Work from Students at J C Campbell

I spent this last weekend teaching "Fabricating Faces" at John C. Campbell Folk School. I love teaching there. The place is beautiful the atmosphere is laid back and the students are great.

This is a group photo on Sunday morning. You can see some of the finished portraits behind our heads.

You might notice on Linda B's portrait of her father that he looks younger in one of the photos than the other. When Linda finished she felt that her portrait looked like a younger version of her Father. I suggested that she put the line under his eyes and the smile lines beside his mouth and voila,instant age.

Adri H. wanted to do a portrait of her dog Juma. When she talked about her dog you could hear the love in her voice. I had recommended Vicki Welsh, fabric dyer, to my students as a place to purchase hand-dyed gradient fabrics. Vicki has worked with me to develop skin tones for my classes. Adri didn't tell Vicki that she was buying them for my class so she was sent Vicki's regular fabrics. What a luckly mistake. The fabrics were perfect for an animal portrait.

Adri, started another photo of Juma and almost had it finished. Some how I missed getting a photo of that piece.

Kayla

Look at this beauty. Baby (children) photos are hard to resist and they do make such cute portraits. Carol K. made this portrait of her granddaughter. Carol also ordered this fabric from Vicki and didn't mention that she was taking my class. Luckily there was enough even dying on this to get this portrait. The fabric worked great in the sweater area.

Carol didn't cut the teeth out with the spaces when she put them on the fabric. The space in her teeth is so much a part of her portrait that I suggested she try to cut little bitty pieces of fabric to add to the teeth. Poor Carol spent nearly as much time cutting and placing those little spaces as she did on the whole portrait. However, she agrees that it was time well spent.

I was really happy to see that Carol chose Rosewood color for her fabric. I love it when people go a little outside the norm.

Ashley also chose her beloved dog Sally as her subject for this class. She wanted to start with Sally and then move on to making portraits of her two boys. Ashley is some what of a new beginner to quilting and was a bit intimidated. In reality this class has little to do with quilting other than they are both made of fabric. However, Ashley did a wonderful job and gained confidence. That is what I'm proudest of.

Ashely had purchased fabrics with the help of a sales woman in her local quilt store. The calico type fabrics made for a cute but not very realistic portrait. This is not to say that I haven't seen portraits made out of calico that look very real. Look up Marilyn Belford her portraits are wonderful and she often uses calico type fabrics. Ashley decided to purchase a kit from me and made a second portrait which she liked better. A job well done.

More from J C Campbell Folk School later.