Textile Art Blog posts

As I continue to write this blog to help others, I must pause and reflect on areas with which some beginners are having difficulty. And so, before continuing with step 8, let’s talk more about fabrics. I tell students to choose large and small prints in darks, mediums, and lights. I avoid certain fabrics, such as batiks and solids, in favor of directional patterns that help build the collage...

It’s now time to decide how to build your fabric collage. There are many ways, however, I prefer to work directly onto my background fabric. I’m working like a painter— background, middle ground and foreground. I work in this precise order as I’m creating an illustration and not just filling in a cookie-cutter flat object...

Once you have selected your fabrics and are comfortable with the colors it’s time to focus on your pattern. There are no hard and fast rules, so relax and enjoy this next step. An architects’s blueprints are the maps for construction workers. Well, your pattern is much the same...

Take a closer look at the animal you are trying to create — is it wild or domestic? Does it live near a lake, mountain, ocean, forest, or desert? What makes this animal happiest…lying in a sunny spot, rolling in the mud, or chasing a butterfly? In Part 1, I directed your attention to light, medium, and darks of the colors you wish to use. But which colors should you choose?

The art of textiles has been passed down for generations…including mine. My great-grandfather was a tailor who married a seamstress who gave birth to my grandmother, an awning maker who had my father who was an upholsterer, who married my mother, a gifted hand-embroiderer, who had me...

I recently met a black panther living in the Amazon rainforest during my afternoon meditation. He conveyed a feeling of aching and longing for home as he had been taken to another country and was very unhappy...

Some might call me a multi-tasker and here’s why…I am the Art Director of the Library of American Comics, a professional animal communicator, an author of two published books, a watercolor artist teaching workshops ...