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Gallery
Featured Artist: Lenna Andrews
| About
Lenna |
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Introduction
My name is Lenna Andrews
and I am a mixed media artist and instructor. I live with my husband
Steven Deming in beautiful Connecticut and I have two sons, Decklin &
Dallas Foster from my previous marriage. Both boys are living on their
own now, so this allows me to spend time in my studio stamping and
painting, creating collages and fabric art, writing lessons, or
organizing art swaps. I have always been creative, but it wasn’t until
1996 when my son Decklin set up my very first website that I started
connecting with other artists from around the world. On-line, I hooked
up with the ARTchix Studio Yahoo Group, and I’m proud to say I’ve been a
member since the beginning in 2001.
People tell me I’m a natural instructor. I really enjoy teaching and
have enjoyed doing this since 1980! Today, most of my class work is done
via email or online. I have instructions for 4 projects below and
there’s more instruction from me in the ARTchix Studio classroom. Check
it out!
My art is published in books and magazines: 1000 Artist Journal Pages
(2008), Transparent Art (2005), A Somerset Wedding (for Helga & James’
wedding - 2005), The Art of Fabric Books (2005), New Techniques for
Wearable Art (2004), Altered Books 101 (2002), and The Stamp Artist’s
Project Book (2001), RubberStampMadness, VSN, Somerset Studio, Belle
Armoire, The Stamper’s Sampler, ARTitude Zine and Expression Magazine.
Wow!
One final note: I love ARTchix Studio and I’m so happy to be included as
one of their featured artists! Thank you. |
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Lenna's Top 5
ARTchix Products
1.
Garden
Collage Sheet Collection
2.
All Transparencies
3.
Floral Beauties ARTchix Cards
4.
Though the Looking Glass Collage Sheet
5.
Italian Watercolor Artist Trading Card
Blanks |
Lenna's Websites
http://www.creativelenna.com
http://www.alittlecreativespace.com –New! (On-line workshops &
free tutorials)
Lenna’s Blogs:
http://creativelenna.blogspot.com –Lenna’s art blog
http://creativeswaps.blogspot.com –art swaps to join |
Click images to enlarge
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Artwork #1: Fabric Postcard |
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Title
Looking For
ARTchix Products
Transparent Whimsical Wings
Transparency Sheet
Through the Looking Glass
Collage sheet
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Instructions
Start with a
leftover piece of olive green upholstery velvet and sew a small strip of
scrapbook paper and a few special ribbons to the velvet using decorative
machine stitches. Glue the face image from the
Through the Looking Glass Collage
Sheet on top of the ribbons using Tacky glue, and let dry. Add a
transparency image from Transparent
Whimsical Wings on top of the woman’s face by machine sewing.
Use another decorative stitch to sew above the woman's head in wavy
lines like rays of the sun. For the reverse side, cut a matching size
piece of batik fabric, get out a few postage related rubber stamps and a
VersaCraft ink pad and stamp the back fabric to look like a postcard.
Iron the rubber stamping when it is dry to heat set it. Add a label if
you wish. Sandwich a piece of heavy interfacing in between the 2 pieces
of fabric, and with the right sides facing out use an over lock stitch
to put the front and back of the postcard together. Enjoy!
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Artwork #2: 4x4 Collage |
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Title Love
Is
ARTchix Products
Special Delivery Collage Sheet
That’s Amore Collage Sheet
Heart and Soul Collage Sheet
Happy Hour Collage Sheet
All My Love Collage Sheet
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Instructions
Look for ARTchix images that will illustrate a quote you wish to
use. Cut the images out, removing some of the backgrounds & arrange them
on a 4x4 card or piece of cardstock. Use your favorite choice of
adhesive to attach all the images to the card. When everything has dried
sufficiently, use a brown water color crayon to add a bit of brown
colour to the edges and small spaces in between the images. Take a wet
brush and smooth out the added color, let dry. A small bit of metallic
gold pen added to the edges of the heart and the outside edges of the
card makes this shine. Stamp your quote on white tissue paper and adhere
it to the card with matte medium. You can also use matte medium to cover
the whole collage and give it a great pulled together look.
