Flip Side Colors

This was a really fun challenge. Such an easy way to choose colors.

I used the package of FlipSides Pretzel Crackers. The colors say "Party".

Applibond flowers with yo-yo centers.......The sprays are beads.

21" square

Challenge 40

The challenge of using advertising for the color scheme was fun.  I choose an upholstery sample of a soft leather-like fabric for the background.  I left the grommets in place as they were round like the Cheerios in the ad, then I decorated them with thread feathers.  My subject is a Kachina collection, which I had a lot of fun with.  Bird feathers from the yard were used on the Sun Kachina.  The circle quilting design was modified from Flathead beadwork (Native America Designs 2 by Joyce Mori).  This doesn't show up well in the photo, but represents the Cherrios on the package in yellow, green and orange.  Thank you Rhoda for this fun challenge.  I found myself smiling while I was making this.  The colors are just so cheerful.  Comments welcome.  Linda Mac in WY

Completed Kalanchoes

Succulents IX and X are completed. They are done from sketches of a potted kalanchoe which sits in my kitchen. These will probably end up matted and framed similar to the last two Succulents. They are both 5 x 7 inches.

I chose my color scheme from a box of noodles. I purposely let the yellow and blue run together to create some green.

Bliss

This was such a fun challenge. I was shopping at Trader Joe's a couple of days ago and the condensed milk can caught my eye. I think it is a new product, but it was the happy colors and shapes that caught my eye. I also liked the punch of black and white in the cow and the title.

I used some prefused scraps and made this little abstract landscape. I added the work bliss because it is my focus word for 2010. I plan to hang this in my studio as a reminder to follow my bliss and not get hung up on deadlines and obstructions.

Still Life with Vase and Bottle

Rhoda's challenge made me scour my cabinets to see what kind of products I had bought. Dull beige and white adult cereal boxes weren't inspiring; the colorful oatmeal box (contrary to Rhoda's theory!) had too many primary colors in it;finally a box of Asia Specialties noodles with a sophisticated color scheme caught me eye, partly because the blue in there meant I could use the blue wine bottle that I've wanted to use in a quilt for a long time.

The inspiration, the design and the fabrics sat on my sewing table for the week while I procrastinated starting. Finally said "Just do it" Saturday afternoon and finished it in several hours. It is only 8 1/2" x 11", fused, with some basic machine quilting done on it. No binding yet. But I am very satisfied with the outcome and feel I stayed fairly true to the colors and proportions in the box.

Lessons I learned: (1)You will never create anything unless you start. (2)Make sure your teflon sheet is free of fusible gunk before using it. (3) Don't try to do fancy spiral free motion quilting late in the afternoon on black fabric with black thread. (4)Be flexible to make changes even in the quilting stage-the original flowers just keeping saying "yuck" to me so they got pulled off and redone as tulips.

I can see doing more still life quilts in the future having successfully finished this one. Now back to snow shoveling.

Nancy Schlegel, Albany NY

Carol Tackett Prize Pods

I used Duracell batteries. The challenge was very interesting. I could not settle on a product nor did I have any good magazines with ads. I was suffering from a case of vertigo so I spent three days in my chair watching TV....the ads were very interesting. Being aware of the messages sent by the color selections was a wonderful addition to my head. I did notice that food ads featured reds, greens and yellows; cleaning products use orange, yellow and navy blue, and toothpaste and mouthwash use the cooling minty greens and cool blues.

My quilt uses black and copper/orange with touches of blue and green which Duracell uses. The batteries that are just thrown away have a touch of blue and the rechargeable ones have a touch of green. This was fun and I welcome comments. I do think that my back ground got a little busy but by that time, it was too late to change.

Lucid

I have always been fascinated by the artwork on wine bottles. I am drawn to graphics that please me, and reject wines that do not. I also have a curiosity about Absinthe - when I was in Europe, I wanted to bring some back, but the Customs literature specifically said no. I think the purpose of these labels is to entice you - they impart a sense of pleasure and well being. Sort of like Alice in Wonderland: "Drink me! Drink me!"

This bottle of Absinth was on sale at Costco during the holiday season. Since I also have a black cat that is part siamese, the picture on the bottle caught my eye immediately.

