I've been working on a mixed media series, using quotations and a strong orange palette (it's such a joyful color!). I have a treasure trove of fabric scraps to cull through, but only a few of them worked with my colors. So, I was off to the fabric store, where I found a wonderful assortment of new fabrics to incorporate.

A good resource for mixed media artists wanting to incorporate fabrics into their work are "fat quarters," small portions of folded fabric intended for quiltmakers. I managed to find some beautiful batiks, three of which I incorporated into this painting, along with a fourth piece of material fished out of the treasure trove. 

The quotation, by the way, is a favorite of mine, from Goethe: "Whatever you would do, begin it. Boldness has courage, genius, and magic in it." It seemed appropriate for this group of images – what they asked of me was simply to dive in and begin.

My Calistoga is a painting I've been working on for the 125th birthday celebration of Calistoga, California, the town where I live.

I've incorporated collage elements around the edges of the painting, in a kind of frame. They have a kind of tinted-photograph feeling, one that seems appropriate to me for the occasion. It's one of the collage painting techniques I'll be teaching in this Saturday's Painting Collages workshop at the Calistoga Art Center.

You can find out more about the Painting Collages workshop here:
http://www.napavalleyartworkshops.com/painting-collages1.html

Here's one of the collaged images, a detail from the painting:

If you'd like to see more about the process of creating My Calistoga, you can follow it on my blog, Karen Lynn Ingalls: Line, Color, Paint, Joy. The beginning of the process is at Painting Demos at the Napa County Fair, and the second post illustrating its progress is at "My Calistoga" - continued progress.