Spontaneous!

Everyone says that you need at least two days to take it all in at Quilt Festival in Houston. I'd say that's about right. Maybe tomorrow I'll give you a condensed blow-by-blow of how I spent my time...

...but today, let's talk about the three hours I spent on Sunday morning with Lisa Engelbrecht -- and other students!


The class was called "Spontaneous Mixed Media Collage." (I think.) I am loving my hand-lettered inspirational folder of hand-outs.

You can see some of Lisa's work here. And you may remember her quilt on the cover on Quilting Arts Winter 2004. I love her style.

We spent the morning trying various washes and other paint techniques on canvas and muslin. Here are some of Lisa's samples.


I probably did about 20 smallish pieces. It was big fun. Lisa had tons of materials for our use. I have been thinking of making a mixed media piece for our kitchen. Something about gathing around the table as a family. "Breaking bread..." that kind of thing. I had several scraps of the fabric that I am planning to use for kitchen curtains. You know, matchy matchy.

At the end of the class, Lisa challenged us to make a small composition using our painted pieces. She encouraged us to cut up what we might have considered "precious." Or look at the pieces that we might have thought were failures and find small bits of success to cut out.

Here's what I came up with.

It's a start. There isn't any of my curtain fabric here... but I'll add some when I actually put the piece together. (Will that be before or after I actually make the curtains? Hmmmm?)

I also did some red and green experiments for a Christmas ATC swap that I signed up for. (In fact... I finished 12 Christmas ATCs today! I was so inspired and I'm thrilled with how they look. Tune back in December for pictures.)

Lisa was so enthusiastic, generous and inspirational. She had a wonderful sense of awe about all of us being together (early on a Sunday morning 8 a.m.!) and really encouraged us to embrace the creative spirit.