This past weekend, during the few lulls that there were during the Studio Tour, I started the process of looking ahead to my next projects.

(Actually, I’ve had at last two projects brewing for a few weeks now. But, I couldn’t focus on them till the tour was over. That was a big undertaking! And it was so much fun, with lots of visitors and lots of new connections and patrons.)

My first project will include some relief printing with newly-carved blocks. I worked on these during the tour.

My local artmaking group is working on a several months-long project exploring block printing. They met this past Saturday while I was busy with the Studio Tour.

These are easy-cut blocks made of rubber, like a large eraser. They are designed to be super easy to carve, and they are. Like buttah! Unlike original linoleum blocks, these would not work well in a printing press. The pressure of the press would squish them. But, I have used relief print blocks before to print by hand and gotten interesting results.

I am interested in a project that will include leaf patterns. I started by roughing them out in my sketchbook.

Then, I imported them into Photoshop to experiment with overlaps and variations in positioning. I did enough to answer my questions about how the patterns might develop. So, then I proceeded to carving.

When I get to the printing portion, I’ll share more.

My second new project brewing is actually sort of an obsession. I’ve been thinking about this one for a while now. I’m not sure if it will work, or how to solve the technical issues involved in making it work. This involves fabric panels, collage-constructed, with overall quilting stitching but no binding or finishing on the edges:  showing the raw-edge ripped muslin edges.

I started this morning with prepping the muslin. I ripped it to size, about 30” x 40”. I’ll be creating this experiment 100% final size. I’m using white house paint primer applied with a wet natural sponge. After that all-over prep, I went back and put a little more on the edges with a foam brush.

Next I glued on a felt backing going to within about ¾” inch from the edge. This will be the finished backing and I will quilt through it.

Next I plan to use up old ugly scraps to collage and stitch the whole piece just as I will when I make the real work. What I’m interested in is seeing how it will hang, and how the natural-edge muslin looks. I love the natural deckle-edge finish of watercolor paper, especially when the art on the paper has non-square edges. My hope is to create a similar feel with fabrics.

As it progresses, I’ll share more.

This morning I put my studio back in order. It felt great!

Just in case you’d like to do some browsing… To prepare for the studio tour I created a number of new matted paper collages. I was so happy to have many of them go home with patrons. But I have some nice pieces left on my website. Here’s one I especially like, “Bubbling Up”

This one and more are available in the Wednesday Collage Gallery, HERE.

Thank you for reading. I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi
bobbibaughart@gmail.com

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