Road to California - Wholecloth Painting

It's Road to California Time, once again!

The weather report for Southern California was wet today, wet tomorrow, possible wet the next several days after that... sigh... At least I didn't get too wet this morning, and by afternoon, the sun actually broke thru for a while.

My first class was a wholecloth painting class from Judy Coates Perez using Setacolor paints. I loved the class and learned quite a bit! The class was in the North Annex building...across the street from the rest of the Quilt Show. They didn't have irons and ironing boards, which were needed, and the tables were not covered with plastic..we had to tromp thru a long arm class to get to the bathroom to get water..They brought a couple of ironing boards while we were waiting for some of the students to show up (we got an email 3 days ago saying the class was in the North Annex..now..if you KNOW where that is, good..but its not shown on the map, and there was no address! I did a Google street view and saw the Convention Center sign but a few of the students had no email..and were totally confused...)

Here is the cartoon that I started with:

We traced the design onto PFD muslin...then cut out masks for the lighter parts..ironed those on and made up a batch of background paint..mine I didn't get quite light enough..it should have been much lighter blue. And..I got lots of 'bleed under', which I had to fix by painting opaque white over the edges where it bled.

We learned how Judy makes the steps the paint so she gets really smooth shading...I need more practice as mine don't have quite the 'pop' that Judy's have.

Here is what my painted cloth looked like by lunch:

Here is Judy doing a 'glazing' lesson on a magnolia - notice the 'pop' on her leaves and..her background is way lighter!

Here is what my painted cloth looked like at the end of the day...it is VERY NEARLY DONE!! Which, for a class is QUITE AMAZING! (but then, since is was still a bit drippy, I stayed in the room and worked on the painting instead of getting wet and fighting the crowds in the vendor mall.) I will probably add some shiny gold accents before I quilt it..don't have to, but want to!

After I scrubbed out my paint dishes and stashed my supplies in my car, I headed over to the vendor mall...amazingly, I actually made it around both rooms. The crowds had thinned quite dramatically, and it no longer was dripping... I bought a few things:

I think the ruler gizmo is really the 'cat's meow' - it has grippy things that when you press on the handle, stick thru holes in the center of the ruler and man, o man..it GRIPS the fabric and holds it soooo tight! And you don't have to press very hard at all...and..I may actually use this thimble..its like a jelly one, but has a hard silver tip..feels very comfortable.

Tomorrow...3D sculpture...hopefully in the main building!!