Gallery of challenges

A gallery of the challenges has been created. In the right hand sidebar you will find a link list for each challenge.

The gallery includes photos as well as links back to the original posts that include detail shots and artist statements.

Enjoy!

NEW THEME: COLOR

Here's the new theme: COLOR which I already sent in an email.

Do something bright and colorful, and if you are unused to color, force yourself to pick a bright color and work with it. Color, hue, tint, shade, dye, stain, blush, glow, vivid, intensity, richness, riot of color, iridescent, rainbow, butterfly, peacock.....

Think, for example, of Red, one of my favorite colors: scarlet, vermillion, crimson, maroon, magenta, cerise, cherry, fire-engine red, cardinal, carmine, ruby, wine, claret, burgundy, brick-red, rust, lobster-red, carnelian, infrared, blood-red, Chinese red, Titian....

Think of Blue: aqua, azure, baby blue, turquoise, cerulean blue, cobalt, royal blue, peacock blue, midnight blue, navy blue, electric blue, indigo, sapphire blue, robin's-egg blue, Prussian blue, steel blue, sky blue, sea blue, ultramarine blue....

You can use some black and white if you want. No gray. Try to stay away from pale pale pastels, like baby blue or baby pink. Push yourself to be bold and daring. And have fun!

SECOND IMAGE

I guess this one will get published first, but it's the second one I started on, also not quite finished. (I was in Brasil for a week, sitting on the beach, plus I got a later start. Sigh. ) This one I did all in reds, all different fabrics, because Sanctuary first of all makes me feel warm. Its a block of a kind of lopsided side house, and I am adding lots of beads.

MY IMAGES

I made two little quilts, and neither one is quite finished. I started with some blocks of what someone called "wonky" houses, and I put words around the edge relating to Sanctuary: home, love, Steve (my husband), hot chocolate, fireplace, two kitties, federdecke.... I wasn't going to use the word sanctuary at all, but now I'm thinking I might put it in the yellow border.

My Sanctuary

It's a long story, but I finally married the Right Guy... the sweetest man I've ever met...the love of my life. We married six years ago (age 63), and the strangest thing is that when I answered his "Singles" ad, we realized that we'd gone to the same high school, and graduated in the same class!

We were such different kids. He was the vice president of our class and on all the sports teams, and I was a hippie-wannabe, teaching myself guitar and learning old English ballads, starting a writer's club and scribbling out bad poetry. Our paths just never crossed. Now, in our 60's, those differences don't matter a bit; he helps me to exercise a little more and I think I'm bringing out his Inner Artist.

My favorite time of the day is when we climb into bed, chatter about what's in our heads, and almost always end up giggling. This is My Sanctuary.

My Sanctuary....

When this challenge was posted, many thoughts went through my mind... first to bird sanctuaries, those associated with 'religion' and hiding spots as a child. When hurt or frightened, the 'sanctuary' was home. I left home when I was 16 years and 7 months old, hence the 'sanctuary' I had known was not easily accessible. It then changed to reading. As the years ensued, I enjoyed many hours of reading and many, many books. Since nothing stays the same, I had to really think and narrow this down so I could put it into a 12" x 12" piece of fiber art. A thorough search revealed my husband of nearly 30 years and my marriage are truly my sanctuary. I have my husband to take life's brunt, he is so kind and protective of me.Together we enjoy a vast variety of pleasures, not the least being the time we spend together in our little back garden, listening and watching the birds. We often comment... 'this is our little sanctuary here on earth'.
My piece uses a photograph of the garden with the simple two hearts [that beat as one]

to portray 'My Sanctuary'.

Sanctuary - Transformation

I am posting my Sanctuary entry for our first challenge.  Mine is a shrine with a persona who appears to have butterfly wings. She is not a goddeess, and not a butterfly. She is a symbol for transformation. I am very big on shrines and other things that speak to me of transformation. I often include a butterfly in my quilts.

This was a fun challenge. Peace and many blessings, Annie

My Sanctuary, my garden by Helen Moreda

This is my sanctuary, my quiet place, my healing place.  My garden is large, full of paths and great views.  I grow many plants, usually ones that can be started and divided. I do have roses, the ones the gophers have not eaten, which I enjoy.

For this piece I used handpainted silk, fused and appliqued more hand dyed and painted petals and leaves.  The painted cheesecloth represents the earthiness. The whole work suggests the many textures of a garden. I included both a sun and a moon but they are not terribly dominent. Color  is the most important element.
The quilting is the most fun. Adding leaves and more flowers........the variety of the space.  It is only missing my two black labs.  They are there with me every time I wander.

The Sanctuary Within

This design was long coming. The Sanctuary challenge at first brought images of places I had visited, both the sacred in nature and in structure. In the end, nothing felt quite right. No one image embodied my personal sense of sanctuary. Until I looked inside.

Music and logic are my sanctuary. The score on the left is from the Thomas Tallis Puer natus est nobis written in 1554. Reproduced here is part of the Agnus Dei movement reading dona nobis pacem or grant us peace. The chorus sings in seven parts - all voice parts splitting into their high and low voices except the tenor line. The result is a stunning, rich, meditative sound.

The nautilus shapes are formed through the number series Italian mathematician Fibonacci discovered in the 13th century. Such logic and order appeal to me. The three represent water, earth and growth.

Polished wood buttons were added for their visual interest and the old key to represent the power to protect that internal space.

I used commercial batik fabrics. The music was first 'aged' by tea-staining a photocopy of the score and then photocopying onto freezer paper backed muslin. The piece was machine quilted.

