Hollis and the Kokako

I've just come home from a five-day workshop in Auckland with the amazing artist Hollis Chatelain.  Hollis hails all the way from North Carolina.  She paints her beautiful quilts with dye and then uses quilting lines to enhance the images.

It was pretty fantastic to have five days soaking up as much knowledge as I could.  I had lovely classmates too - which always makes for a good workshop experience.  But oh, I was glad to get home!  The traffic, noise, and the sheer number of people in Auckland sets me on edge after a while.  So I guess that's something else I learnt in the workshop - I'm a rural girl through and through (just call me hermit).

Want to see some pics?

Finished painting with dyes, still damp.

Washed out, dried and ironed.

Halfway through the quilting process.

Hollis is a talented teacher as well as an artist.  She keeps you working, encourages you to be brave and gives you lots of helpful insight.  She insisted that we paint three pieces as it's a matter of getting the hours in with the paintbrush to start seeing improvement.  And whilst we grumbled and groaned, she was right!

Here are all three of my pieces on the wall.  This pictures shows them when they are washed out and dried but no quilting started yet.  I'm really, really looking forward to playing around more with this technique.  It is totally different from using fabric paints and unlike paints you end up with a beautifully soft fabric- yay!