Wen Redmond's Digital Fiber Art: Combine Photos & Fabric - Create Your Own Mixed-Media Masterpiece

Description

Compose, create, and print innovative art quilts starting from your own digital photographs! Well-known fiber artist Wen Redmond starts with the tools and equipment you'll need-any image editing software and a standard inkjet printer-and teaches you to alter images, print them on a variety of fibers, and accentuate them with stitching. With a sense of adventure, even a beginner can apply these mixed-media techniques to create new and innovative works of art.

Wen Redmond is a mixed-media artist whose work embraces digital printing, surface design, fiber art, and collage. She has created several signature digital fiber techniques, including holographic images, innovative collage methods, and textured photographs. She lives in New England.

Digital fibre art is one of Wen's signature techniques. She has been recognised in the textile/fibre world for decades, and this experience and expertise is well reflected here. As with most how-to books, it starts at the beginning with the kinds of tools and equipment needed to give a good result. Wen then takes off from there, showing how to alter images, print them on different fabrics, and then apply stitch for added depth, interest, and highlighting. By incorporating a number of different techniques, the finished work looks more layered and complex, but it is very achievable. An interested beginner should not be put off, as Wen offers many tips. At the same time, experience artists will find enough here to take their work to the next level. Down Under Textiles, Issue 25 Wen Redmond has been experimenting with different styles and techniques for many years, and this book distils her work with digital images and various materials. The book is only 127 pages, but is jam packed with informationyou will find much of what you need to know here. Wen covers topics including taking photos, manipulating them through cropping filters and colours, printing and transferring them, layering and blending. She also writes about fabric preparation, using paper and other substrates, and the various paint and other substrates, and the various paint and other layers than can be added. There are any examples shown, with full and detailed visuals and written explanations. This is a perfect book to have on the bookshelf to refer to when you are looking to create a particular effect. Alternatively, use it as a guided series of exercises to extend your repertoire of techniques. Down Under Textiles, #27 For those of you enjoying Wen Redmond's Holographic Pictures technique in this issue, you can find the application of digital photography to textiles and mixed media expanded upon in this book. It looks at many different ways of using photography with different substrates and mediums to create a wholly unique approach to your art. It is a very user-friendly book with a lot of tips on how to make your own life easier (you can use photos taken on your phone as the techniques here will make allowances for a lower resolution in the pictures) and there are apps suggested, such as Grungetastic, that will make the whole process of jazzing up your photo much easier if you aren't able to slave over Photoshop or another Photo Editing programme. The latter will provide you with more complex images to play with but this allows anyone with basic technology to have a go. The book is helpfully divided up into sections such as using fabric or paper as substrates, using Pre-Coats (such as InkAid) and basic Digital Photography printing before moving onto more experimental chapter, using acrylic mediums, overlays, creating textured surfaces for blending or printing over and using nonporous substrates. Each section is fully illustrated and clearly explained in stages and each chapter contains its own Process and Example sections so you can get to grips with how to achieve an effect and then see some finished pieces. Workshop on the Web, March 2017 Inkjet printers can be used to print on a variety of substrates, and mixed-media artist Redmond shares how best to combine printed fabric or paper with paint, photographs, and art supplies such as gel medium to create one-of-a-kind works of art. There's not much guidance or directionmuch of this book is Redmond providing a brief overview of her process. The information is delivered in a jumbled rather than a linear fashion, making the lack of an index to the contents disappointing. VERDICT: Beginners to the world of mixed media may be frustrated that basic knowledge is assumed, but experienced mixed-media artists seeking inspiration from a skilled artist may gain insight into new processes. Library Journal, 2/1/17