Share Your Mixed-Media Art : Art Quilt

Sun-Tipped Mountain Sprite

RUEdOAK — Mon, 21 May 2012 23:38:10 GMT

About 17" x 19" this art quilt includes hands and face made of polymer clay. The swirls and the linear lines of the hills are done with a felting machine. All layers are quilted together and embellished.

Photograph above art quilt

quiltas — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 01:38:47 GMT

Shore Bits is one in a series of mixed media art pieces my son and I collaborated on. His photograph is sandwiched and mounted to my hand painted whole cloth quilt. This piece also has ribbon and seed bead embellishments. It was blocked with ripples for a more dimensional appearance. It is mounted on a hard back board with picture hanger wire.

honey-town

artemix — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 20:13:26 GMT

Nature Embellishments

moonwild — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 15:17:54 GMT

Raft bundles

These are some little raft bundles I made with red willow, leaves and threads.

I added little snippets of text. They are small, about 3 inches long I think I can use then on journal covers, art quilts, and add them to assemble pieces. I may be thinking of the tsunami and all the people bundling up their possessions and little fragments of their life. I find my thoughts are often first revealed in my art work.

Do you find your art is affected by what is happening in your environment?

I know that when it is winter my palette is pale as the snowy landscape. About March, much like a plant, I begin to feel the urge of spring and my palette begins to brighten. The first green pushing up through the earth remind me…Oh yes, there is color! I see the red of the robin’s *** and a flash of bluebird, and their colors begin to appear in my palette. Spring is here.

Black & White Heron

Judy709 — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 14:43:22 GMT

I really wanted to make a black and white art quilt , I pieced the background in black fabric pieces and tried to use white and lighter scraps for the Heron, added some metallic thread in the background for some shine, used some black and white lutradur for some free hanging feather pieces,and added a clear chrystal for the eye. I love to paint birds but this time I wanted to express myself in fabric. Thanks to Quilting Arts I have been combining my love of painting with my love of sewing. I have really been having fun trying new things. Thank you so much for all of the great ideas.

Purple Shades

Judy709 — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 14:28:08 GMT

I painted my daughters picture on muslin. Then I free motion stitched her hair. I did some soft sculpting of her face, added some loose threads in her hair around her face, cut the sun glasses out of a purple plastic divider sheet, then added them to the face with some purple wire. I had alot of fun doing it

Romance, in Silk by Nancy M Burleson

Nancy burleson — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 16:42:57 GMT

Romance is a wallhanging made of dupioni silk backed with a cotton batting. It also consists of paper, clothpaper (hearts and the top Fluer de Le), acetate stampings and photo transfer, crystals ,wood, art yarn and other fibers, mother of pearl beads and painted canvas beads that were embellished with foiling and Tiny flat back crystals. All was sewn by hand except top trangle was done with some free motion embroideryand hand sewing,a stamping in acrylic paint and more art yarns for the fringe. I will add a couple closer pics, I am new to this

my backyard persimmon

verlon54 — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 15:17:21 GMT

This quilt came from a calendar picture I saw at a friend's house. It was my first real attempt at using paints. Each leaf was painted separately on a very light green dyed fabric and then added the veins and painted some more. The persimmon was painted on a very light yellow mottled dyed fabric. The background was a light off white fabric that I did some shading on. I then machine appliqed each piece to the background. For a first time using paints I thought it came out pretty good.

Stars and More Stars

Nancy Smeltzer — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 10:38:06 GMT

I love to look at the stars, especially since I live in an area where there is a lot of light pollution. So when I’m far away from the city, I love to see the twinkling jewels in the sky. When I was a kid, I used to “connect the dots”, much as ancient astronomers did with zodiac signs. However, I always seemed to want more lines and dots than astologers of old were content with. Part of the joy for me of my art quilts is when you make it yourself, you can add what you want!

“Stars and More Stars” (13" x 13") was mostly done during a trip through Bolivia. I knew that space and weight in my luggage would be limited, so this small 13’ x 13” format was perfect. I’ve sewn while sitting on my luggage while waiting for trains, buses, and planes all over the world. Even though I often don’t speak the native language, people will stop to watch and somehow, connections are made through words and gestures.

