I just can't resist a sale on fat quarters!  In the past they were used almost immediately for fabric collages for hoop skirt dolls. Now, I'm not sure. I found myself drawn to the batik prints in greens and turquoise, thinking they might blend into some of the hand painted pieces I have done recently. And, I had to have the yellow print. It found friends as soon as I dropped onto the work table.  I especially like it with the pink and yellow plaid painted piece.

The idea of placing a polymer clay face onto either a fabric collage or painted background interests me, too. I've experimented with this once in a while.  This week I tried it again, using a altered photo frame for the base. The size is about 5.5" square.  The piece on the right was made a couple of years ago. This was done on a piece of 1 x 6, textured with paper mache pulp, painted and embellished with tacks and bits of metal.

And, finally, I finished up an abstract acrylic painting that has been in works for a few weeks.  I loved doing this! Size is 16" x 20". I can imagine doing large paintings, thick with paint and collage.

All of this gives some ideas to follow up on. Also, I'm beginning to visual a figure (doll) that I would like to make...or maybe this is a theme that could result in several pieces. Maybe they will show up here! And, by next week it will be time to catch up on some quilt squares!

I started off this year hoping to figure out a way to get away from doll making. And already I find that I miss them! This doll was almost finished at the end of last year. I haven't been very interested in it, but have continued to fiddle around with details. Finally, this week, I give up. It is finished.

Her body is a papier mache cone that is covered front and back with pieces of hand painted and machine quilted fabric.  The arms are wrapped wire, with a final wrap of the same hand painted fabric. The head and hands are polymer clay. I have four other body forms like this ready to use if inspiration comes my way.

Fabric painting has continued this week with even more carefree, even reckless, action than before.  The background here is mostly wet-into-wet direct painting.  This was done in several painting sessions so that the colors wouldn't become muddied. There is quite a bit of hand stamping with stamps I have made.  Some parts of this seems awkward to me, so I may cut and sew to edit them out if I make use of this piece later on.

I wanted to continue with the Uncommon Quilt challenge this week, too.  Because I had been thinking about fabric painting I dug into my stash of pieces painted more than a year ago for inspiration.  I selected part of a piece that seemed moderately successful, but not great, just to see what some further embellishment might bring.

I am encouraged to go back to several painted pieces from last week to see what some quilting would do for them.

I have a stash of fabrics to paint. Some were purchased for this purpose and many were collected. My plan for 2019, is to jump in and paint every piece! The fact that most of my paints from several years ago had all but dried up caused a short delay.  I began fabric painting 6 -7 years ago using Off-the-Shelf Fabric Painting, by Sue Beevers as my guide, and relying on her basic palette recommendation.

This time I added 6 more color choices from the offering of transparent paints available from ProChemical and Dye. These colors are so yummy!

In the past I mainly painted fat quarters that I planned to cut up and mix with commercial prints to use in fabric collages that I quilted for doll garments. This time I decided to try a more painterly approach. Here you see wet-into-wet painting, printing with found objects, potato printing and more.

I am thinking of quilting these for more detail and texture. They could be wall pieces or pillows, or they could be used for Range Walker garments. 

The larger photo shows the addition of  orange glitter tulle across the center third of the piece. The patch in the middle shows here, too. A very unsuccessful section about 3" wide had to be cut from the left side of this piece.  A small section of that was just what I needed to strengthen the design of larger piece.