Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Today's Version of Myself


Self portrait. Well, once I made one that I liked a lot. I used an image of an MRI of my brain, and lettered on it "My friend laughed when I told her the doctor said I have a perfectly normal brain." Surrounded the brain matter with a crazy quilt.

Unfortunately, the image I chose showed the right and left sides, and from a distance, at the meeting where all the self portraits were displayed, I heard someone say "Oh, look. That person sat on a copy machine!" Well, it did sorta look like that, so then I covered the brain with my favorite cute childhood picture. (You never know what's under all those quilts)
For this challenge, I used my favorite recent picture of myself which I posterized in Adobe Photoship Elements 5. Printed it, framed it, surrounded it with crazy quilting, using fabrics which represent some of the things I like, such as turtles, music, and forget-me-not fabric from a cruise to Alaska. Still have a perfectly normal brain, but sometimes crazy is more fun. I also noticed the photo looked a little washed-out, and I certainly am good at fading into the background unless I'm in a particularly confident mood.

So, for what it's worth, and using some of the favorite techniques, it was fun to make

7 comments:

Betty Donahue said...

I agree. Crazy is more fun than being normal. It's a good thing --I know I like being crazy.
Betty

Carole said...

Hi Katie... crazy?? Only on the edge!
Nicey done. So good to see some computer work here. It looks great and is definitly an inspiration.
Thank you for sharing.
Carole

Cherie in Del Mar said...

Nice mix of photo printing an crazy quilting. I haven't gotten the nerve to try photo's yet. Looks great!
Cherie

Cynthia Ann Morgan said...

Hi Katie, this turned out very nice...good photo transfer, good colors and fabrics and effective framing with the inner border and the thick binding. Good job! You don't look crazy at all!
Cynthia

brendaj said...

Hi Katie,

I think this turned out great. The fabric choices really complement the photo. Love the herringbone thread colors. Your story reminds me of Young Frankenstein, "oh, Abbie Normal or something like that".

Brenda

Monty Wilson said...

Well, I really don't want to be thought of as a crazy lady - but crazy quilting on the machine is soooo much fun, it's one of my favorite techniques.

Cay Denise said...

Hi Katie,

Your crazy quilting work is lovely! Also, your digital image printed nicely on fabric. That dark green fabric used to frame it was a great choice! Otherwise the image may have very well faded into the background.

I like the stippling you did in the top of the printed image. The variegated colored thread works well there. It does, however, stand out in the blouse area. Did you consider using a more pastel colored thread in that area? I'm wondering how it might have worked...don't know if it would be better or not.

I saw the turtles, notes and flowers in your fabric choices. Its amazing how snippets of fabrics can tell so much about us. Thank you for revealing some of those things about yourself. Congratulations on a very nice job!