November 2012 – Hudson River Valley Art Workshops

Resists and Printmaking with Jane Davila

November 23, 2012

Jane Davila, a fiber and mixed-media artist, was here a week ago teaching a 3-day workshop on surface design for fiber artists. She is also the editor of Quilting Arts In Stitches and Quilting Arts Surface Explorations emagazines.

Jane came loaded with all sorts of paints, resists, and printmaking tools for the students to play with.

One afternoon was spent making prints with a variety of fruits and vegetables. My favorites were the ones made with an artichoke.

The rubber fish were also quite fun.

This is the portable printing press that Jane brought with her.

It was a fun and enthusiastic class — perfect for heading into our 2 weeks off from workshops. They left us smiling and looking forward to seeing them again.

We have just two more workshops for the year. The first one is a fusing workshop with Sue Benner, Dec. 2 – 8. If you are not already signed up for this one, you’ll have to wait until Sue returns to teach again for us in 2014 because the 2012 class is full.

The final workshop for the year is a 5-day workshop with Susan Brubaker Knapp – Dec. 9 – 15. Jane Davila gave a two thumbs up to Susan as an instructor and as a terribly fun person just to spend time with. Jane said that Susan has a great sense of humor and lots of great stories to tell while also being a very organized instructor.

Susan’s workshop is titled Paint, Fuse, Stitch!

You’ll learn how to:

Distill a photographic image into shapes for fused applique.

Create a pattern for fused applique

Transfer a design to fabric for painting.

Paint on fabric, including mixing and blending colors

Layer and fuse fabric pieces to build your piece

Add detail with thread sketchingFree-motion quilt your piece.

Here are some examples of Susan’s photos that she has turned in to painted, fused and stitched pieces of quilt art.

We’d love to have you join us for this fun workshop! Give us a call at toll-free at 888-665-0044 to sign up.

Cross Currents with Rosalie Dace

November 9, 2012

Rosalie Dace, the extraordinary quilt artist from South Africa, is here this week teaching her Cross Currents workshop. The focus is on giving your quilts a new energy by discovering the strength of crossed designs.

Throughout the week there have been lots of breakout demonstrations of various design and technique exercises. Those interested in a a particular demonstration can gather around Rosalie, while others continue to work on their compositions.

Here are several of the marvelous works in progress. I can’t wait to see everyone’s design walls tomorrow on the last day of the class.

A little fluffy diversion. This is Murphy who stayed with us for about a week. His “mom and dad” stayed on after the Margaret Dyer workshop, waiting for power to come back to their house in New Jersey after hurricane Sandy. Murphy sat quietly on the back porch each morning during breakfast.

Pastel Figures with Margaret Dyer and Sandy

November 7, 2012

Hurricane Sandy was still heading up the coast when Margaret Dyer and her students arrived for her 3-day pastel figures workshop. I was constantly monitoring the weather channel and projections for the effect of the storm on our area and it looked like we were going to do alright in our neck of the woods this time. But having weathered Irene last year with a full workshop in house, we were prepared for whatever might happen.

I took this picture of the small creek that runs through our property, as the “before” picture. I was thinking of taking pictures as the creek rose as it did the last time. But we lucked out this time. We only got a bit of wind and rain, so the “before” picture looked exactly the same as an “after” picture would have looked.