exciting news that this quilt has been juried into "The Sky's the Limit" special exibit which will premire at the International Quilt Market and Festival in Houston October 27 - November 4, 2007.

Below, is the other quilt I sent off to Sacred Threads. This quilt is called, "Mammograms from A to DD, Breast Cancer Survivors". The "breast" images are done using the same technique as the quilt above. In fact, "Goodness Gracious" was made of the leftovers from "Mammograms". Black fabric was wrapped around a round rock and fastened in place with a rubber band. It was then immersed in bleach. Wherever the bleach touched - turned white. "Goodness Gracious" was overdyed and overpainted with fuchsia, orange, and scarlet dye and paint.

The names of breast cancer survivors were machine quilted in pink thread. I got the names from people on the Quiltart list, family, friends.

This quilt has also been included in a juried exhibition at the Museum of the Rockies that took place fall 2005 through winter 2006. That show was called "Over the Top: Story Quilts".

Two More Goddess Paintings

Kuan Yin
Protectress of women and children.
She awakens musical abilities and interests and psychic clairvoyance.
Acrylic on paper by Elizabeth Shumaker (my daughter)
21" x 27"

Tara
Female Buddha and Hindu Mother Creator
The eyes on her hands, feet, and forehead allow her to be aware of all prayers.

painted by Elizabeth Shumaker
Acrylic on paper
21" x 27"

Finalizing Leaves and Twigs

This morning I broke up my window washing chores with time at the sewing machine. By late afternoon, I had finished stitching the Tyvek leaves in place on this piece called, "Leaves and Twigs". I stitched the veins on each leaf, as this is the part that remains after heating. I carried it out to the well ventilated workshop to melt the Tyvek. It took about 30 minutes to hit every leaf with my mini hand held iron.

Note the delicate leaf images on the background fabric. The background is a group of gelatin prints all pieced together. The printed images are nearly all of leaves - mostly weeds that I harvested in the fall. I started this piece last fall when the Cottonwood leaves were turning gold and falling off. Now the trees are all leafed out again and it is time to put closure on this quilt! All that's left to do is the binding!

All the windows in the house got washed today, too - no small task!

Fossil Hunting

As an extension of our Mothers Day family outing, we went to an area I'd heard about that is reportedly a good place to find certain kinds of fossils. It is located on BLM land in Montana, but close to the Wyoming border and is near a couple of limestone mines. This area was once the bottom of a huge sea. I had a map someone had drawn for me, and we drove around and stopped and looked for quite some time without successfully finding anything like a fossil. There were no other people in the area. It was hot and it appeared to be rattlesnake territory.

Just as I was about ready to give it up, we came upon a couple of guys who were walking around looking at the ground and we were able to talk to them. They turned out to be a couple of scientists (biologists, actually, who are studying a horned lizard in the area). They were taking a break from their lizard study and were looking for gizzard stones. They had a couple in their packs and they showed us. I had heard of these gizzard stones, but had never seen them. Apparently, sauropod dinosaurs of the Cretaceous period swallowed stones to help them digest tough plant material. The stones got smooth over time and were spat out. They could be easily identified, because they were so different from the other rocks scattered about on the ground. We found some good specimens, pictured above. You can learn more about gizzard stones or gastroliths here.

I was also hoping to find some Belemnite fossils (Mesozoic squid), and the scientists told us where to go to find those as well as Gryphaea (oyster fossils) and fossilized corral. We followed their instructions, and did locate a huge deposit of the oyster shell fossils. The ground was literally littered with them. We looked for some time. We never did find any squid fossils and only one very small corral fossil.

I found one coiled shell fossil (the bottom center - kind of golden colored piece), which I love. I don't really know what it is.

We never saw a rattlesnake, but I would not go there without my ankle high boots!

Celebrating Mothers Day Early

Yesterday, I spent the day with my girls, Joe and Airus for an early Mothers Day outing. Michelle had been introduced to an interesting landform near Greybull, Wyoming by some of her college friends. She wanted me to see this place called Devils Kitchen.

It is in a very remote location, not marked at all on BLM land. It was really spectacular.

It was quite warm, so we did not spend a lot of time hiking in the area.

We did walk around a bit, though.

All of these pictures were taken in a very confined area - maybe a mile or so in diameter.