Catching up with Love Doll

Catching up.......

No excuses.

Here are some shots of my Love Doll ( you need to say it with some swagger!) that I have sent to New Mexico as part of the Mixed Media online art group swap. A few of us in the group participated in a book study of Stitched Alchemy by Kelli Perkins. Great book, but even better book to do as a "book study". It is the kind of book that if given "assignments" you can go to for inspiration and suggestions to get you going. The book study started out by making fabric paper. The book goes into details with a variety of ways you can begin your first layer. The layers are the key. You build up.....my paper included the following layers.....gluing papers to the muslin, then adding color, stamping, more color, more stamping and you keep going until you have some visually pleasing fabric. I will admit, most of my fabrics were not quite what I wanted. But...when you cut into smaller pieces, like the pattern for the love doll above...then magically the fabric paper becomes wonderful. So for the love doll the assignment was to create fabric paper, then cut into love doll shape of your own design and then embellish the heck out of it. It was great fun to see the doll come to life. I must admit, this doll took on some character and attitude....it made me smile. I want to make MORE.

One technique that I rather enjoyed was making a transfer with packing tape....for those of you who know my family you know that I have LOTS of experience with packing tape, but more in the use of actually packing up a house full of stuff. This was a fun use of the tape. Here's what you do.......find a photo copy image or an image from a magazine, key is to not use an ink jet image. Then, apply a swatch of packing tape. Burnish paper onto the tape. Once you are satisfied with the burnishing you soak in some water and rub off the paper. The image will be on the tape. You can see the transfers on my love doll.......they are the light blue rectangular pieces. I stitched my transfers to a watercolor blue batik fabric scrap that I had laying around. My transfers were from text and a photo copy of a rubber stamped image. It is so clever, simple, fun and.....oh the possibilities! Try it. A quick technique. Something to get the creative juices flowing.