Paint Rags
When painting, I always have a stack of cut-up t-shirts next to my water jug. These are the best material I've used to clean my brushes and wipe paint off (or around on) the canvas. Absorbent, durable, reusable - and there's always a worn-out t-shirt around if I need more.
When they get full, I run them through the laundry to soften them back up. But after a certain point, they just won't absorb any more.
Would you throw these out? I certainly can't. They go into the collage material bin.
Sketchbook 2012: No Trespassing Quilt
Sketchbook 2012: No Trespassing, mixed media, 2012 by Sarah Atle
No Trespassing, mixed media collage sketch, 2012 by Sarah Atlee
Like the Millennium Quilt series, I made this drawing while my mother was recovering from surgery. I thought it would be interesting to create a geometric composition based on a (blurry) photograph. Abstraction through pixellation, although the original photograph is the digital media, whereas the drawing below is analog.
Fijian, jiving, and scheme are cool words.
Sketchbook 2012: No Trespassing quilt sketch, ink and colored pe
No Trespassing Quilt, ink and colored pencil on paper, 2012 by Sarah Atlee
Day/Night Quilt Fragment
Day/Night Quilt Fragment, acrylic on canvas, 12 x 12 inches, 2013 by Sarah Atlee
This painting grew out of the process of creating an actual quilt (read more about that here). I painted this for the 2013 edition of OVAC's annual 12x12 fundraiser. I wanted to create another composition along the lines of Beside the Ironing Board:
Beside the Ironing Board, acrylic on canvas, 12 x 12 inches, 2011 by Sarah Atlee
Just as with this earlier painting, I found the raw "material" I wanted in a quilt-in-progress.
Day/Night Quilt Fragment in the studio, with the model in the background.
In a beautiful act of generosity, the person who bought Day/Night Fragment gifted me with a box of quilt pieces that his great-aunt had begun before she died. I feel sure I will complete that quilt someday, and share it with you here.
Pink is Choices
Pink is Choices, ink on paper, 2013 by Sarah Atlee
Pink is choices. Pink is me allowing me to be me on my own terms. Pink is choosing to use pink because I want to, not because the Barbie aisle at Toys 'R' Us tells me that I should.
I wasn't always a colorist. In college my work was monochromatic, or very nearly, because I didn't feel that I was educated or practiced enough to use color.
At first it was yellows, reds, blues. Now the pinks are my favorite paints and pens. Bright, soft, luminous, loaded, cliched, camp, kitsch, new & radical in every sense, all over again.
Pink is choosing to accept things that I rejected as a child. I did not accept commercial interests telling me who I should be, and pink was an inextricable element of that. Now, choosing pink is my way of declaring that I am whoever I want to be, without fear of rejection.
Dedicated to my Mom, who taught me that it's okay to be my own person.
Sketchbook 2012: Day/Night Quilt
Day/Night Quilt sketch, ink on paper, 2012 by Sarah Atlee
I had so much fun with my Millennium Quilt series that I raced right into this quilt concept for a friend's impending baby.
mely's quilt beginning cropped
I began cutting and piecing not long after finishing the sketch, though it was almost another year before I completed the quilt proper.
At one point, I was so enamored with the finished sections of the quilt that I decided to turn one of them back into 2-dimensional art. I'll post pictures of that piece next week.
Here are pictures of the near-completed quilt in my studio (I just love the morning light in here):
day night quilt photo 2 72 500
Day/Night Quilt, detail view in the studio, 2013 by Sarah Atlee
day night quilt photo 1 72 500
Day/Night Quilt, detail view in the studio, 2013 by Sarah Atlee
Update: See the portion of this quilt that became a painting.