Charity Quilt Tops

I was able to make two charity quilt tops from the colorful squares and strips I cut and sewed recently.

I will try to quilt them the next time we go to the mountains, where my long arm machine is located.  But since it is in an unheated basement, they might not get done for awhile.  We are going back to Florida February 8 for my husband's last round of radiation, so they may have to wait until we get back in March.

Just for fun I have been doing some painting on some heavy brown craft paper that was lying around the studio.  I started out just painting some circles and applying color with acrylics.   The first layers looked pretty awful.

Here is how they look now, with lots more paint, ink, watercolor spray, oil pastels, and gesso.  Just playing!

Since these are just on a brown paper substrate, I'm not sure how many more times I can get them wet.  These are sort of a preliminary to painting in acrylics on mounted canvas.  They may end up 
adhered to a journal page before I mess around with them any more!

Last weekend we visited my brother-in-law and his wife in Maggie Valley, NC, outside of Asheville.  They live in a log cabin high on a hill.  There were lots of photo ops of the beautiful countryside, especially when we woke up to snow on Sunday morning!

We are expecting some snow and maybe some ice tomorrow here in Raleigh.  They have already closed schools before the first flake has fallen.  It will be interesting to see how much we get here.  Our mountain home in northwestern North Carolina may get a couple of feet!  We have a web cam on the house, so we can experience the deep snow from a distance.

Color Wheel Flower Collage

Finished another project!  I call it Color Wheel Flower.

Color Wheel Flower by Jeanne Turner McBrayer, 2014

It began as a watercolor study of the colors in my palette.

My sister thought the colors were so cheerful that she downloaded the photo from my blog and made it the background on her iPhone.  I thought it could use some improvement.  I cut the sections into petals and painted more papers to get a range of colors.  Then I glued them onto a gallery-wrapped canvas that I had previously covered with tissue paper and a color chart from a catalog.

The last steps were to glue on some bits of colored glass, and spray with clear acrylic finish.  Now the colors really sparkle!

Mixed Media Canvases Continued

Here are a few more mixed media works in progress.

This is the background that I created at the Anything Art Meeting on Monday.

This is gesso mixed with acrylic paint on a gallery-mounted canvas, about 12 x 12 inches.  I scratched into the wet gesso with a straw and my finger.

Here is what I added to a previously prepared background made from tissue and catalog pages on canvas.  It is not quite finished.  It is a color wheel flower.

Astute followers of this blog may recognize that I took a watercolor practice page and cut it up to make the flower.  I needed more shades, so I applied some more watercolor paint to paper and used it, too.

This is a watercolor study that I did, actually copying a painting I saw in an online Raleigh art gallery.  I first thought of painting the elements to use in a mixed-media collage.  Then I liked the painting and decided to keep it whole and finish it.  I have added some tissue paper collage to the watercolor painting.  Needs a little more work to be finished.

This is the collage I made using the same painting for inspiration.  It is gesso, acrylic paint, and tissue paper/napkin collage.  I stenciled the text.  This turned out to be very colorful and bright.  Lots of texture.

As you can see, I have a lot of work to finish!

Mixed Media Backgrounds

Monday was our Anything Art Bee meeting.  We met at Peg's, but I provided the program.  We were creating backgrounds for mixed media collages on either gallery-wrapped canvas or canvas boards.

I made a few before the meeting, using either gesso, or gesso mixed with acrylic paints.

You can add a lot of texture to the background at this stage with stamps, thick applications of gesso, or carving into the thick gesso with a sharp object like a straw or the end of a paintbrush.

The striped effect on the two golden pieces is from a piece of corrugated cardboard from packaging.

The next two are similar, but one has much more color added to the gesso before applying.  They both look like ocean scenes to me.

We once again used Peg's plastic-covered folding banquet table, and had fun painting and creating yummy textures for our backgrounds.  

We only had three members present, because snow and ice were predicted for after lunch.  Here are Peg's two backgrounds.  

And these two are Toni's.  The large spiral motifs are from one of her own hand-carved stamps coated in gesso.

 I started another background using a canvas I had previously painted in black, and didn't like.  Will have to take new pics of that one and also a piece that is almost finished.  Getting ready to head to the mountains!

And Now, Something Different

I have posted before about the 2012 free Strathmore Online Workshops.  The first one is hosted by Traci Bautista and is called Doodles Unleashed.  In the fourth lesson, we created a beautiful background with acrylic paints, stamps, stencils, doodled text, etc. 

We also created doodles on a separate sheet with India ink and paintbrush.

The final step was to paint a face onto the background, and collage some of the ink doodles as a headdress.  Traci's looked like this one on the cover of her latest book.

She creates stylized lady's faces that she calls "glam girls" who have one very elaborate eye, no nose, sexy lips and curly long hair.  They also tend to have green, purple or other colorful faces.

I did not want mine to be a copy of Traci's.  Since I have been trying to paint faces for awhile, I decided to try a more realistic face.  When I collaged some of my doodles, the India ink smeared all over.  I had to repaint them.  Here is what I came up with.


