Challenge #42-- Seaweed: An Un-Still Life

This 32" x 36" piece with unbound edges, netting, hand-dyes, covered clothesline, pintucked, folded, and scrunched fabric was inspired by many walks on the beach and photographs of seaweed. So it's a sort of abstract landscape. It took me months to finish -- I was really inspired by the manipulated fabric idea, but then I just wanted to take my time with this and let it evolve. (I have a hard time with this thought: one hand-dyed fabric was too expensive to "just use for an exercise.") Not the spirit of the challenge, but I am very grateful for the inspiration and enjoyed this departure from my previous styles. It reminded me that I and my life are like seaweed: a rather chaotic mess that gets rearranged with every wave that comes my way, but just fine "as is," not something I need to untangle to make beautiful!

Chris Smith (Sea Ranch)

Challenge #41: Seraph

I first chose blue, green and yellow, but the analogous look bored me, so I switched the yellow to red, giving me more zing. I obviously pushed the green to a broader spectrum from yellow-green to blue-green as well. So maybe I broke the RULES.

As part of the fracturing, I included prints, solids, textures, cottons, and silks. Don't know whether I understood what a fracture really is, but I grouped the shapes by hues so that there would be an overall fracture, too.

I wasn’t thrilled with making a bird, bug, plane, or even the wing of a building--and I never thought of wingnuts--so I chose to do an angel, then focused in on just a portion of a wing, part of my new attraction to getting up close (developed from our microbiology challenge). And since I haven't seen an angel, I gave myself license to play with how the wing might reflect many colors of light.

I fused the shapes and used mostly blanket stitch machine appliqué and free motion quilting. If I had longer, I might have quilted more, using lots of different threads and stitches. I quickly satin stitched the outer edges (Sue Benner style), but then cropped to the size it will be when or if I get around to finishing it with facings. Maybe I should crop off to eliminate all of the shaded pink, which represented the "shoulder" of the angel on the left.

I'm trying to transition from realistic to abstract images, so I consider this sort of transitional. It's fine with me if you don't know what you're looking at!

By the way, a seraph is an angelic being of the highest order, associated with light, ardor, and purity. Mentioned only in the Book of Isaiah, the seraphim were in human form with six wings each, and they revealed Isaiah’s call to ministry.  An angel-artist-coach is helping me figure out my goals, so this has some special meaning to me.

Comments, critique, or suggestions are always welcome.
Chris Smith in Sea Ranch, CA
www.ReapAsYouSew.com

Challenge #39: Tequila Sunrise

I was intrigued by a set of photos of cocktails under the microscope and decided to try a "Tequila Sunrise" quilt, thinking it would be fun art for our condo in Mexico, and I just liked the colors and shapes I saw in the photo from the linked website, Molecular Expressions: The Cocktail Collection.

I used ProChemical H Fiber Reactive dyes to paint fabric for the background. It was my first time dye-painting at home since completing a Sue Benner workshop in October. I used fabric that was soda-soaked in October, knowing it might not be fresh enough. I mixed the yellows and magenta with more print paste than I should have, so they came out less intense than I'd wished. Sorry, I didn't take a photo at that step. This is all about learning, so that's OK!

I used acrylic paints to brighten up the background yellows and oranges, but I didn't have fuschia, and didn't have enough time to mix the "just right" colors. Compromise, limits, affect our art! I made stamps by cutting out shapes from rubber floor tiles, painted and stamped on the blue "V" shapes. I set the photo aside and began working more from an inspiration rather than trying to make a realistic image of what the photo showed.

I tried cropping various ways to improve the composition, considered how to create a focal point with stitching and/or embellishments, and wondered how to move the eye around without having the arrowheads lead it off the page. I also wondered about borders. I then selected a special Carol Taylor yarn for embellishing.

At this point, I stopped and meditated on what to do and, boy, did I get some surprising spiritual input! It made the rest of the work really teach me and allow me to purge some negative stuff and get more optimistic! I quilted it over the Christmas holidays, and then added a little sparkly teal paint to the three V's that I emphasized, trying to create a focal point. I don't know if they're still a focal point after the couching.

