Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Sailing Fabric Design Entry

Finally, I have gotten away from the chickens in my design but not to worry, there are still fowl.  This time rubber duckies (OK, that counts as fowl, right?) and paper boats sail across the waves. 
The entry rules for the contest stated that we could only use five specific colors in our design.  I experimented with half-tones in this piece to give more dimension to the water.  You will see this in the design as little dots of color that are designed to blend with the background color.  This was a fun theme and the entries this week are really incredible.  Please consider voting in the Spoonflower Fabric of the Week contest.
Anyone inspired to make a sailing quilt?

Friday, April 26, 2013

Dakar Women's Group Art Show

This spring I had the honor of helping put on the Dakar Women's Group Art Show.  We spent a few months visiting artists and art shows and galleries and pulled together seventy four local artists to highlight in our show.  Some of our artists are well established and some are really just starting their careers. The purpose of the show is to support Senegalese artists and raise money for charites at the same time.  We sold around 25,000,000 CFA ($50, 000) of artwork, eighty percent of the price stays with the artists and twenty percent will go to local charities.
 
A painting by one of my favorite artists, Manel
Three small paintings, Manel.

 
The show has a tradition of asking the artists to donate a small canvas to the Squares Project.  This year's theme was Visage (face in French.)  One hundred percent of the proceeds from Squares Project sales go to charity.  The squares also create an affordable way for people to buy art from their favorite artists.

We were fortunate to find space at the IFAN, the African Museum of Arts in Dakar Senegal.  Here are some pictures showing the space. There were so many wonder pieces of art.  I have included some of my favorites below.




This group of works by Toni Okujeni, Yelli Ndoye Manel and Mamadou Saadio Diallo.

 These pieces are by Setou, Fode Camara, Amary Diop, Ismaila Manga and Arlette Diop. 

  The artists of this row are Issa Diop, Ousmane Sow, Sandiry Niang and Aime Clement Diompy.
 
 Works in this row are by Moustapha Badiane, Nathalie Chauvin and Sebastian Bouchard.


This amazing piece by Amary Diop is metal sheets sewn together with wire.
Should any of this artwork pique your interest, I have contact information for all of the artists that were in the show.



Monday, April 22, 2013

Pop Art Chickens

I have entered this week's Spoonflower contest, Pop Art Chickens.  Spoonflower just happened to run this at a time when I am already been exploring chickens.  What fun for me!
These roosters are wandering around New York City with Pop Art style.  Please consider voting for my pattern. 




Tuesday, April 16, 2013

First Fabric Sales and the Garden Path is Growing

I am so excited to share my first two sales from my Garden Path Collection on Spoonflower.  Both sales were of the Rose Leaves Ditsy pattern in the two different colorways shown above. Hopefully, the purchasers will share pictures of their projects with me so I can share them with you.
I just got in the fabric swatches from my entry to the Baby Animals contest on Spoonflower as well.  These prints are now for sale and are part of Garden Path Collection.  And this spring, that's how the garden grows. 



 

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Mixed Media Senegal Style

This is my first work inspired by Suzi Blu's mixed media style and a trip to Goree Island.  I was introduced to the style in a swap-bot swap.  This picture is a mixture of paint, oil pastels, color pencil, ink, collaged paper and sequins on watercolor paper. 

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Baby Animals Spoonflower Contest

Here is my latest entry for a Spoonflower contest.  The contest theme is baby animals and so I continued exploration of the Onagadori chickens I began with the Garden Path collection with these brightly colored spring chicks.  Please consider voting for me this week in the Baby Animals contest.