Visually Speaking

Warm Up- Using inks on wet fabric

All week I've been trying to come up with the idea for something amazing. I wanted it to be as close to genius as I can get. It sooo wouldn't come. The ideas were there but nothing in the way of what I felt I needed. So I took my (and your) advice and decided to give myself a little bit of time to play. I had a deadline looming yes, but it's like a pre-game stretch. I need to play around for a while just to get into my groove.

Sketching with the Inktense pencils on wet fabric

And groove it I did. :) I took pics of both my warm- up and a close up sneak peek of the piece I did after to share with you. For the warm up I was playing around with watersoluble materials like Distress inks, inktense pencils, and fabric markers on wet fabric. The fabric I used was a sheer curtain fabric someone had given me. It felt pretty polyester-y but still absorbed water fairly well. To begin I tried rubbing the ink on the fabric and then wetting it by putting it face down on a slightly wet surface. That produced a pretty watercolor effect. Then I started to work into it with the inktense pencils, and other inks. How wet the fabric was definitely made a difference in how opaque the color and how much it bled into the area around it. I found I really liked how intense the pencils were so I wet a second piece of the fabric and started to draw some butterflies. I wanted to see how they performed when sketching and not just laying down color. After I sketched in the color of the wings with the pencils I grabbed a fabric marker and outlined a bit. I LOVED how that looked. The marker bled into this fabulous watercolor look while still maintaining a line. Gorgeous!

Pulling it together

These were my play pieces- after which I started work on the mixed media work for the magazine. Because I was feeling energized and "in the groove" already from the playtime I was able to really jump into the mixed media piece already feeling connected to that artist part of myself. All in all I'm really glad I took the time to "warm up" my creative side with play.

Super Sneak Peek of the Mixed Media Work :)