Art Quilt – Guila's Art & Other Assorted Joys

Sadly, Vincent Was Not Helped By His Stay at Arles

March 20, 2023April 8, 2023 Guila Greer

In 1890, Vincent Van Gogh, eager for the sunshine, moved to Arles, in the south of France. His aim was to develop his painting skills further and, at the same time, he strove to fend off the demons that plagued his short life.

Vincent Van Gogh’s stay in Arles was a prolific period and he painted many of his best known and admired paintings during this time.

Van Gogh’s yellow bedroom was the subject of 3 of his paintings. But this art quilt is the only rendition that depicts those demons. It becomes more clear why Vincent left Arles in 1899 and obvious why his state of mind was more fragile than ever.

P.S. This quilt and statement is not intended to make light of Vincent’s dire situation. It seeks to give some shape to his very real health problems – his demons were real.

17 inches W by 14 inches H

available for purchase

Art Quilt, Fiber Art

Springtime in Mariupol

March 20, 2023September 12, 2023 Guila Greer

In the Spring of 2022, I was fooling around with some of my fabric – cutting shapes, cutting strips and arranging them into more shapes. The resulting images reminded me of the invasion of Ukraine that was dominating the news. I considered that they (the images/shapes) had been informed by what I had been hearing and seeing – and just went with it.

Springtime in Mariupol

23″ W by 26″ H

available for purchase

Art, Art Quilt, Dharma Trading, Fabric Dyeing, Fiber Art, Hand Dyed Fabric, Indispensable Tools, Mixed Media, Pro Chemical & Dye, works in process

I Love What I Do!!!

March 14, 2019 Guila Greer

Often. to get the look that I’m after for an art piece, I have to dye my own fabric. Now, that’s not something that I see an a hardship – although it is a lot of work: messy work. Especially now that I have my own studio with a SINK!! And there was a reason I wanted to leave the concrete floors “as-is” during the garage conversion.

So last night I tackled the job at hand and set about to dye several lengths of fabric for a couple of upcoming quilts. The fabrics were all immersed in their respective color baths and I left them to cure overnight. This morning, after oohing and aahing at the lineup of color on my worktable, I took the fabric/dyebath containers to the sink one by one to do the rinsing.

So far I’ve discovered that when rinsing “Deep Space” (Dharmatrading), I rinsed out Purple; when rinsing “Emerald Green” (from Pro Chemical & Dye), I rinsed out Turquoise, and while I swished around the “Gunmetal Gray” (Dharmatrading), RED water drained away!

Well, I do realize that a lot of these dyes are mixtures – but I’m always delighted when I see the elements right in front of my eyes.

I’m reminded of being 10 years old and playing with my chemistry set. This was my favorite toy as a kid. Mostly I loved mixing the chemicals to see what color I could get.

I LOVE what I do!

Art, Art Quilt, Fiber Art, Mixed Media

Cloth Journey

September 4, 2017 Guila Greer

Artists from the Surface Art Association are featured in the Art Exhibit currently at the Hillcrest Center for the Arts through September 25, 2017.

The Center is at 403 West Hillcrest Drive, Thousand Oaks, California. Cloth Journey can be found in the Galleria.

Call 805-381-2747 for additional information including hours. ConejoArts.org

I am so excited to have 12 pieces hanging in this show – all available for purchase.

Hospitalitea_Serenitea — Hospitali-TEA (above) Sereni-TEA (below)

First Sip Of The Day — First Sip of the Day

Leaves I and II — Leaf Study I (above) and Leaf Study II (below)

Art, Art Quilt, Fiber Art, Mixed Media

When the Rains Came Back to California

January 6, 2017 Guila Greer

Note: For the past year I have been part of the 2016 Journal Project. In alternate months we have been given a theme and made a 12 inch by 12 inch quilt that was inspired by the theme.

Today was “REVEAL” day for the first quilt of 2017. This month’s theme is Fantasy. Here is my take….

Almost every year for the past 5 decades we have driven up the Pacific Coast Highway en route to a favorite vacation spot in Marin County.

What we quickly realized is that the drive is a vacation in itself; an opportunity to unwind, kick back and to enjoy all the natural beauty that this state is famous for.

Rolling green hills to the east as we drive up the coast…and the boisterous Pacific in all its magnificence to the west.

In recent years, that beauty has been hampered by lack of rain. This drought, of course, has had serious consequences for the state – not the least is the agricultural fallout. Anyone and everyone who loves to garden or has a lawn to care for has been affected severely with restrictions and penalties.

For that matter, anyone who loves to shower or to brush their teeth has had disruptions of their morning routines. (not to worry – we still shower – it’s just shorter. And the most disciplined take pains to recycle the shower water).

So here is my fantasy of the California hills, after the rains come back and wash away the memories of drought.

Art, Art Quilt, Fiber Art, Hand Dyed Fabric, Quilts

The Value of Value

May 18, 2016May 18, 2016 Guila Greer

Late last year I was VERY fortunate to notice that an online class was scheduled to begin in January that seemed perfect and timely for my resolution to improve my work in 2016.

One of my most admired art quilters is teaching it (Elizabeth Barton) and the Class Title: A Master Class in Design for Art Quilters – speaks directly to my own need to ‘polish’ my design skills and to explore alternatives.

We are delving into a different design concept each month and in January, Elizabeth had us take a fresh look at our use of value. After presenting a couple of possible designs to work with I settled on the following sketch – a sketch that I based on a photograph that I took after a snowfall in Minnehaha Park, Minneapolis.