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Artwork #3: Journal Quilt |
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Title Home
ARTchix Products
Hold Me Transparency
no longer available
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Instructions
Start with a piece of white
fabric that is already printed with black line drawings of houses. Cut a
matching piece of cotton batting, place it underneath your fabric and
sew images from the Hold Me Transparency sheet through both the fabric &
the batting. Stamp a small house image on a piece of handmade paper, and
a ‘new house, new home’ quote on another piece of paper and glue these
to the fabric with Tacky glue. Use watercolor crayons to color in
various parts of the fabric, and then a wet brush to soften the colors.
Let dry. Embellish the journal quilt with paper scrapbook quotes and
velvet leaves; sew or glue these on with Tacky glue. Add a metal heart
charm and an old house key with E6000 glue. Sew on street number charms,
and then sew a backing piece of fabric on the back, leaving the edges
raw. You can journal with a fabric pen on the backing fabric if you like
with a permanent fabric marker.
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Artwork #4: Itty Bitty 3x3 Collage |
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Title Cindy's Bird
ARTchix Products
Italian watercolor paper
Chixies Winter Post Faux postage Sheet
Copper Baroque Borders
Brass Heishi |
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Instructions
First, read Sanna Burgess'
instructions for creating Itty Bittys and then cut out a 3x3” piece
of Italian watercolor paper. For the background, layer a piece of
decorative paper on top of your watercolor paper using a favorite
adhesive. I used a handmade collage paper I had created originally from
fabric, tissue paper and paper scraps and then photocopied to a piece of
text weight paper. Cut out Cindy McMath's 'bird' Winter Post from the
collaborative faux postage sheet with a pair of decorative edge
scissors, peel the baking paper off and place with the adhesive side
down on top of your background paper. Cut lengths of Copper Baroque
Borders for each side of the collage. Attach the borders with the points
facing in, using Golden matte medium. Cut a small section of the Copper
Baroque Border to use as a crown for the bird and attach with matte
medium or Tacky glue. Add Brass Heishi using a wooden skewer or
toothpick and a dab of E6000 glue for each Heishi. Brush the entire Itty
Bitty with matte medium and let dry over night. Lastly, add a faux
postage cancellation stamp with VersaCraft ink, which needs to be heat
set but is rich & deep.
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Instructions
These quilties were my contribution to a “shades of sunshine” mini
quilt swap hosted through my creative swaps blog:
http://creativeswaps.blogspot.com
To create these quilties I cut out a number of 6” x 6” squares from a
very vibrant red, pink, and yellow fabric. I had picked this fabric up
at my local quilt shop as soon as I had set the “sunshine” color wave
for this swap! I chose a different piece of bright orange and yellow
daisy fabric I had in my stash for the back of each quiltie, and put
that aside for now. First, I cut out a collage image from ARTchix
Studio's ‘Pretty Bird’ Sheet for each quiltie and sewed these paper
collage images onto the top fabric only with my sewing machine, using a
zig zag stitch. Next, I sewed a decorative leaf stitch with my machine
in free-form fashion across the top fabric only. I tried to do this a
little differently on each quiltie. Then I cut out sentences from the
‘Her Words’ collage sheet and glued these words onto the top fabric with
just a little bit of tacky glue. I really love this colorful collage
sheet of wonderful words!
Still working with just the top piece of fabric, I sewed on a variety of
seed beads by hand. I also tried to do this a little differently on each
quiltie. Next, I added batting behind the top piece of fabric -- in the
middle of both the top piece of fabric and the back fabric, which was
now added. I pinned everything together and then sewed the front & back
fabrics together with the batting in the middle, using a simple zig zag
stitch. I kept the edges of the fabric raw and used contrasting thread.
Tacky glue was put to use again, this time to attach gold sequin trim,
yellow eyelet trim, and various ribbons & trims. I finished the quilties
by threading a number of larger yellow & pink beads onto a piece of
waxed linen, knotting the end of the waxed linen and then attaching this
string of beads to the quiltie by sewing it in place just enough to let
it dangle. The colours of this “shades of sunshine” swap were definitely
calling me to create with. I certainly enjoyed this creative exercise in
mini fabric art, especially with my ARTchix supplies to inspire me! The
colors were perfect for my project. Thank you, Helga!
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Artwork #6: Quilted ATCs |
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ARTchix Products
Her Words Collage Sheet |
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