Review, Interview, and GIVEAWAY – Intentional Printing by Lynn Krawczyk – Cheryl Sleboda

Lynn is one artist who I admire, and she has a couple of fabulous DVDs on Color Theory Made Easy and Print, Design, Compose: From Surface Design to Fabric Art. These are some of the best DVDs I own, so I was very excited to hear Lynn was writing a book.
Lynn’s new book, Intentional Printing: Simple Techniques for Inspired Fabric Art makes fabric surface design techniques approachable. I love the easy going nature that Lynn uses to approach her artwork. None of the examples feel overdone, and I think that helps me as a novice. The “Simple Techniques” in the title are just that, and the way Lynn breaks them down allows you to not feel intimidated to make beautiful art fabric of your own. The book is gorgeous too, it’s very high quality. Tons of eye candy!

I got a chance to chat with Lynn and ask her a few questions about her art:
Cheryl: I really like the “Self Awareness” page to help you self identify your artistic type. I’m definitely the Worrier Artist. Which artistic type are you?
Lynn: I’m definitely a blend of all three – PhD, Flower Child and Worrier. When I’m getting into something new, a technique or a project, I dig in like a terrier chasing a chipmunk, I want to know everything there is to know about it! But there is always the angst that comes along with anything new, right? I think that’s natural, completely normal. I think worry is not always a bad thing, it makes us slow down and consider what we are doing. We just can’t let it rule the roost and end up holding us back. And as far as the Flower Child artist? I *love* checking out new stuff. I might not always fold it into my regular studio practice but I’ll stick with it long enough to have a good time. 🙂

Cheryl: Are you the kind of person who enjoys the journey and all the steps while you work, or are you one who just likes to get to the end result?
Lynn: Hmmm, I’m kind of both. I love holding the finished product in my hand. But getting there is definitely incredibly fun. There are parts I wish I had minions for – like sewing sleeves onto the back of finished collages/art quilts or washing out the giant pile of print tools I left floating in the sink while I printed tons of fabric – but watching the piece grow from something that is just kind of “eh” at the beginning to a “yay!” at the end is addicting. Can’t have one without the other! 🙂

Cheryl: How do you find the time to make art?
Lynn: Ah, the age old question for artists. There never seems to be enough time to do everything, does there? I think the best thing – and the hardest – is just do what you can. Meaning if you have five minutes to work on something, embrace those five minutes. If you have a few hours, go wild and fling paint all over! There is no “right” time to make art. It’s like everything else, it gets worked into the small places in life and that’s how things get done. It can be frustrating for sure, but folding art into the way your life runs is much easier then trying to bend your life to the idea of “proper” studio time. Be an artist, that can happen any time you find the space for it.

Want to win this gorgeous book? Here’s the rules:
1. Please only enter one time. Multiple entries will be disqualified. (Comments are moderated, so you won’t see your entry online right away)
2. Sorry, only residents of the USA can enter.
3. You must leave me a way to contact you, so please leave your valid email address when leaving a comment.
4. The drawing will be open until Monday April 7th at 5:00 PM CST.
5. The winner will be chosen randomly the evening of April 7th. Check back to see if you are the winner!

COMMENTS ARE CLOSED. CHECK BACK SOON FOR THE WINNER!

Draw, stamp, screen print and more to create gorgeous art cloth with the help of surface design artist Lynn Krawczyk’s new book, Intentional Printing: Simple Techniques for Inspired Fabric Art (Interweave/F+W Media; $26.99.) Take part in the blog tour with stops along the way at:

Review, Interview, and GIVEAWAY – Intentional Printing by Lynn Krawczyk

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