Arizona Sunset

I took a photo last year in Arizona at sunset of the adobe house next to our condo. The little bird sitting on the top was what attracted my attention. The trees lined along the horizon line let the sunset show through their limbs.

It was interesting cutting out the trees for this as I concentrated on just cutting out the negative space. After I finished I wondered if this was really a good representation of negative space or a silhouette. What do you think?

C is for Cute

This challenge was just too good to pass up.  I have been working on a technique in Photo Shop called Typographic Portraits.  I am teaching that technique along with others that I incorporate in my computer image quilts next week.  I needed to work on a few more samples and this challenge gave me just the excuse I needed to create another text portrait.

Generally I incorporate a lot of adjectives that describe the person who's portrait I am working on to make up the image.   Because I wanted to use only one or two words for this challenge I chose cute and cousins.  These two are so cute together as they show their love for each other frequently.  As usual I don't have time to finish this piece but wanted to post it as printed on fabric. 

The Eye of the Beholder

I loved the idea of this challenge but really didn't have the time to put my design into fabric.  But it excited me so much that I felt I could at least do the design work and I will work on creating it in fabric later.

I entered a photo of an eye into PSE 11 I also entered a photo of this cute little baby.  I deleted the background from around the baby and reduced its size in order for it to fit into the pupil of the eye.  I also made the baby a little more opaque than the eye.

I then went to my filters and used the cutout filter in eight layers to create this image.  I'm very happy with the results, wish I had time to work on it now.

A Cart of Geraniums

A Cart of Geraniums for Sharon

8 x 10 mat      5 x 7 thread painted

It's been a long time since I've been able to complete a challenge for FFFC.

The minute I read the challenge I knew that if there was any way possible to get something done I would.

I love to take photographs of windows and doors.  This photo taken in France, has both.  It also has geraniums, which I love.

I printed the photo on fabric and then thread painted various sections of the piece.

I have a friend who is going through a lot at the moment.  I am going to send it to her in hopes that it will brighten her day.

Miss Lena Horn

Hi all, this maybe cheating a little but recently my time has been limited and I really loved this challenge.  My husband's Mother, at 91, is finally slowing down mentally and our daughter is fighting an illness.  We are spending lots of time away from home, both live in NC.
At any rate I loved this challenge and it brought to mind the image that I recently  recently finished for an exhibit at The Art's Center in Clemson, SC.  The exhibit was titled Painting the Blues and was part of a local Blue's Festival.
I Chose a portrait of Miss Lena Horn and used the Gestalt Principal of closure.  I chose a piece of fabric with music notes as the background with black over top.  I manipulated the image in PSE until I had only the black and white image above. 
The image is 12 x 17 and is matted and framed.

Face in the clouds

I decided that I needed to crop this to get rid of too much that was getting in the way of the face. I think this helps a bit.

I spent a lot of time thinking about this challenge and thinking I didn't have time to get it done. Last night I decided that I would see if I could get one my ideas to work in PhotoShop Elements.

One of my most vivid memories of my childhood was laying in the yard under a tree and looking for faces in the clouds.

I have quite a large stash of sky photos so I looked in that folder and decided on the photo above.

I loved the light that was shining behind the cloud, it just glowed.

The next photo I looked for was a face that really spoke to me. This is a photo I took of my granddaughter, Ellington. It was Christmas and she had gotten this Lite-Brite as a gift. She decided that she wanted to make a self-portrait. We turned the lights off so that she had a side light. I thought this turned out beautifully. I've always loved the way her eyes look in this photo.

I dropped-out the background and most of her hair. After I placed the face in the sky photo I decided it needed a bit more adjusting so I dropped out a bit more of the left side of her face.

In PSE you can move the image around, so I auditioned the face until I found just the right placement. I printed the results on an 11 x 14 piece of cotton sateen. Quilting will have to come later.

All comments are welcome

Palmetto Moon

I knew when I read this challenge that I really wanted to do this one. I'm leaving Tuesday on a trip so I knew I wouldn't have time to make this up in fabric. However, this is a project where you can, at least, make the cut out and design.

I started playing with some free form designs but soon came up with the idea to make SC's state logo. A palmetto tree with a crescent moon. It took me about four tries to get it to this stage.

I have the white freezer paper pattern ironed to a black fabric. I like this and will eventually turn it into a quilt

Sanctuary

The idea for this piece began by planning to make a layered photo piece that would finish out at 13 x 18. I had plans to use it as a study for a larger piece. The idea didn't work and I had two pieces printed already so I started playing and the project morphed into 37" x 45" piece.

I started out with two photos taken at a bird sanctuary on Harbor Island, SC, I blended the photos in PSE to achieve the final image. One of the photos was taken at sunset and the water reflected the pink in the sky. They are printed on silk habotai, cotton sateen, silk organza and tulle. The background is a purchased hand dye. I've had the hand dye piece of fabric for years and finally found the right use for it.