I should have photographed what it looked like on January 3rd with all the quilting done but no embellishments on it. I had a several ideas of how to place that fancy yarn. I consulted with my artist-daughter and my husband for ideas, but none struck me as "right." I'm getting ready to leave on a trip, so I was cramming in lots of other work and had little time to give this project . . . another insight goes with that! So, I printed out five copies of a photo of the painted fabric laid onto the border fabric and started playing with multi-colored cording to test how it might be laid on top. I used the cording because the photocopies were a smaller scale, and the cording was thinner than the yarn. Of the five designs, the one I liked best happened when my husband stood up and dropped some cording onto a photocopy from arm's height. It puddled onto the paper in an interesting mess, very organic. Aha! I then did something similar onto the quilt itself, liked what I saw, and used masking tape to secure the cording into its random, organic, landing places. And I decided to use the cording instead of the beautiful yarn, because the yellow did something important. It looks more biological to me now.

It was a challenge to couch on the cording with it taped in place, or to follow marked lines when I gave up on the masking tape, so this is a version that evolved from my first "dropped design."

Not exactly a FAST challenge quilt but I'm glad it's done and I learned a lot.

Comments welcome, as always!
Happy New Year,
Chris

www.ReapAsYouSew.com

Logan: Queen of My Animal Kingdom

New to this, I don't know if I should write something different here than I e-mailed to the list. I find it so hard to look at the albums without comments . . . or vice versa.

I did this 10" x 12" study over a few days. I went for a realistic portrait of my little 6-year-old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel's head--something fun and fast to do for a first challenge in this rather intimidating group. I began with trapunto: two extra layers of Warm & Natural under the nose, and one extra layer under the white muzzle area and the eyes. However, I was using Wonder Under instead of appliqué (to be FAST), which made the trapunto somewhat less effective. After layering the pieces and doing some quilting, I did something new for me--I painted on the top with Jacquard Textile Paints to add some highlights, give some fur texture, and to put metallic turquoise sparkle highlights in the eyes. Once quilted, I edged the piece with satin stitching. I'm glad to have participated, learned a few things, and now have gotten my feet wet!

Some issues this raised for me (besides how I'd rather be less trite and realistic), are: whether trapunto ever works well with fusing; whether the muzzle comes forward with a few contour lines of quilting, but not so many as to flatten that whole area; and what I could add to make the black of the eyeballs shinier. Also, I wonder whether working with a photograph distorts the outcome compared to what the eye and brain might register when looking directly at the subject. For example, the photograph I worked from was not head on, so the left and right sides of her face weren't as symmetrical as they are "live," and in the finished piece, perhaps the viewer gets the impression this is a straight-on view of a very lopsided face. Also, some of the areas that appear tan are actually white fur with shadows that reflected in the photo as tan (below her mouth and her neck), and I don't think that's apparent in my finished piece. Photographing without getting edge distortion is another issue (this really is perfectly rectangular). Finally, I think this might be improved if I cropped an inch off the left, leaving a more rectangular format and leaving the left eye, etc., more to the viewer to complete.

I invite your critiques and suggestions.

Thank you!
Chris

P. S. I was sorely tempted to just post a photo of my Jellies quilt -- it fits the theme and has depth created with a little perspective, value gradations of the dark "water fabric," and layers with embellishments including beading, couching, and fuzzy yarn. And I feel pretty good about it because it was juried into Images in Lowell, Mass. However, that's not the point, right? I want to try to do FAST CHALLENGES.

"Pueblos Bonitos"

I have chosen to do 'shapes' for my series. A couple of years ago Idid a series of postcards using shapes as the theme. I've always intended to do a real series...now is my chance :)

For this challenge I am using squares..."Pueblos Bonitos"...

My complimentary colors are orange-yellow and blue (as on JoenWolfrom's color cards #11 and #23).

My quilt is mainly horizontal, with a little diagonal thrown in. The background is organza fused over hand dyed cotton then randomly cut and pieced back together with two different colored hand dyed strips inserted. The squares are cotton with organza and chiffon overlays. Variegated rayon threads.

Comments welcomed :) as always

Cherie