Inspirational Patchwork

This week over at One Powerful Hour Peggy has selected the fabulous theme, Patchwork.

Initially when i saw the theme I thought of quilts with perfectly sewed together and cut bits and pieces. So I decided to make some kind of paper piece using the strict geometric formula. I bounced around a few ideas of taking my favorite themes, doing small pieces, cutting those up and putting them all together but I just couldn't envision it. Then I came up with the idea of a Mixed Media Patchwork, all the mediums I use in my pieces, and that one stuck and took off.

I did start by trying to stay very geometric. I found some marble bits (to represent glass) cut up some of my custom made papers in little squares and started to build the piece. That's when it all went haywire, from the geometric standpoint.

At this point the black paint was drying on the canvas and I had drawn a mock 5x7 piece on my work pad to space things out. That's when I stopped, wrote down everything off the top of my head that I use in my art and then went and gathered it.



The list had on it
Stone
Sand
Wood
Paint
collage Images
Stamps
Glitter/Rhinestones
Wax
Fabric
Ribbon
German scrap
Paper
Transparency
Twinkling H2O's
stickers/rub on's
Ink

After I gathered items that represented each of these the piece came together in no time. Some of the representations are easy to spot but other's are not.

I took the transparency film off of the image to the left so you could view it without the distortion.

I stamped my favorite go to stamp a swirl by hero arts and used Kaleidoscope embossing powder on it to represent glitter. There is was all around the frame on the woman in the middle. The sand is at the bottom where the wooden words are. I used texture paste and put sand all over the top of it. Tim Holtz distressing inks are one of my go to items so I rubbed those on the wood before stamping the phrase "one of a kind".

The female images are from Alpha Stamps. The German scrap bird is from a Paula's Kit club.

The word Inspire, when I rubbed it on for some reason the "p" did not transfer at all...I consider this a fortunate mistake because I love the way the metal p looks.



Finally after all that was done and it looked nothing like my original patchwork idea I thought to add a transparency film over it with stitching stamped on.

I am no novice to trying to photograph things with reflective surfaces but for some reason this one gave me hell. Any suggestions would be welcome.

Well, I think that is about it...When I finished this piece and stepped back i really really liked how it turned out. This maybe become my new favorite piece.

Thanks for looking!