Island Bride, mixed media painting by Jeanne McBrayer



She ended up being a bride because I went a little too wild when I painted in her hair.  I gessoed over the black paint, and it looked like a bridal veil.  So I added some stenciling with white acrylic paint.

I have no idea what I will do with this.  Maybe cut it up into postcards or journal covers?  It is fun to try new techniques.

I also began several other backgrounds that have faces in progress, so I will get to those sometime this week.

Are you ready for the Super Bowl?  It is cold and rainy today.  I think I will spend the afternoon before the big game quilting my Cassatt portrait, and maybe its companion, the barn picture, as well.  I have almost finished stitching it.

Grow Old With Me Collage

Here is a journal page I finished yesterday.  It has many layers.



It is inspired from the book Journal Fodder Junkies by Eric M. Scott and David R. Modler.  The support is a piece of watercolor paper.  It features watercolor paint, collaged found papers, watercolor pencils, a packing tape transfer, Sharpie paint marker, and a little bit of gold paint pen.  I stamped some circles using a beer muff, a wine cork, and some utensils from the kitchen drawer.

I had no theme or idea in mind when I started. I started the background in the mountains last weekend. I made a stencil from a piece of waxed paper for the word LIFE. The small red squares were stamped with a silicone potholder that had a grid of some dimensional squares .

It was looking very blue and purple, so I added the neutral colored sea turtle (upper left) and the older couple (bottom center) from a magazine.  That gave me the idea of a couple contemplating growing old together.  The clock was an obvious symbol, and the Adirondack chairs represent a phase of life when there is more time to sit back and enjoy!

I think this looks a little busy.  It will take some practice to improve my compositions when just adding elements to a collage.  Perhaps I will cut this up into smaller sections and matte and frame them.



Painting backgrounds is one of my favorite pastimes!  Here is one with green and yellow acrylic paint.  I stamped some bubble wrap to add texture.

This background has some dimensional texture.  I applied some gesso before painting with acrylic paint.

This one looks like a dreamy landscape.

We are still wondering if Hurricane Irene is going to have an impact on central North Carolina, where I live.  Of course we are worrying about our barrier islands, where it looks like the brunt of the storm will pass.  Between the hurricane and the Virginia earthquake that rattled my windows the other day, Mother Nature has provided an interesting week.

Tonight will be a Quilty Night.  One of my groups, the Cyberbee, is meeting in Cameron Village.  Several of us are meeting for dinner.  I am looking forward to it!

Birthday Collage- and a pretty good party!

In my last post I mentioned that my son Dave just had his thirtieth birthday.  Here is a mixed-media collage I made for him.

It is built upon a 12 x 12 stretched canvas that I covered with gesso.  I added some fun photos of Dave and Emily.  Their dog, Roo, needed to be in there, so I drew an outline of him on a newspaper word puzzle and cut it out.  The lettering is done with a speedball pen and India ink.

The rough texture is from corrugated cardboard.  I cut out the letters of his name from a broad velvet ribbon, and put them on top of a portion of a brown bag from our local ABC (Alcoholic Beverage Control) store.

I added a horoscope for Leo.  I don't know about the energy, but I think his friends appreciated the big party we threw in the mountains.

One of my favorite pictures is this one of Dave sitting in the captain's seat of a friend's boat.  He is reflected in the rear view mirror.  Below the photo, I added a map of Southern France with Nice circled.  I tore the map out of my husband's old French textbook from college.  Dave and Emily are going to Spain and France in September.

In another section I put a map with Barcelona, which is "Barcelone" in French.

Over all the photos and ephemera are layers of acrylic paints and inks, matte medium, and some bronze spray mist.  This is actually a project from the book Collage for the Soul: Expressing Hopes and Dreams Through Art by Holly Harrison.

We had a pig-picking on Saturday evening.  Lots of Dave's friends came up to our mountain place.  We had a little tent city in our yard.  I think two more tents were added after this photo was taken.

The weather was beautiful all Friday and most of Saturday, with a nice cooling breeze.  Two of the couples that usually float with us down the river on July 4th have new babies, and they were able to enjoy the outdoors on a quilt.

There was a wonderful bluegrass band called Buttermilk Creek.  They set up near the picnic shelter by the creek.

Charlie cooked the pig, which was smelling divine.

All the food was set up under the shelter.  Then the rains came.  The band moved under its own tent and played on.

Then the rains REALLY came, as well as thunder and lightning.  The band abandoned their microphones and amps and moved under the shelter.  And still played on!  They were awesome.

So, with everyone under the shelter, the crowd really got into it.  Everyone that did not have a sprained ankle was dancing!  It did my heart good to see my dad enjoying the party and even dancing a little.  He picked a pretty girl and had a great time!

And then there was dancing from tables and hanging from rafters!  Those ECU girls know how to party!

Everyone had fun.  No one's tent leaked.  We took Dave's dog  Roo home with us.  There were two sleepy dogs in the truck last night.

Charlie and I are pretty tired, too.  It was all worth it.  We had a great time.