Techniques

There's been a lot of interest in the techniques I used in my new work. There are a bunch of them and they can be used in any order or combination, which makes them very versatile. On the down side if you like a very soft hand to your quilts, you won't get it. These aren't my techniques, they were learned in a workshop with Fran Skiles, from Fran, from fellow classmates and a few I did come up with myself.

The base material is 100% white cotton duck, which gives a good body to take on all the materials I throw at it. Before anything is added to the piece, false French seams and large hand stitching are added for texture.

For these pieces I began with some copies of my photographs in B&W. The photocopy paper has some real advantages over other papers for this. These are cut into shapes, generally without recognizable features, think of them as textural shapes. Put them down with a coating of gel medium (I used Golden). As the surface dries slightly, distress them to achieve your desired look.

Other steps include application of gesso for texture, use of acrylic inks, application of dyed cheesecloth and silk gauze. Rubbings on rice paper can be added. Also bakery paper(the kind used to pick out your rolls and doughnuts at the store) can be drawn on with most any type of media (ink, watercolor pencils) and then adhered to the surface with gel medium.

One key is make sure and leave some of your whites, its easy to lose them all in the flow of your work. Oh, and make sure you have fun.