tashina knight

The Illustration Friday topic, Digital, didn’t bring much to mind today so I thought I’d do some simple eye candy. What could be more digital than simple 0’s and 1’s? As usual, click for a larger image.

Lots been goin’ on with me the past few weeks, but unfortunately I can’t write about it here yet. Hopefully soon. Suffice to say I’ve got a lot on my plate and haven’t had much art time.

I went to Berkeley a few days ago for my birthday and visited the studio of a great mosaicist, Lauren True. I was very excited to see the studio of a working mosaic artist since I really want to start doing mosaics when I get a little more space. I have a lot of dichroic glass sitting around, sheets and sheets of it, and my fingers are itching to  cut it into little pieces.

Lauren is making a mosaic mural (look under "free wood") across the street from the studio and it was instructional to be able to see it in progress.She fuses glass pieces into eyes that she uses liberally in her art, plus she uses lots of ceramic tile. I thought I lot of this mosaic would be pre-cut circles, but each was hand nipped into a circle - time-consuming! I wasn’t sure why it was called free wood until I saw it in person and the bottom postion of the mural was blocked by a large amount of firewood, free for the taking!

I also stopped by The Art Store - a Dick Blick store and couldn’t resist some canvases on sale and a few pastel pencils to try out on top of my acrylic paintings. My long-suffering husband  accompanied me on my wanderings due to the promise to stop by a chess club (he’s REALLY good at chess) after the art stores. Too bad for him that what was listed as an open chessnight for non-members turned out to be for age 12 and under! Poor guy.

I’ve got my eye on The Decorated Journal by Gwen Diehn. It should be out any day and as soon as I see it, it’s mine!

I lived for years and years in apartments with white walls. When I bought my first house I went out and bought gallons and gallons of paint in apple greens, buttery yellows, and ocean-y blues. Every room was a different color and even though it was a tract house, when you came through the front door the house came to life with a sea of bright pastels.  Since then, I’ve developed a real love of these colors. Not as washed out and nursery-like as light pastels and not as scary for some as bright reds and blues on the wall, these colors can make excellent "entry-level" colors for people looking to brighten up their rooms.

This photo is from one of the model houses we visited in our home search. The bright pastel pink and blue just pop against the white. If they had also used a white wall, the cabinet would just fade into it, but the use of the golden pastel gives the whole wall just the right balance.

The beads at the top are some that I commissioned from Corina a couple of years ago. Just like mint in aromatherapy wakes me up, bright pastel colors like these just make me happy - and unashamedly so.

Like Mabelle who one day decided that even if "cute" wasn’t in, she still loved it, and made it her style, these bright whimsical colors are often my style. I think many of us need to learn to let go of the idea that what we do must be approved of by the majority of the populace. If neutrals are in, we make items in neutral colors. While it’s true that’s it’s useful to know the current fashionable colors in order to make sales to large markets, it’s often happily not neccesary in smaller craft markets. So, if something makes you happy and it doesn’t hurt anyone else, I say embrace it and make it you. 

Here’s is a Sticks jewelry box with a whole rainbow of bright pastels.

Who else uses bright pastels?

Key West, Florida
artist Ardith Goodwin
Julie Bomberger
Art Propensity

And the inspiration for this post was Melody Johnson who just made what
she calls a "sweet sugary little quilt" which is just fabulous- as is
her blog, go check it out!. (See more details about this quilt here)

Spring is finally just around the corner and I’m definitely ready for the world to be full of bright colorful flowers again!

Highlights of the March COLOR  Issue of House and Garden:

Pantone Tableware from Fishes Eddy.
The "lollypop building" in Montreal.
Colorware will make your iPod or Powerbook any color you want or buy a colorful PC.
Take a bath in any color you like with Kohler’s Sok Chromotherapy tub.
The Erin Adams line of mosaic tile at Ann Sacks.

As I mentioned last post, I’ve been buying some new fiber related art supplies lately since I seem to be headed in that direction artistically. I’m always looking for ways to express myself in every color of the rainbow and, to that end, I’ve compiled a little resource of sites that I visit for hand dyed items.

First- the photo above comes from Lunn Fabrics Studio.  It is run by Debra Lunn (who makes some very colorful quilts!) and her sculptor husband.  They carry quilting-weight cotton fabric in every color. For other hand-dyed cottons, try Artfabrik, Alaska Dyeworks (who are a pleasure to talk to), Fabrics To Dye For or Cherrywood Fabrics who make really richly colored cottons that look like suede.

If you want to make stuffed animals or monsters out of wool felt, you can either go with primitive folk-art colors (often used in making wool rugs) from Moondance Color Company or Colonial Crafts or try rich plant-dyed felt from A Child’s Dream (this is where I bought the felt for my Month of Softies cat.)  Ever heard of silk felting? You can try it with kits and hand-dyed silk tops from Treenway Silks - the silk is from an Australian company so if that’s more convenient you can get your silk fibers from Treetops Colours. Look at their wonderful colors!

If you felt knitted items, Over the Rainbow Yarns on eBay dyes wool yarns in gorgeous colors - she often mentions in her descriptions whether the yarn felts well.

