Recent Workshop

I had the pleasure of taking a workshop from fellow FAN member Mary Rhopa, St. Augustine, Florida.  Mary is an award winning fiber artist who uses repurposed fabrics and a lot of hand stitching.  Her trees fascinate me!  I wish I had my camera with me.  Mary created, I think, 30 8x10" trees - each and every one of them different and ever so beautiful.  I loved getting into the ladder stitch - the hand stitching!!!  The tree trunk was twisted seams of the old garments.

Oh, Mary gave the workshop at the Piecemaker's Quilt Guild, St. Augustine, Florida.

Some of my latest.

"3 Faces of Beryl"

"3 Faces of Beryl" is another piece I put in my local Island Art Association's Nouveau Art exhibit entitled "Black and White."  I was experimenting with monotype drawing of the faces - all fabric.  I chose the title as we were in the mist of the topical storm "Beryl" when I was working on it.  It didn't win anything but was accepted into the show, so I was pleased.  This is the same show my book won "Honorable Mention!"

The following are 3 fabric collages that I now have hanging in the Butterfield Garage Art Gallery in St. Augustine, Florida along with several other older pieces.  Butterfield created a really beautiful room for a bunch of us fiber artists.  Two of us are "wall" artists and the others are wearable art folks.  The Opening is this Friday night!  I'll upload some images after the opening.

I spent some time this afternoon collaging old book pages to future leaf printed cards like the one in the middle.  I'll be printing soon.  How I love to print leaves!

The following image, though sideways - sorry, are some of the notecards I made for a very loyal client!  Sieta orders cards every so often!  I'm lucky!  I collage papers and images printed on fabric and then stitch a little.

Lastly, this image is one I've been working on - first on the computer with  Picasa- sharpening it, posterizing it, etc.  It's of my great nephew and my grandson.  Michael took Max's hand and led him to the bubbles!  Ever so cute.  I've done a lot of stitching, working in the faces a bit.  Next comes the background and machine quilting.  I'm trying to talk myself into entering it into a fancy fiber show.  We shall see once I get it completed.  Of course, I ask for some feedback from friends and family. 

Til next time!  Create something, anything - play - it does your heart good!

Low Tide

"Low Tide"  12 x 12" created by Diane Hamburg $150

"Low Tide" detail.

www.fanfarejax.blogspot.com (please visit this blog to see what the others have created) is the blog that 19 fiber artists of Jacksonville, FL is sharing their art pieces of different themes.  The first theme was "Free to Play."  I choose to use an image of my grandson Max, playing freely on the beach.  He had a great time!  And this grandma, Granny, had a great time watching him explore the place she holds quite dear.  I used my standby technique of Ellen Lindner - double reverse applique.  I worked harder with the background which was quite enjoyable.  I'm pleased with the result and plan on developing more images of Max at the beach in the near future.

Oh, it's been way to long

Why, oh, why was it so hard to get back to blogging??????  I have been working in the studio, even taking images........

I plan on blogging frequently in the next few days in order to catch up.

Today's entry is all about being accepted by my local theater - Amelia Community Theater.  Each time there is a wonderful new play performed by local actors an art exhibit is shown in the lobby.  I've been slow to enter but enter I did this time.  The play is "In the Woods"  and the theme of the exhibit is "Forests and Fairy Tales."  I entered three very different pieces and to my delight, all 3 were accepted.  So now you get to see them.

Walking in the Mountains, 31 x 22", $250 created by Diane Hamburg

Can't See the Forest, 20 x 28"  $280, created by Diane Hamburg

Can't see the Forest detail

Trees, 10 x10"  $75, created by Diane Hamburg

The first is a piece I created a couple years back.  The background is raw-edged applique using a variety of fabrics.  I was going for an abstract view of tree trunks.  The floating leaves were the result of hand printing real leaves and then fusing them to the background.  And, of course, there's lots of machine quilting.

"Can't see the Forest" was just created beginning with a manipulated photograph (using Photoshop Elements) and intrepreting it with fabrics and the double reverse applique method of Ellen Lindner.  Extensive machine quilting finished the piece.

The last is a small piece using the monotype technique - on cloth - with a tree paper applique on top and machine quilting.  This one is mounted on a canvas wrapped frame.

I'll be going to the play later this month and plan to take a picture of the show.