My next step was to gather fabric for possible use in this quilt. The instruction was to use a range of at least 5 values of the same color – preferably a color that included an intense dark value such as black or brown or even navy blue. I selected black, various grays and white. I also wanted there to be added interest with texture. Linen helped with that as did some thread work added later.

Some of the fabrics that I made available for this quilt are shown above. I used dark to light gray cotton threads for stitching plus one variegated thread to thread paint a tree trunk and add texture. I included several of my hand dyed fabrics to the mix.

I ‘cleaned up’ my sketch, enlarged it to actual size, printed it out and created my templates.

In choosing my values for color placement I had to pay attention to how the color value would affect perception of depth and distance. I also wanted to maintain the lonely, slightly haunted mood of the original photo. AND to keep the overall image simple and uncomplicated.

My teacher’s critique immediately pointed out my wobbly bench and I plan to correct that. I also plan to add more fine branches to the background and am going to include some hand stitched branches to the mix.

I think this has turned out to be a great example of how color both interprets and projects mood so vividly! I am tempted to do this same scene, at some point, outfitted in its mid summer finery.

Art, Art Quilt, bracelets, Fiber Art, Prayer Flags (mini tute), Tutorials

Prayer Flags Flying High (and mini tutorial)

July 31, 2015July 31, 2015 Guila Greer

I thought for sure that I had posted about making prayer flags but not so! Prayer flags have a long tradition and they can be seen in many different configurations. There is no right or wrong way. There is a blog devoted to Prayer Flags at : ThePrayerFlagProject.blogspot.com There you will find tutorials and many examples of how various artists have interpreted and created their own Prayer Flags. (mine are posted in March this year 2015)

I had thought about making and hanging some flags for well over a year and was waiting to be inspired it seems 🙂 A few months ago I was walking down the aisle of a local craft shop and found a package of burlap banner shaped pieces in the clearance section. The first thing that I thought of was that they would be perfect for Prayer Flags. And if I messed up, then the investment was minimal.

There were four of these burlap shapes in front of me looking like this:

each measured 5 1/2 ” by 7 1/2 “

The first thing that I did before anything else was to stay stitch inside all the edges of all the flags to minimize fraying. Burlap frays. I didn’t mind that, It enhanced the rustic look that I was trying to achieve. But I did want to contain the amount. I used black thread and a zig zag stitch and stitched each flag on every side about 1/4 inch in from the edge.

I figured there was no hiding of the stay stitching so I incorporated it into the overall design

You are goiing to need to attach a narrow muslin sleeve to the top. Do that now by machine UNLESS you are going to use that top space for your hand stitching later. In which case you will attach the sleeve as the last step with each flag.

Gather your fabrics and threads and design your flags. I used muslin for the inspirational words, and a variety of fabrics: cheesecloth, bits of organza, felt, burlap. Use whatever your design calls for!

I also added a few beads, some ribbon and buttons and hand stitched with embroidery cotton of various sizes.

The final step was to string the four finished flags together by running a length of hemp through the sleeves.

Details of the Four Flags Below

Art, Art Quilt, Fiber Art, Mixed Media, Quilts

Mixed Media Art Cards

November 29, 2014 Guila Greer

Mixed Media Holiday Card – Abstract Dreidl

Click for larger image

These are all available now at http://honeyquilts.etsy.com

Art, Art Quilt, Fiber Art, Grandchildren, Quilts

Beach Buddies – featured on the Superior Threads Blog

August 26, 2014 Guila Greer

I was so excited to see that Superior Threads has featured my art quilt “Beach Buddies” on their blog.

http://www.superiorthreads.com/blog/2014/8/superior-spotlight-guila-g/

Years ago I took a photo of my husband and oldest granddaughter walking on the beach. I always loved that photo and knew that someday I would do something special with it. After learning more about making pictorial quilts, including a workshop with Wendy Butler Berns, I made this quilt.

I enjoyed the process of making it immensely – and loved quilting it with silk thread. I used Superior’s Kimono #100, a very fine thread.

detail 1 I did the quilting with #100 Kimono Silk — Detail 1

detail 2 The little girl is my oldest granddaughte — Detail 4

And this is the photo that I took when my granddaughter was only 2 years old. She is now a senior in high school !

This is the photo of John and Marley that I based — Original Photo

Art, Art Quilt, Fiber Art, Mixed Media, Quilts, works in process

Work (still) in Progress

May 2, 2014 Guila Greer

There are lots of reasons we don’t finish our projects right away. And one of them is that we’re not quite sure how we WANT to complete the piece.

So this has been hanging around for awhile now on my design wall.

This started as a plain piece of Lutradur. I took a photo of a tree on my street and worked with it using Photoshop Elements. I took out everything that I didn’t want in my finished piece including all the leaves on the tree. This step also included removing all the color.

In the meantime I painted the Lutradur with acrylic paints. I used some from Golden paint and some Lumiere in various coppery hues.

Then the moment of truth as I printed my tree onto the Lutradur.

Then lots of fun to thread paint the tree itself. I used a variegated 40 weight cotton from King Tut – (In the meantime I had layered the piece with cotton batting.

and that’s when I stopped.

The biggest question in my mind is whether or not to add quilting.

So now it’s time to finish and I’ve given myself 2 weeks to do that. I hope by posting the process to date I’ll have more accountability to do that – to keep it as a priority.

What’s your opinion on adding more quilting to the piece?