CQA holds annual "Play Day," prepares for StashFest

A "free-form" marbled design, right after being pulled off the "gel" medium

A large turnout of enthusiastic CQA members gathered January 10 in the workroom of the Bellevue Art Museum, eager to learn some new surface-design techniques as well as to play with favorite art materials. All the activities were aimed at producing unique fabrics for "The CQA Collection," which will be unveiled at the StashFest 2015 fundraiser, set for April 18 in La  Conner, WA.  

Attendees were clad in old clothes and aprons, ready to "get messy" with paints, crayons and more, in instructional sessions led by  volunteer "stationmasters": Colleen Wise (silk screening), Marilynn Dondero-Rich (die-cutting), Carla Stehr (water-soluble crayons, pencils, color sticks, rubbing blocks), and Helen Johnston (layered marbling using fluid acrylics, masks and traditional marbling tools). Roberta Andresen was our liaison with BAM and also brought a varied collection of stamping materials. Carla DiPietro, fundraising chair for CQA, masterminded all the details of this fun--and important--meeting.

Colleen Wise (at rear) led the silk-screen station

Popular silk screen designs ranged from textures (above) to small patterns (below).

Leaves are always a favorite silk-screen design (above) as are textures (below). The latter lend themselves to further screening, stamping or other surface design,

Carla Stehr, left, led the station using water-soluble crayons, pencils and "color blocks" as well as the use of rubbing plates.

 

What looks like pastels are actually water-soluble color blocks.

 

Using water-soluble color sticks on wet fabric with  rubbing blocks beneath creates interesting patterns.

 

Carla Stehr's "notebook" showed the many different appearances of the same color that can be achieved with the different water-soluble products and how they are handled.

Rubbing over embossed plates with various water-soluble media on a piece of wet, previously dyed fabric produces some interesting effects.

 

Marilynn Dondero-Rich (right) with her "assistant" Sally Strawn sets up the die-cutting station.

Die-cutting flowers out of a fusible-backed piece of fabric (above) resulted in a "negative space" piece of fabric (below) that was later used as a mask in a silk-screen project!

 

Finished die-cut flowers, packaged for sale at StashFest.

 

Helen Johnston taught at the marbling station--a technique new at the Play Day this year.

Yellow paint is applied, drop by drop, to create the free-form marbled piece at the top of this post.

The use of this plastic mask (above) confines the paint on top of the gel to produce a more structured piece (below). Once removed from the gel, all the marbled pieces were placed on layers of newsprint to soak up what amounted to a fairly large quantity of liquid.

This piece started with the use of the yellow "holes" mask...and then went off on its own!

(Above and below) Some very unusual patterns were achieved at the marbling station!

Good, solid pressure is needed to get a clean impression of the large circular stamp.

Some patient stamping of simple letter forms (above) produces an interesting piece of fabric (below)!

Many pieces of unusual materials were completed during the session, with others due to be further treated and then returned at the next meeting, as Carla DiPietro builds up the pieces of "The CQA Collection." The play-day was the group's third such annual workshop, and the April 18 StashFest marks CQA's third appearance at that fundraising event. StashFest sales of fabrics created and/or donated by CQA members  will benefit both CQA and the La Conner Quilt & Textile Museum. (Preliminary information about StashFest may be found at http://members.lovelaconner.com/events/details/stashfest-2015-2253)

(From left) Fundraising Chair Carla DiPietro, former president Mary Lewis, and member Cheryl Quesnell admire finished pieces as they begin to stack up on the drying rack.

Among the completed, labeled and packaged pieces for "The CQA Collection" to be sold at the April 18 StashFest is this delightful, coordinated set of  silk-screened "rooster"prints.