Megan

Challenge 49; "Megan" (11" x 10")
This piece started out as a pastel pencil drawing on paper using the techniques described in "The Artist's Complete Guide to Drawing the Head" by William L. Maughan. I used photo reference to complete the drawing that was started with a live model, Megan. The drawing was then printed on fabric and stashed. I've really been trying to bridge the divide between my paper art and my fabric art. This challenge was just the ticket. I fused the head to a new background and bumped the eyebrows, eye, mouth, and tail with fabric. What fun.

Pewter Pitcher

This is a depiction of a pewter wine pitcher that was a wedding present to me and my husband 37 years ago. The pitcher and the marriage have endured a few bumps and bruises along the way. However, we are still going strong. How is that for optimism? The hand appliqued grapes and the hand background quilting are my excuse for completing the challenge very late. Thanks for a great challenge.

"Tiny Giraffe" (10" x 13")

This is based on a graphite drawing I did for drawing class. The image was converted to sepia tones and printed on fabric. I will be putting this in a pillow top, so the edges are not yet finished. I love animals, so this was a great challenge. Those who know me will be surprised that I didn't do a cat!

"Bend Don't Break" (10"x16")

Skeleton leaves on a discharged homespun with stitch. I haven't done a quilt in months, so this was a good challenge for me. Went for a high horizon with somewhat transparent leaves. More dimensional in person!

"Cistern I" (16" x 18")

I feel I succeeded on the composition part of the challenge calling for planes and masses. The cylinder takes form with soft shadows. The cast shadow of the roof called for a hard-edged shadow. However, I have fallen short on the color concept - achieving luminosity with saturated and toned colors. Thank you Susan for a great challenge and the helpful references. The image is drawn from a water tower located in Old Town, Temecula, CA - I did this in drawing class on Tuesday. This is a whole cloth quilt. The base silk fabric was stitched then dyed with Procion dyes. Inks were used to define the tower. Comments welcome.

Ch #30, "Songbirds"

Great challenge. I painted the background on Lutrador. I was trying for violet, but got closer to blue. Next I scanned my pencil drawing onto the computer and printed the outline of the birds and twigs onto the hand painted Lutrador. I then applied gesso inside the outlines to provide a white ground for the digitally painted birds. Held my mouth just right and ran the piece through the printer again and hoped the ink and gesso would line up. First time was a charm - ok I confess I did run a test print on paper, because I can never remember how the paper feeds. Bumped the print with a little ink, felted wool, and sparkles. Added a border and quilted. Woohoo, done by the deadline.

"Trepidation" (20" x 38")

Challenge #28 yielded unexpected results. My first effort was to make a quilt depicting choppy water. Well, the curved piecing started looking more like mountains. So I decided mountains and layers of earth complete with fault lines would be the ticket. The fabric strips and embroidery stitches in orange are offered as the zinger. I'm interested in improving this piece, so I look forward to your suggestions.

"Fred"

I really enjoyed Challenge #27. "Fred" was digitally painted using a cropped photo for reference. His image was printed onto fabric prepared with digital grounds. I wasn't quite sure how much or how little to quilt the image, so I just tried to quilt around the value shapes. The quilt measures 16.5" x 22." Constructive comments are welcome.