The piece is mostly fused with a pieced base to look like a drape. I used water soluable crayons and pencils for shading. The glass dish was made with a silk crepe scarf.

This is my first challenge in over a year. It is hard work to be creative, and I tend to beat myself up as most artists do - there is so much talent out there. Enjoy! Now to go eat $20 worth of artichokes!

Blueberry Pancakes

I chose the Bisquick box for the colors Yellow, Blue, Red. All the pieces are cut free-hand with scissors..I fringed the place mat and raw-edge finish on all edges.

For the vase I used a sheer scarf and white sheer fabric for the water line on the vase.Leaves and stems cut from Gold(yellow)
embellished red velvet. One button flower and the large rusty-red flower was a gift from my secret pal..I cut the clip off the back and glued it to the stem.

The last ingredient...the syrup...I poured acrylic paint onto the pancakes and tilted the quilt to let the "Syrup" drip. I want to put a bit more "Syrup" on the pancakes...but the first "syrup" has to dry or it will drip off the plate. This was a real experiment not sure it would work!!

The fork is fake fur.

When I started reading about this challenge there were lots of references and good ones too...I wanted to get started on my challenge so I skipped down to Pamela Allen...She is a favorite of mine..I kind of do her style and always did the free-hand scissor cutting because...I can't draw but I can cut...And I did cut the edges of my quilt uneven!!

Still Life by Cynthia Ann Morgan

I used a Corn Chex package for my color inspiration. I like the crispness of the green and white and the pop of the red. It looks clean and healthy and natural. A bit of turquoise and gold and black add some variety. I didn't quite keep the same proportions of color (I couldn't handle that much white!), but I think it has a similiar crisp feel, don't you?

This was a very challenging challenge and we're getting some cool, interesting results. Thanks, Rhoda for putting together a great learning experience.

Cynthia

Mixed Bouquet

15 X 16 ½

This past year, I have become much more aware of how complimentary colors are used so I chose a product that featured red and green. Perhaps the calming quality of the green gives consumers some assurance that the cereal really doesn’t contain THAT much sugar.

This has been a good challenge for me as I had some difficulty with the still life concept.

Thanks Rhoda for introducing us to another stimulus and source for inspiration. Shopping trips will certainly be more interesting.

Comments are welcome and appreciated.

Pam

Cacti

I studied the psychology of color in advertising and found it quite fascinating. With the 'plant' theme and a still life, I knew exactly what I wanted to make, but I needed to find the advert that contained 'my' colors. After scouring the passel of ads that come with the newspaper, I found "Centrum Silver for Women". I studied the colors against the psychology and it was very easy to see why they use the colors they do:
Gray[silver] for 'practicality',
Purple[wines] for 'rich sophistication',
Yellow for 'happiness and good times',
Green for 'comfortable nurturing and well paced-energy',
Orange for 'fun times...energetic days',
Red for 'energy',
Blue for 'calming... actually causing the body to produce chemicals that are calming'.

So, maybe I need to run out and buy some......it just might help me with my 2010 word: YES.

My piece is based on a stand of 'mother-inlaws' tongue' cacti that appear to grow wild, albeit slowly, in our back garden. I love sitting there, looking through the citrus trees at the cacti and the colors of the fruit and bouganvillea beyond. We also have a 'resident' lizard of some kind and he just sits so very still and watches me.

I hope I have captured that and I look forward to your comments.

I had to contact my friend Sherryl Buchler in order to get the fabric I needed for the containers, that delicious 'berry' fabric.

I really enjoyed this Challenge and thank our hostess
Rhoda Forbes very much.








Size:16.75 x 19.50

Cheez-It Crackers as Inspiration

Right now, I am enamored of red/orange/yellow color schemes, so thought a box of Cheez-It crackers would fill the bill. Many in my family enjoy them, so there is often a box in my kitchen. Actually, I realized after I purchased the box and went to photograph it for this, that I completely missed the blue and black that was in it. Oh, well..!

I went looking for a photo of nature that had some red and oranges and found a photo of wild flowers in a field. I cropped the photo, used the palette knife filter, rotated it, posterized, and turned in to a sketch. Copied the sketch to plain muslin, painted it with some acrylic paint, layered and quilted some.