Sanctuary

When I think of Sanctuary, I think of nature. I walk in the woods to clear my mind and it is where I come up with solutions to my quilting problems as well. I took this photo of a young deer in our local park and felt that he symbolizes sanctuary to me...even though there is a herd that goes through my garden and ravages everything constantly. They are so beautiful and serene.

I transfered the photo onto fabric and quilted around the deer so that he would stand out against the background. I fused pieces of silk to a hand dyed cotton fabric in a collage format. Then came the challenge of quilting the piece. I choose to extend the lines of the brush in the background of the photo out into the background of the quilt.

I wanted to do embellishment but the quilt kept telling me to stop while I was ahead so I listened this time. Next time I hope to do some hand work on my piece.

"Secret Things" by Lynn Krawczyk - Sanctuary challenge

Secret Things by Lynn Krawczyk

The piece that I chose to do for this challenge theme, Sanctuary, revolves around the role that journaling and writing plays in my life.

Writing offers a private kind of release that allows everyone to be themselves. I've kept a journal my whole life and find comfort in knowing it is there.

Three small fabric books are laid across this piece, each one tied shut to hold in its secrets.



The background fabric, fabric strips beneath each book and fabric squares on the book covers are screen printed using the deconstructed screen printing technique.

The piece is hand stitched. The heavier red thread is stitched to mimick book binding and the finer orange stitching creates a subtle frame around each book.

Sanctuary - Heidi Stucki

*posted on behalf of Heidi Stucki

I enjoy creative computing, photo effects and printing on textiles. As the theme was released, I thought of a picture. I had taken it in a chapel in the old city of Jerusalem and I like the atmosphere, it shows.

The blue color reminds me of the endless sky and is the symbol for faith.

The brown color of the door reminds me of the dust of the ground and the Cross.

The arch is a symbol of the rainbow, which is a promise. ("I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and earth." Gen. 9,13.)

The curtain is not fully closed but lets us see part of the inner room - the sanctuary. The printed verse in gold is Exodus 25,8: "Then have them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them."


I only put a few of my thoughts and aspects in this quilt. I did not want to overload it.

The fabrics in this quilt are all created on my printer. The colors are as in the original picture. I did manipulate the picture with effects until I thought it best for this work. I machine pieced and quilted it, then added some screenprint fragments in gold.

Sanctuary - Imagine

California missions proved to be sanctuary for many in the early years. This piece is from a photo of the entrance to a Southern California mission. It was my inspiration as I imagined what lays behind the door for those who seek sanctuary today.
To make this piece, I painted a silkscreen with Caran d'Ache Neocolor II crayons and screened the image onto muslin with textile medium. When dry and heatset, I mounted it onto hand-dyed cotton , added texture with Neon threads, used Shiva oil sticks to stencil "Imagine" and added painted cheesecloth and stamped and painted fabrics as embellishments. It is bound with satin stitching. I was so enamored with this photograph that I also painted it in oils. I posted a photo of that on my blog.

Cathy Ortelle
http://www.artjourneys.blogspot.com

"La Puerta" by Jan Girod -Sanctuary

Sanctuary, this word brought many images to mind. The immediate images were of my personal places of refuge; such as the forests of northern Minnesota where I grew up or the warm beaches found along the Gulf Coast. They are also where I typically turn for inspiration and I wanted to use these challenges to stretch myself. So I went back to contemplating the word, its definitions and synonyms; hoping for a lightbulb moment. One definition kept creeping back into my thoughts; "any gateway marking an entrance or exit from one place or state to another; at heavens door". For years I have taken photographs of doors, for me doors are the passage way by which we take refuge. Immediately a wonderful photo of a cathedral door in the El Socolo in Mexico City came to mind and the phrase from the definition "at heavens door" popped into my head. How could I create this piece and stretch myself? That nagging question played over and over in my mind, during daytime hours and even while I slept.

Finally I pulled an ugly fabric from my stash, using 1/4" tape I laid out a grid for the building wall on the wrong side of the fabric. Then I used watercolor pencils and textile medium to shade my blocks, after drying they looked like a wall. The door needed to look rugged, hand hewn, so I used brown packing paper, crumpled and flattened numerous times to break down the fibers, coloring it with shoe polish gave it a worn leather look.

Embroidery and embellishments were used to give the piece dimension and the look of age. I love it when someone looks at a piece of my work, see's the overall composition, moves in to take a closer look, discovers small details and becomes excited by them.

Bella's Sanctuary

"Bella's Sanctuary"

When the word “Sanctuary” was revealed, I wasn’t sure in what direction I wanted to go. At first, I thought I might go with the animal sanctuary idea, but that just didn’t seem to inspire me. During a conversation with my gentleman friend, we talked about all the different ways that the word could be portrayed. What came out of the conversation was the idea of how a small child finds sanctuary behind mom. I called my niece and asked if I could come over and photograph her daughter Isabella hiding behind her. Although it took several tries (I wish I could show all the silly faces that Bella gave me from behind her mom) I finally got the perfect shot. I translated that photograph into my sanctuary piece.

I used both hand dyes and commercial cotton fabric. These fabrics were shaped from a template and appliquéd together by glue (I love Roxanne’s Glue-Baste-It). The eye, lashes and brow are a combination of pismacolor pencils and fabric paint. The entire piece is covered with a layer of black tulle before any stitching is done. There is a lot of thread sketching, especially on the jeans. The background quilting is in a spiral, which you will find in many of my recent pieces, and I faced it with a hand dye of pink and beige that seemed to fit with the colors from the front. A few beads and sequins finish out the background but don’t seem to detract from the focal point of the little girl’s eye.

I really like this small quilt and hope to do a larger rendition in the future.

Lisa L. Kay