penny-studionotes-2

It is almost six months since I participated in a week-long workshop with Claire Benn at the Crow Barn in Ohio.  The workshop gave me a chance to work on multiple ways of producing graphic shapes and lettering on fabric.  Most of the examples above will reappear below, as I describe the work. The workshop was called "Graphics and Graffiti."  Most of the sample work that Claire took us through had to do with ways of using letters/words, but we were also encouraged to do graphic work more broadly.  Most of what I did falls into three categories:  writing/marking with ink (on both paper and fabric),  screen printing with shapes drawn from my "Regret" quilt, and using a paper lamination screen to print a large block of narrative text. Writing/marking with ink : The first day of the workshop was devoted to working with paper, using markers and then various implements with India ink.  Many of the exercises we did were inspired by the work of Denise Lach , wh...

I have long admired the work of Paula Kovarik , which features extraordinary, imaginative stitching on a variety of surfaces--sometimes abstract blocks of color, sometimes re-purposed linens.  A few months ago, Paula put out a request for people to send her children's drawings of robots, monsters, and beasts.  She had been using drawings from her own family in some of her quilting, and was looking for more images to work from.  I sent in a number of my son Jeremy's drawings, made when he was between four and six years old.  To my delight, Paula has posted one of Jeremy's drawings in the left side-bar of her blog, and another in a recent post about the project; you can see both drawings here .  It is lovely to have these glimpses of Jeremy out in the world. Here are some of the other drawings I found as I went through the big envelopes of things I'd saved from Jeremy's childhood.  It was striking to see what a narrow window there is for drawings like th...