studio update – Page 2 – Hilary Clark Studios

Studio Update: June 2019

This month, I’m sharing a studio update, showcasing progress on the latest textured fiber painting in my (Feeling) series. Crushed is underway; the stitching began last week. In this post, I’m sharing photos of the progress to date.

Original doodle – the shape that inspired “Crushed” as the feeling choice.

I enlarge the original doodle using tracing paper to create the canvas template

My intuitive color choices to interpret the feeling

If you missed last month’s post, which revealed (Feeling) Passionate, you can see it here.

The goal for July’s post is the unveiling of the completed (Feeling) Crushed. If I miss the goal, I’ll share another Studio Update.

What’s your creative practice?

I also wanted to take the opportunity to share a bit about what I’m doing with my work as my work and my art go hand in hand. I’m a Life and Authenticity Coach, helping stressed out, frantic, frazzled women over 40 slow down and reconnect to their intuition so they can get their shit together. I do this by helping them to develop a creative practice. I’ve walked the road my clients are on. Development of my own creative practice helped me regain my voice and led me to want to serve others in the same way. If you’re interested in learning more about coaching and how it might help you develop (or expand on) a creative practice as a means to reconnect to your intuition and lose the stress, you can follow me over at Harmony Coaching.

Thanks for hanging around the studio with me!

Studio Update: April 2019

Last month, I revealed (Feeling) Woeful, my first piece of the year. I’m working in a larger format for 2019, roughly 2′ by 3′, so it’s taking a bit longer to finish a piece (having a job and regular life responsibilities do have an impact on my available studio time, after all).

This is a super photo heavy post. In late March, I attended International Quilt Fest Chicago (their last year here! 😦 ) and took photos of the art that most appealed. And in early April, I was in San Diego, so I made a stop at the Visions Art Museum and I couldn’t resist taking photos of those exhibits either.

But first…

I’m currently working on (Feeling) Passionate and am sharing progress photos below. I always try to alternate between the catabolic and anabolic feelings for my work, from “negative” to “positive”. So from woe to passion we go. I hope you enjoy this work. Please let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

Photos from IQF Chicago – to be clear, none of these are my art –

Photos from Visions Art Museum, including Maria Shell’s work (none of these are mine, either. Someday!) –

I’ll be back in a month with the full reveal for (Feeling) Passionate, or another Studio Update if my progress gets derailed. Thanks for hanging around the studio with me.

What have you been up to?

Studio Update: February 2019

We’re going to try something a little different this year — monthly blog posts! Since art production has slowed due to an increase in the amount of stitching (and larger work), I decided I wanted to write here more often than just when I finish a piece. So I’m keeping it simple and striving for studio updates every month. And when I do complete a piece, I’ll add a bonus post! 🙂

I’m working on (Feeling) Woeful at the moment, my first piece this year. However, I closed out 2019 doing a little experimenting in the studio. Here’s what I tried:

When I was younger, before the age of so. many. distractions. on the computer, I used to play with the Paint accessory in Microsoft windows. So I decided I’d recreate that experience with real paint on cotton fabric. I grabbed some paint brushes, filled a palette with a bit of each color paint, and then began painting. I used plain white cotton as the canvas. The result shows above.

I’m not sure yet what I’ll use it for, but I found I really enjoyed the experience of painting. Going forward, I plan to incorporate paint days into my studio practice, focusing on painting only solid colors – large fabric paintings all in blue, or red, or… – to then use in my (Feeling) series as I gravitate towards solids there.

My second experiment was also a return to the past:

In the early 2000s, I dyed a lot of fabric. I enjoyed taking plain white cotton, immersing it in buckets of color, and then waiting to see how it all turned out several hours later. It’s like dyeing Easter Eggs but on a larger scale.

For this experiment, I purchased natural dye material and then adapted the instructions for cold water dye. The natural dyes called for boiling the fabric, or doing the dyeing in the washing machine. Neither of those felt right to me – one, I didn’t know if the dyes would remain in the washer and then dye our clothes; two, boiling fabric on the stove meant I could only dye one color at a time and I just don’t have the patience for that. So I decided if I was going to experiment, I’d go all out and not follow the instructions. Turned out pretty well, don’t you think?

What I find most intriguing is the fabric appears to be linen in the photo but I assure you it was plain white cotton. I’m looking forward to using these in a future (Feeling), which will be a departure from my usual vibrant colors. Some feelings are more muted, and these hand dyed fabrics will be perfectly suited.

Like the fabric painting, I plan to include fabric dyeing days into my studio practice this year. The nuances of hand dyeing create interesting colors and visual texture to the fabric, which I believe will only enhance my work.

Once we got past the holidays and rolled into 2019, I returned to my (Feeling) work with Woeful. It’s still a work in progress and is larger than the earlier pieces in this series. I’ve attached a few progress photos to whet your appetite for the final piece. Enjoy!