This piece is small, a little study piece really, about 6" x 10". I enjoyed the process of abstracting from a photo of nature and playing with the colors, and painting on the fabric.

I now am aware that there are many products with red/yellow/orange. I wonder if I simply like the colors or if I am greatly influenced by corporations marketing efforts. Coincidence or not? Since these have not always been my favorite colors, I like to think that it is just a coincidence.

As for the piece itself, it is simply a study piece that I have enjoyed creating. Thanks for the challenge. It got me thinking about everyday sights in a different way and got me to use the colors of which I am so fond, and encouraged me to work with abstracting from a photo.

Any comments are welcome.

Still Life with Melon

Above is my quilt with several changes. I darkened the rind with colored pencils, accentuated the edges of the melon, rind and flowers with darker thread, added striped strips to the borders and I quilted the whole quilt. I took to heart all of the suggestions that were made and implemented most of them. As you can see, the quilt is greatly improved. Once again, all comments are welcome.

The packaging I chose was a box of pita crackers from Trader Joe's. The colors were cool, calming and almost serene. I love working with orange and all its variations and had a great time using my stash. The challenge for me was to get enough contrast between the background and the flowers. The quilt has not been quilted yet so you may see it again when it has been completed!

Ch #40 Bliss

I love dark chocolate. My favorites are Dove and Hershey's Bliss. After researching for this challenge I found out why I always reach for the Bliss..The colors! Brown makes me feel warm, comfortable and secure, pinks, feminine and calming, and the Gold for happiness.

I chose many shades of pink/burgundy/brown for this still life. And the cream color for the highlight on the packaging, you will note some gold leaf here and there.
I had fun with this challenge, and it was a challenge with one good hand!
Is it a coincidense that my first challenge for last year was called 'Blissful Betty', and she had a chocolate cupcake....thoughts of the holidays and all the goodies I guess.

I look forward to your comments.
Happy New Year,
Rhoda

Lemons from Cheerios

I decided to use the Cheerios box since I've been eating them as long as I can remember. As I pondered the box, my eye was drawn to the stainless steel basket of lemons I have on my island, so I went with that idea. I made a small arrangement in a blue bowl and took photos. The lemons are a photo transfer to fabric, except the bottom one which is made from transfer to lutrador, my first use of this product. The bowl is also a transfer to lutrador. I added to the lutrador transfers with pastel dye sticks and watercolor pencils. Upper background is a hand dyed piece of mine. I used a new facing technique to finish it. It's about 8 1/2 by 12 inches. I'm pretty happy with it, as I challenged myself to use new products and techniques and for me, stepped out of my usual abstract/ geometric box. Comments are welcome. Thanks.

Chris Predd

Putting on the Ritz

What a challenge this has been! I had a hard time getting my mind around this concept, but once I saw some of the other entries it became clear. The colors used in packaging are very eye catching and pleasing so “oh Yeah” it is a great place to look for a color theme for a quilt. Since I was so late in getting started, I kept my project down to a manageable size. When going through my pantry I found that I buy a lot of products with this primary color scheme. I liked the ritz box for it’s simplicity and the flow of the crackers swirling about. My composition is an attempt to re-create the general feel of the ritz box. I enjoyed playing with this, and will try it again on a larger project, my quilt is journal size, and has not yet been bound. Any suggestions? Would love your comments as well. Thanks Rhoda for a great challenge.

GRAPES

27" x 35"

I decided a few weeks ago to make a quilt featuring a cluster of grapes. I appliqued grapes, countour quilted grapes, and finally I painted grapes. The painted ones were what I wanted but I tossed them all together and added some grape leaves. Then I couldn't figure out where to go from there. I took this glob of grapes and leaves to a couple of quilt shops and tried out lots of backgrounds but didn't like anything. I set it aside and then along came the Fast Friday Challenge! Ah ha! Froot Loops to the rescue. Somehow looking at the box and the various colored cereal bits reminded me of my grapes. The black outlines around the letters led me toward the black and white polka dots and the red from the box led to the border. The red and green in my piece are more vivid than the photo shows. Thanks a lot for this challenge - it kept my grapes from oblivion!

