Not My Norm but Tons of Fun!

Doing new things is exhilarating!. I may never do another piece like this (who knows!) but I have learned some new stuff for sure and will incorporate the learnings along the way. This is an experimental piece like those previously shown. The central image is a collaged silkscreen on white fabric done by Sharla Hicks (www.softexpressions.com) and acrylic artist Chris Cozen. I've taken the original panel and incorporated it into a quilt. This was definitely a challenge for me as I generally approach my work as a brush painter. Sharla and Chris collaged stamps and stencils into a screen print frame (I cannot begin to tell you about this process quite yet...duh! sooo much to learn).
In the beginning.. the screen printed panel...


With all the white space....I felt it needed a border of sorts to contain the busy image. Bottom line, I decided to paint the border fabric ( why not?) using transparent acrylic paints ( AirBrush by Golden). I used white fabric (PFD), misted it, and applied mixtures of Airbrush acrylic and water. This felt a bit like finger painting. Lots of fun... then to let it dry and heat set. Don't be alarmed.... the matrix lines you see are my white plastic mat that covers my table.


Before adding the border, I used a dark hand dye for a 1/4 inch stopper. You might also notice I added some color to the white areas of the central bird image. It seemed like it needed some focus in the screened panel.

Then on to the machine to quilt. I used monofilament in the screened panel as I didn't want thread color or texture to interfere with the screened image.

Finally, I added some raw edge applique of other sample painted fabric at 2 corners. It seemed to bring some life to the piece and I was pleased to note that raw edge painted fabric doesn't seem to fray easily. YEAH! A final dark stopper binding and we're done.