Melanie Testa's Blog, page 31

Creating a sense of movement.

I have been cross posting on the Quilting Arts Community web site for the last 9 months, time that has seen the release of my book, my efforts to promote it, my move back to the East Coast, and the settling back into my creative center after having written a book. These are and were major pieces in the fabric of my life.

It is time for me to make melanietesta.com and this blog my home again. I would like to spruce this ol' blog up, give it another face lift, as it were, and I would like to...

The Winner is....

Using the Random Number Generator, commenter #21 won...

That means Judy Haas WON!!!

Congrats Judy, see you soon! Thank you all for visiting my site and I do hope you will join in on one of my upcoming classes, Freezer Paper, Paint, Oh my! or Mark Making and Hand Dyed Embroidery Floss. I have been having great fun creating the classes and would love to see you there.

mend, random, intuit.

I do not make resolutions in a yearly manner. I don't feel compelled to make a particular change on a particular day, but this year I have been thinking about words for creative exploration.

After some thought I have come up with: mend, random, intuit.

mend: I am in love with stitches that are not intentional. Or perhaps I should describe it as stitches that are purposeful without the willful intent of beauty or symmetry.

random: disparate imagery cobbled and pulled from different sources...

Lacey!

I have been making cloth and enjoying every minute of it! In a moment of, 'What if?' I created a freezer paper resist that reminds me of doilies and lace. I printed it on a green ground, where if you look closely you'll see rodeo arches, doors, dog houses and church steeples. It was a piece of cloth I'd dye printed years ago and slowly whittled away.

The broad open areas are calling to me. They make me want to paint a toile like scene in them, the scene would need to be irreverent like the...

Awesome Give Away!

I am offering not just one but two classes through Joggles.com and would love it if you were to sign up now!

BUT!

Barbara at Joggles.com and I have come up with a promotional idea I think you will LOVE. We are offering you the chance to win one free spot in my Mark Making class.

The class will teach you to dye threads and make marks on cloth using that thread. We will make a three page sampler book similar to the video you will see below (If the embedded video does not work for you, follow

The Quiet Celebrate.

This week Brooklyn received about a foot of snow. David had the day off and we watched movies, drank hot cocoa and waited for the snow to really hit. It was night time when the snow settled in for the long haul. So we bundled up and and went outside to experience the snow falling among the brownstones. I love the quiet that snow lends to the environment, it is a hush of expectancy like no other.

We walked to the park and I hopped on a swing. I love swings and these are in high demand during r...

the Slowness of Being.

Being creative and fostering growth within that realm is a process of engaging with the world around you as well as that of other artists. Taking what you learn from these places and making it your own is the imperative of each of us as artists.

A few years ago, a few of my friends took a class by Dorothy Caldwell. The samples they brought home were stunning and got me thinking about Kantha cloth and making marks on cloth using stitch. This stewed and brewed within me for, as I said, a...

Small Wonder

Last week I taught a class locally and really enjoyed it. I hit all the points I had hoped to make, I didn't plan too much (which is normal for me), and I didn't plan too little. It was just right, and I believe my class thought so too. They were ten women strong and they were open to possibilities. They have their own small offshoot of a larger national guild and they practice many forms of fiber art from weaving and knitting to quilting.

Here you see myself, the exuberant Glinda, Helene...

Slow Sewing

I am preparing for a class I will teach later this week. In this instance I was asked to do my Small Works, Big Impact class with a leaning toward painted imagery (rather than dye) and hand sewing. I love dye for its vibrancy, but paint is pretty awesome too. In this sample I used Stewart Gill paints, which are really creamy and nice. Just the organza layer is painted.

But what I am really interested in is the stitch work.

The title of this post is inspired by Jude over at Spirit Cloth, whose w...

Getting to know you.

I love color and color mixing. I just bought a new palette of gouache and have been recreating the tools and methods with which I have been working. Pencil cases for figure drawing sessions, a smaller pencil case for everyday use, a new palette of paint. I am no longer going to use my much loved and well used Pelikan paint set (it is time to use grown up paints and tools and I am ready.

Moving into a new manner of approach can be daunting. I don't know some of these paints or pigments. My 'go ...