As always, your comments are welcome and appreciated.

extended rest

My husband always wears an apron like this when he works around the house. One day after a weeks rest he found morning glory growing over everything. Too bad the work isn't as quick as the morning glory. This challange really made me think out of the box. Thank you Rhoda.

Pat Havey

Challenge #40

"Black Tie and Tails" Tulip in Still Life 17"x21"

In leafing through my magazines I quickly pulled out all ads that caught my attention either by color, composition or both. I was surprised to find that at least 75% of them were red, black and white and some silver. What does that say about me?
I used alot of different fabrics, including seven different textures of white. I especially had fun trying many new to me quilting designs.

I am pleased with the result and my hubby loves it.

I would love to 'hear' your comments :-)

Thanks Rhoda for a fun, thought provoking challenge!
Cherie

Jolly Time

Here is my product quilt. I called the quilt 'Jolly Time' for the product. The little figurine is a Willow Tree piece titled 'Happiness' that was a gift from a student several years ago. She had 3 bluebirds on her arms but I colored one red. That way I was able to include both the small amounts of red and blue on the product package. I was going to individually cut out petals for the sunflowers and then while digging in my stash I found fabric that had these huge sunflowers all ready to go so I put fusible under it and put them down. The leaves I cut freehand from a multi-colored green fabric. I couldn't figure out what else to put with the figurine for a still life so I opted to add petals dropping from the flowers. This little quiltlet is a mere 8" x 10" in size.

The first product I had chosen was for Ice Mountain water. It was all blue and white and I couldn't for the life of me come up with a fitting quilt. If I could have done a nature piece rather than still life it would have worked perfectly with the 2 feet of fresh snow that just fell here. So I searched more and found this box of microwave popcorn. Another challenge it turned out for me were the colors since I rarely use orange and yellow much even though I like them.

And, I'm sorry to say the popcorn box didn't reproduce in actual colors. The wild stripes waving across the background are actually yellow and orange and not red like they appear.

This is one of my favorite FFFC quiltlets that I've done over the years. Please comment!

Challenge 40 - The Lone Carrot

Ok - so here it goes - The Lone Carrot - finished size 6 1/2 by 17 inches.

I took a book of Barbara's Puffins - Original. I pieced the back ground in turquoise ranging from dark to light. Then rather than doing a still life - because I didn't have any plants or in my case carrots - I did a gestural drawing of a carrot - couched just a bit of orange yarn for the carrot (kind of like the beak of the puffin) and just a hint of lime green for the leaves. So it probably doesn't quite fall in the still life category but I like the overall results.

Lisa
In Sunny Seattle

Challenge #40

FFFC Challenge #40
Dec.25 Due: Jan. 2 Hostess: Rhoda Forbes

Introduction:
I thought it would be fun to explore why certain colors are used in product packaging. Advertising is a very interesting world of color and perhaps can lead us on another color journey. The question we will answer in this exercise is the ‘why’ of certain colors, and the ‘amount’ of certain colors in product packaging. Please submit a picture of your chosen package along with your finished piece. Tell us a bit about why the colors attract the buyer and how it evokes different moods. Most of all have fun with it.

Color Scheme: Product Packaging
A cereal box is a great place to start. Or perhaps you have a favorite chocolate box, cookie box etc. For this challengewe will use the color scheme from a product package.

Nature Theme: Plants
Use any type of plants in your composition, be it alive or dried. Choose the type of plant that will fit the color scheme you have chosen, or take a ride on the wild side and choose a plant that would not be those colors at all.

Technique: Still Life
Still life can also be mood evoking, and your color scheme and how you use it will reinforce this. Does your package have a lot of one color? Would you use it for the background? Or you can try the opposite and use less of the main color of the package, does it give the same message as the original?

References:
Color Scheme:
Listed below are some websites that give information on why certain color schemes are used. It is all about selling
product. I found them all very interesting. This is a subject I had never gave much thought to until I started researching for this challenge.