Carol I hope this fits the challenge. While the piece is not quilted I do have the top done. Getting this far in less than a week on large piece is quite an accomplishment for me. I'm so glad this group is staying together.

Any comments would be appreciated.

Lost in the Music

I haven't been able to participate in the last two or three challenges. When I saw this one come up Friday I felt that I just had to make time for this one.

The photograph of my granddaughter was taken in a low light setting and it looks as if she were outlined two or three times. I tried to capture the solitude of a performer on stage or an athlete getting ready to compete.

The size is 22"x27" and is not quilted, that will have to wait. I am writing more details on my blog tonight, I hope. Any comments would be appreciated. I hope I
captured the representational/abstract that I was aiming for.

I had quite a few people ask me to post this piece again when I finished the quilting. I decided to echo around the figure giving it the illusion of movement.

Closeup of "Lost in the Music".

Color Movement

The size of "Color Movement" is 10 x 10. I have been doing a lot of computer manipulation of photos recently and decided to go with this for my March challenge. The design started from a photo of one of my quilts. I used the distort filter and worked with it until I came up with this design.

I had to print it on two sheets of fabric to get it the size I wanted. I then sewed them together. I really like the ways the colors moved across the area thus, the name
Color Movement.

Would really appreciate comments.

Challenge # 53

Boy was I happy when I saw this challenge for Feb. The past two have been way out of my comfort zone. Educational but out of my zone. I have worked in this manner for quite some time so was glad for this breather.

Almost all of my work starts with inspiration from a photograph. This one was taken by my husband in NY. I chose a commercial grass fabric for the background and used hand-dyed fabrics for the cone flowers. After I placed and fused the flowers to my satisfaction I painted over them to get depth. I used Tsukineko inks diluted with Aloe jell. I've found that that gives me much more control over the ink's flow. I free motion quilted grass in the background and enhanced the flower with thread. This piece finished out at 11" x 11" but I may mat with an 8 x 10. Comments are appreciated

Poinsettia

22" x 18"

I started out this project by choosing a shape. While working at the Arts Center, in Clemson, last week I had time on my hands and started doodling with the idea in mind of coming up with a shape for this project.

Terry Jerrard-Diamond ,whom I took a class from recently, taught us to take paper and cut it into shapes and place them on a background until we came up with something pleasing. I cut out a lot of the same shapes brought it up to my great room and laid it out on my ottoman. I posted about this on my blog. http://marilynhwall.blogspot.com/

The next morning I took the shapes down to my studio and started working again. I tried my best to stay abstract but realism won out. What can I say.

I have not quilted this yet but don't see it happening until after the holidays. I two have been working from my stash, not intentionally but because I have soooo much fabric. I also have been working a lot in black and white with a touch of red. This was not intentional in this project but just seemed to happen. Comments are very welcome. Did you see anything on my blog post that had potential?

PS: the name came from my husband. When it saw it his comment was "looks like a poinsettia".

Challenge #50

Golden leaves shimmer
Posed against an azure sky
Rot and make new life


I took a class with Pat Mink in July that concentrated on working in PhotoShop to enhance and blend photographs. The class also concentrated on printing on fabrics. I was interested to see that Louise chose this technique for her challenge as well.

I chose this method to carry out the theme of my Haiku. I decided to use white sateen fabric to give the illusion of shimmer on the leaves. I blending two photographs. One is a maple tree just beginning to leaf out in the Spring. The other is a close-up a golden maple leaf. As I began to quilt the piece I felt the branches of the tree looked as if they followed the veins in the leaf.

This is small for me, it measures about 7" x 7". As with most of my small pieces I decided to frame it and write my Haiku on the mat. I would do it differently next time. My writing is not the prettiest in the world so I would have printed it on paper stock and had a small cut made in the mat.

This was a real challenge for me since I had never written a Haiki or any other poetry. I think that I enjoyed composing the poem more than making the art work. So thanks for introducing me to Haiku. I have not posted on the other site yet as I'm having trouble remembering how to do so and I wanted to get this posted. I will do that later when I have more time.

As always I would appreciate comments.

Portrait of Aubrey

I've been doing a lot of work with portraits this past year. I am finding it to be both a challenge and lots of fun.

This portrait is of my granddaughter, Aubrey. My daughter takes Aubrey and her sister Hannah to the beach each year to take photographs for their Christmas cards. This picture was taken by her at sunset and the light was coming in was coming in very low to her right.

I used a filter in Photoshop Elements to get the abstract look and chose a gradation of four fabrics to achieve the lighting. I would appreciate any comments on the piece.
Thanks
Marilyn in SC