Besides star buttons, I’ve used plastic pinwheels pieces from children’s toys and snowflake beads to get LOTS of stars in this small piece. I even made a star from melting plastic strips and embedding a glass cabochon in it.(lower left) I can usually find the materials I need without manufacturing them, but sometimes, you just have to make your own supplies to get the effect you want!

DETAIL PHOTO is below in the "Comments" section.

You can see more of my art quilts at my web site at www.fiberfantasies.com

Moon Rises Over Thundercloud

Nancy Smeltzer — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 10:17:49 GMT

"The Moon Rises Over Thundercloud" ( 9.5”W x 14.5”T total) was the first art quilt that I did that was inspired by a dream of mine. In the dream, a large, mystical thunderbird danced before the entrance to a magical mountain. Its feathers were tipped in a bright shining metal and brushed against the ground as the bird swayed. The sparks created by the bird were lightning bolts and the air crackled with electricity. I think that parts of the dream hailed from a TV show I had then recently seen, parts from an Smithsonian ethnographic movie from the turn of this century, and parts of the thunderbird legends of the American Southwest. No matter the source, the dream was powerful, and still vivid in my mind today.

The original finishing date for the piece was 1982. It then resided in my studio until 1997, completed but not exactly the way that I felt the image needed to be. As my interest in beadwork grew, the piece seemed to scream to me from the walls, “Me, too!Bead me! Me, too!” I am pleased with the present image as the addition of beading seems to add more of the mystical quality of the dream as I remember it.

DETAIL PHOTO is in the "Comments" section below.

You can see more of my art quilts at my web site at www.fiberfantasies.com

Heart Tribe

Nancy Smeltzer — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 10:08:24 GMT

“Heart Tribe” (20”W x 38”Total Height x 1”D) is dedicated to the people that we choose to have in our lives as our extended families. In many indigenous cultures, your ties were not just to those who were directly related to you, but those with whom you had a special “heart” connection. This piece incorporates many heart examples, from glass to plastic, to represent the people that we collect over the years into our lives. There is a sprit bundle on the middle left side of the piece made from a squashed battery that I found in a parking lot. The poles on the end of the battery weathered to look like a small face and I’ve used it to represent the secrets and confidences that we share with those special friends.

There is a complicated fringe along the bottom edge to represent how people often trail out of our lives. However, the long tassel is there to give them a “tail” on which to return, should you both choose. I know that I was one with the medium when I was working on this piece, so I’m sure that there are other examples of symbolism for the observer to find.

DETAIL PHOTO in the "Comments" section below.

You can see more of my art quilts at my web site at www.fiberfantasies.com

Butterfly Ribbons

Nancy Smeltzer — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 09:53:32 GMT

"Butterfly Ribbons" (29.5”T x 26”W x .5”D) ...I feel that butterflies are some of the happiest creatures on the planet. I even had one light on my outstretched finger once. Therefore, I had been collecting commercial iron-on butterfly appliqués for a while, mostly Monarchs. With the addition of butterflies, this piece grew to become a work dedicated to found objects from fabric stores. There are also a number of 60s retro flower appliqués as well as some interesting tulip ones that look like small postage stamps. I also wanted to play with lines as a framework for the composition and ribbons make easy lines to add on to a piece. There are also two strips of “Le Tigre” labels as I bought a life time supply of a close-out of some clothing line’s sew-in labels. The juxtaposition of tigers and butterflies seemed very funny to me as I was forming the quilt’s surface.

In creating this piece, I pinned up the yellow background fabric onto a wall of my studio and began the cutting and pinning process. I was surrounded by a wealth of possible inclusions for the piece, so it became more of what not to use than what would be added. My hand quilted pieces are very portable, so I try to make them small enough that I don’t need to use a frame. Still, the extensive beading makes the pieces distort as the work progresses, especially the lines. At the end, where the piece gets blocked into its final shape, there needed to be a lot of fudging with buttons added on to distract the eye where the lines aren’t exactly straight, I hope that these discrepancies will add to the handmade charm of the piece, This work was given birth through the efforts of my eyes and hands, not stamped out by a machine.

DETAIL PHOTO in the "Comments" section below.

You can see more of my art quilts at my web site at www.fiberfantasies.com