Monday, November 26, 2007

Challenge 15 Autumn Leaves


As many have noted, this challenge was quite, um, challenging! I chose to take the idea of exaggerated scale in the foreground. The background is a photo transfer on silk from a photo I took in NY a few weeks ago. The leaves are fused from some silk I dyed this summer and free motion quilted with gold silk thread.

I think I was heading in the right direction, but I am not totally satisfied with the results. I never know what to do with a photo transfer (as in how to quilt it, etc.). I quilted some texture on the background leaves but left the water alone. I also think the placement or size of the larger leaves is a little off somehow.

But, totally unintended, I think I somewhat captured the effect of backlighting that I have been wanting to portray in a quilt for the longest time! Thanks, Ann, for a great challenge idea! As always I welcome any comments or suggestions.

Brenda Jennings

6 comments:

Roberta Ranney said...

Hi Brenda -Your piece is lovely. I like the way you added the leaves and their detail - it adds another layer of distance. The photo on silk is really nice - it seems to have more depth and richness than I usually see with photos on fabric. Was this silk you bought ready to use or some that you prepared yourself?

Roberta

Carole said...

Brenda, this is really pretty, not to mention it meets the challenge as well.
The photo to silk is very nice, I have never done that but will. It really adds a nice background and ... depth? ... bringing the big leaves to the fore.
Well done, in my opinion.
Carole

anna k. said...

Brenda, I love the way you have captured light in the water. Fabulous.
Anna.

LAQuilts said...

I'm not really a fan of photo transfer but this works! I love the background but the addition of the silk leaves is perfect - now maybe I can see as use for this method. Thanks for opening this up for me.

Joni said...

I really like your composition, especially the very realistic leaves, they almost flutter off the piece and into my yard. The photo transfer is very effective too. Great job!

brendaj said...

Hi everyone; thanks for the comments. Roberta, the silk is one of the commercial Jacquard pre-treated ones. I really haven't done much printing on fabric because my main printer will not feed it no matter what I do. I now also have a refurbished Epson that I got for about $20 which feeds the fabric sheets in with no trouble at all, but doesn't hook up to my Mac. Someday, I'll get it all together...