How color effects us
http://www.colormatters.com/color_trademark.html

Psychology of Color; Color Psychology and Marketing
http://www.precisionintermedia.com/color.html

How do colors effect our mood
http://iit.bloomu.edu/vthc/design/psychology.htm

Great article on color and placement of cereal boxes, Google your favorite cereal with color scheme following, ie;
Kellogg’s fruit loops color scheme http://tinyurl.com/yemh3yg

General Requirement of colors that sell
http://tinyurl.com/yefzac4

How to use coloring in packaging. There is some great reading here, how Pepsi’s Crystal packaging failed, a good
paragraph on how cereal popularity depends on color.
http://tinyurl.com/y9ez9bc

Why food companies use red.
http://tinyurl.com/ye4oyo6

A very good article on the importance of color in advertising. Print is small so use the magnifier so you can read it.
http://tinyurl.com/ye35wmt

Technique: Still Life
What makes a good composition. When planning a still life this may be the first area we need to review.
This is a very good article on this subject, by Ken Gilliland
http://www.empken.com/tutorials/composition.pdf

How to balance a still life.
http://tinyurl.com/yd2donu

A rather nice article on Paul Cezanne and one of his still life's.
http://maryadamart.com/cezanne_essay.htm

Everything you might want to know about still life compositions. There are a lot of interesting links.
http://www.squidoo.com/still-life

Jean Louis Mireault’s Silk painting Still Life.
http://www.absolutearts.com/portfolios/m/mireault/

Very Modern Textile Still Life
http://srutlandwatercolor.com/galleries/textile-still/cara_mia_dance.html

Still Life of Textile artist Marcia Stein , many versions of a teapot and bowl, very interesting how the backgrounds
site for variations in colors.
http://www.marciastein.com/html/student_work_sla3.html

Pamela Allan, one of my favorite Textile Still Life artists. I took this course with Pamela, my first introduction to
still life. Scroll way down the page to ‘Still Life Is Boring Not’ and view a sampling of Pamela’s Still life
http://pamelart2.homestead.com/newquilts.html

Pamela’s take on Still Life. Scroll down the page to ‘I am offering a new workshop called ‘Still Life….”
She has a neat take on still life. Still life in Pamela’s world is definitely not boring.
http://pamed.homestead.com/home.html

This page has a series of Still Life that I did under Pamela’s tutelage.
http://www.gourdsbyrhoda.com/stillife.html

If you type ‘still life’ into Google and click on images you will come up with many pages.

I hope you have fun with this challenge.
Rhoda

Blue Agate

At last, got to the microphotography.
Sometime back I did some design work based on images of Agates like this. So when the challenge came up, I thought the concept would work here.

This time I used a Blue Agate we have and worked it up as if there had been microphotography work done on it.

At first I layered torn tissue adhering the layers with acrylic wax. Then I fused it to silk organza with Misty Fuse and did the thread work. I touched it up with paint stick and then painted the rim of the agate slice using craft acrylic paints. The whole piece was then fused to white silk dupion and layered and quilted to blend it in on the edges and so on.

The piece is approx. 13" x 14".

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

Diatom and cells

True to form, I was a little late getting started on this, although it is a subject I was interested in pursuing prior to getting the challenge. The odd thing is that over two years ago, I had the idea and started collecting images to do a series on wood....but I didn't do it for this challenge.
This piece is based on a photomicrograph of a fossil marine diatom Actinoptychus heliopelta found in diatomaceous earth, Dunkirk, Maryland, by Stephen S. Nagy.". I intend to put some beads on the center of it and also on the orange bits which go into the center. It measures about 17" in diameter.
You can see Dr. Nagy's original image here
I have never done a circular (or roughly circular) piece before. I also did a lot of multiple layer machine quilting in order to make the veining in the middle (the part that looks roughly like aligator skin). While I have had Shiva paintstiks for about 4 years, I've never used them until now.
I must admit, the quilting, and the fact that I fused all those little yellow triangles down, then satin stitched around each and every one, as well as satin stitched the area on the inside of the tooth, took me far longer than I had ever anticipated.
While waiting for the Shiva to dry, I quickly did this piece since the first one was being a "slow Friday Fabric Challenge". This is a rendition of a tight Cellular Junction. A cellular junction is the structure in a multi-celled organism.
I saw the matte acrylic beads and wanted to use them. The body of the piece is made from two different colors of polar fleece with a "pillow" in between to give it depth.

Because I didn't think it looked finished, I added this fringe on the bottom. The piece measures 10" x 14 1/2"

Lisa Broberg Quintana (aka Michigoose)