Some of my favorite hand-dyed yarns come from Great Adirondack Yarn Company. One of the most fun of their yarns, Fluff, is available from The Yarn Company or Custom Yarns. This makes great doll hair too.  Some other beautiful hand-dyed yarns are available from Mountain Colors, Joslyn’s Fiber Farm, and Cherry Tree Hill Yarns.  You can also learn more about these companies in the fabulous Handpaint Country book by Cheryl Potter and Alexis Xenakis.

For hand-dyed mohair, you can either dye your own or order from England. Barbara-Ann Bears carries some pretty pastel mixed colors and V & N Bear Supplies carries a range of sherbet colors.  Maybe someone makes it in the U.S.? If so, let me know and I’ll add it here.

If you want to get started on making your own hand-dyed items, there’s no better place than Dharma Trading. They have it all. 

Furniture doesn’t get much more colorful than Sticks!

At left is one of the two pieces I own by Sarah Grant-Hutchison and her team.  I was left a small amount of money by my maternal grandmother who died a few years ago at 99 and 11 months of age. [She was quite a character - in her later years she starting hearing voices singing in her head. The problem was she didn’t like the songs they were singing.  Over time, although she couldn’t make the voices go away, she did manage to make them sing the songs she liked best.] The understanding was that I would use the money to buy something to remember her by. So I bought one of Sticks pieces called a Hallelujah Lady. She is 8 1/2′ tall and comes apart at the waist for easier transport. I named her Ethel after my grandmother.

Goodgoods gallery has a good online show of Sticks pieces. 

An article from 2000 in Paint Decor magazine tells how the pieces are made.  They ship in milled wood and also search for birch and poplar driftwood in the Iowa countryside along riverbanks.  The pieces are built at the 28,000 sq ft factory and then put in the Drawing Queue.  Sarah and her assistant draw all the designs and then the pieces are passed along to the painting team.  Sarah does a lot of custom pieces and installations.

You can also order pieces with custom color palettes. Here is the Caribbean palette:

Also be sure to check out their latest… snowmen and santas.

It’s a new year and time to find out what the experts say about the colors of 2005:

Pantone says that home furnishings will reflect self-expression. They offer 8 possible palettes for the new year, including my favorite, Radiance, with some really beautiful colors in the red-blue range.

If you make jewelry or other wearables, you might want to make some items to match the colors people will be wearing. The Spring-Summer palette includes Pool Tones and Washed Silk. For Fall, we see jewel tones and "moody" colors. There are even a few ideas for what we’ll see in 2006. And don’t forget to look at the Pantone predictions too.

The Color Marketing Group (which does not have a very colorful site!)  gives their predictions on everything from consumer goods to transportation. They also already have up their list for 2006.

Forty Media tells you what are the hot web design colors this year. Brown is in, red is out and here’s the Web-smart palette so that everyone can see the same colors you are seeing.

Want the latest colors available while you work in Illustrator or Photoshop? The Design Weblog has just what you need.

Happy New Year and wishing you all the most creative and colorful year ever.

Jane Sassaman is known for her quilting but in the past few years she has designed some dazzling fabrics for FreeSpirit as well. Her new collection, Butterfly Garden, continues her lifelong theme of flora and fauna. Her inspirations include William Morris and Kaffe Fassett.  Jane is not afraid to make unusual color choices. Notice in the first fabric photo that the background is a cherry ice cream pink.  She breaks up the background with dots of aqua blue, a color used in the butterfly’s bodies as well as the center of some flowers, tying the whole composition together visually.

Jane studies flowers in nature, then simplifies and stylizes and arranges the resulting composition. She keeps in mind always the medium she is designing for whether it be fabric, quilt, or rug. As she says in her book The Quilted Garden, "As designers begin working out ideas on paper, they must be mindful of the ultimate medium they are designing for. Each medium has its own particular beauty as well as its limitations, whether it is wood, metal, glass, or fiber. Designers should have respect for the materials and the craftsmanship it requires. They should take advantage of the medium’s unique characteristics and illuminate them."

I had an a-ha moment this week. I’d been looking at various books in my collection, trying to decide which direction to take my art in. What do I want to do next? What to call myself? Quilter? Painter? Doll maker? I’ve been away from doing artwork - except for a painting here and there- for a number of years. During that time I’ve kept up with the craft world by reading books and magazines. There are so many things I’d like to do, so many types of art out there and there is no single one that draws me to it to the exclusion of others. 

While looking at Susan Sargent’s new book The Comfort of Color this week, I realized that what I really am is a colorist. I am interested in quilting- but mostly because of all the luscious colorful fabrics. I am interested in interior design, fabric design, enameling, etc….but what I’m really interested in is how those media allow me to combine colors. Mixing color when lampworking glass is so different from choosing colors when piecing quilts, but I find each medium fascinating.

In this blog, I’ll share some of my own work as it progresses, but my main intention is to open a window into the art and craft world through color. I hope to show quilters some wonderful interior designers, inspire jewelers with color combinations used in knitting, and discover for myself what colorful direction my art will take next.

Welcome.