Sewing Machine Review w/ Watercolor & Collage

These cuties belong to seniors Kelsea Lee and Nandi Best.  They are the only two in my 3rd year 3-d art class, that's cuz they are very, very good.  They hadn't used the sewing machines since last year so I wanted to make the review fun and colorful.   

I had them do several loose drawings in pen and ink.  Then lay down some paper collage elements.  Then I showed them a few watercolor techniques and off they went.  When everything was dry they used their sewing machines to loosely outline their ink drawings. A close up of Kelsea' s work above.

Nandi's 3 pieces above and below. 

Sewing Machine Review with Watercolor and Collage - Student Work

Before my 3rd year 3-d students begin their big art quilt unit, I have them review their stitching skills with the sewing machines that they learned to use in the 2nd level class. I ask them to draw in permanent pen and ink a simple subject. I also require them to glue down a few pieces of text from books or newspapers, and then I take them thru a couple of watercolor demos. and then have them choose the technique they liked the best to watercolor in their image. When all is dry they put the pieces under their presser foots and stitch over the pen lines at least 2 -3 times for a very whimsical look. The idea came from Kelli Nina Perkins in an article from Quilting Arts Magazine a couple of years ago. Since these are my crafts kids the hardest thing for them to do is the drawing aspect, oh well, too bad LOL I think they did fine. The top 3 were done this year by seniors Breanna Johng and Olivia Hill.

I posted these sweet ones last year done by alum Audrey Pulido, so they might look familiar.

Sewing Machine Review w/ Watercolor and Collage - Student Work

Before I have my 3rd level 3-d art students embark on their Art Quilt unit I have them do a few simple works combining paper, collage and watercolor, so they can practice their machine sewing skills that they learned in level 2. Sometimes they freak out because there is drawing involved and after all they are my 3-d students not my 2-d students, but I have them keep the drawings real simple and we focus more on design, watercolor, and implied line (sewing machine) with a bit of collage thrown in. These always turn out well and are usually very sweet as you can see in the pix above. All four of these were done by senior Audrey Pulido with a close up down below.