Embellished Needle Felted Wall Hangings by Lenall

Lenall Here.

In my last post, I mentioned that I had made some decisions as to where I wanted to take my art in the future. My first post was all about attempting to paint exclusively in abstract--instead of partially paint in abstract. Today I want to talk about going back to what (who?)brought me to the dance. Have you ever heard that phrase or some semblance of it?

My mother was an artist in her own right. I am sure that she never labelled herself an artist though. Her sister, Avolonne, and her daughter, Paige, were the artists in our family. I can remember long being enamoured with their natural talents and their propensity toward productivity using alot of different mediums. I lusted after their abilities and talent. They even entered their work in shows!!! They say "Be careful with what you wish for!" but in this case it has all been for the good! Through these role models and the gentle nudging of my creative mother my sisters and I always had a needlework or sewing project in hand. In 1991, I started painting and gently put aside my needlework.

Last year, during a play date with artist friends, I proclaimed that I was planning to do some needle or fiber art for our show. One friend looked so surprised--- I thought it was funny. Needlework brought me to the creative dance guys! One of the reasons I have been gravitating back to it is that I used to feel so productive when I did projects in front of the TV at night. I've been looking for a new project that would fullfill that need. This past April, I decided to take a 3 day felting retreat sponsored by The Purl District, a yarn shop in Silverton, OR with Fran, Robin, Debi and Tory and learned the basics of felting using artfelt paper and Skacel roving. We had a great time working from the moment we got there till the time we left. The owner of the shop, Celia Stapleton, was great! Our fellow classmates were all kniters and we were "the artists!!!" Since that time ,I have continued to felt and have turned what I learned into my own style.

This past weekend, I finished several felted pieces that are embellished with embrodiery and beading. They will be mounted on backing and hung using bell pull hardware to be sold at our show in December. I hope you like them because I am making many of them! I am also attaching smaller ones to cards! Check them out and tell me what you think!

Check out these links:

My cousin, Paige's fabulous company website and blog: http://northernbrights.com

The Purl District website and blog: http://www.thepurldistrict.com/

Thanks!

Lenall

Fiber Work

I've been focusing on fiber pieces lately and hope to spend at least a few more months with that focus.  I like how working on one piece usually gives me ideas for the next.  Inspired by African fiber work, I have been doing a range of pieces that are centered around couching pieces of fabric.    Here is a bit of a wall hanging I'm working on:

I have also been having a great time making little fabric birds out of vintage, recycled, and found fabrics.  I start with a base of fabric I hand painted to give them a graffiti look and do final scribble lines of machine and hand stitching.

Garden Bracelets

Just a couple of new bracelets I just put together - I cut my charms from copper or silver and trim them with colorful snippets of tin. The bracelet is woven through with seed beads, leaves and flowers and always, with a single moon. Enjoy!

New jewelry pieces...

Retro Sequin 'Splosion bracelet created with vintage sequins and seed beads

Duomo Bracelet created with fire-polish and Delica beads

Tri-Color Daggers Bracelet created with dagger and seed beads

Flower Sequin 'Splosion Bracelet created with metal sequins and seed beads

Button Bracelets created with vintage and diachroic buttons and seed beads

You may have noticed that I tend to gravitate toward bracelets! I did veer off my beaten path recently long enough to learn how to make silver beads to use as components when creating necklaces. It is a fun process using a small bit of sterling silver, tin snips, a hammer, a couple of files, a little flux, a torch and a lot of "elbow grease" to file down and polish the little critters. Here is a photo of my first attempt at creating a sterling silver lentil bead...

I am looking forward to learning more about metal smithing, and sharing my experiences with you here via photos of my work!

Lynn

More New Abstract pieces...by Lenall

"A World We Knew"

"Life Change"

"Abstract Rose"

"Branches Through Time"

All of these pieces are pours using mixed media.

Thanks!

Lenall

More New Abstract pieces... by Lenall

"Beach" I did several renditions of this and sold one at "Fusion" in August in Federal Way, WA

"A Safer Place" This one is one the 2009 "Open Doors" Postcard!

"Out of the Box" got into a Fall Sept Juried Show at OSA

Thanks!

Lenall

I'm finially not getting ready to get ready! by Lenall

"Tipsy Vase" actually won a first place award in the Village Gallery of Arts Spring juried show.

I am getting ready!

The past 6 months have been very productive for me. I've had a lot of time to think about what I want to do in the future with my art and I've actually made some steps in the directions I'd like to go!

What do I want to do????

Number one--I decided to move toward abstract art totally. At an April WSO critique session, a renowned Portland Watercolorist, Gene Gill, suggested I stop wasting time and go totally abstract. I decided to take him up on that suggestion and called Ruth Armitage who suggested I call Pat San Soucie. The rest is history. Pat is probably the most famous WSO (Watercolor Society of Oregon) member. She enters shows , gets juried in and wins awards all over the country. On top of that she is a super nice woman. The technique that she taught was watermedia using pours. She pours paint through tissue papers. As it dries it leaves lines where the paper was crumpled. My artist friend, Sandy Kay and I took almost weekly from mid April through mid August. I totally enjoy the freedom this new technique affords me and actually created many great pieces! I'll post a few tonight.

"Tipsy Vase" actually won a first place award in the Village Gallery of Arts Spring juried show.

Stay tuned for what else I want to do.

Thanks!

Lenall

Latest Necklace

I finished this necklace today. It's made with unakite and rhodonite stones, wrapped with chain and held together with square crystals. It was a fun challenge to try to figure out how to tie all the stones together. I started the necklace with different bead stitches, about four times, before my husband suggested chain. He's very smart. :) There are two more rhodonite donuts, that you can't see, on the back side of the necklace close to the clasp. The dark green and light pink of the unakite are highlighted by the darker pink of the rhodonite. It drapes nicely from the neck down to three crystal dangles.

Thank you, Paula, for getting this blog up for us. It looks great! Come on, Ladies, let's see your work!


Z'anne

More pictures of PAC show December 2007

More pictures of last years show. These pictures were taken by Jill Lawrence.

Pictures of PAC show December 2007

These pictures were taken by Leigh of various booths of artists and their work

More pictures of the work party

Here are more pictures of the work party where all the doors where painted. Pictures were taken by Jill Lawrence.

These doors and the artist framed inside were part of a fun weekend camping out, painting, antiquing, and crackling 50 plus doors we (Tory) scrounged, oh I mean recycled, from all over the Metro area. . . . The grand design was inspired by Tory, artist extraordinaire!

See how they look, transformed into art, at the December sale.

Welcome to Show-and-Tell Time

Greetings and welcome to our blog!  Portland Art Collective is a group of 25 women artists who have been meeting for almost five years now.  We work in diverse mediums from paint to collage, beads to glass, fiber to metal, often using found or recycled materials.  The highlight of our monthly meetings is always an extensive show-and-tell session.  We hope our blog will allow you to share in our enthusiasm as you see samples of some of our work.

At this point most of us are working on items for our 2008 "Open Doors" show in December.  Last year was the first year we put on such a large show.  We worked all year to put it together, starting with gathering and painting 50 old doors to use as display panels for our work.  We each decorated our areas in neutral tones to unify the show:

And then filled the room with our artwork:

We hope you will enjoy our blog and visit frequently, and if you are in the Portland area in December, stop by the show and say HI.