Art Every Day, Saturday, May 18, 2013

Good Evening,

Here is today's newest piece.  I had one student in a Quilt & Color class today so I made a piece myself.  This started out a piece of white fabric layered with batting and backing.  I free form stitched the fish first then added all of the sections in the tail, body and fins.  Finally I stitched the sea plants and coral in the background along with the sand floor.

After the quilting was completed I used Fabrico markers to color in the bulk of the designs with a little bit of Tsukineko ink used in the background and some of the larger portions of the motifs.  When it was all done I found it way too bright so I did a wash of pale, sandy brown ink over the entire surface to quiet the whole thing down.

I love this technique.  It's possible to do just abut anything and it's just pure fun too.

Till tomorrow,

Heather

 

Art Every Day, Friday, May 17, 2013

Good Evening,

I'm trying to get this written before our 3rd Friday event starts. So here goes....

I began with the only dye painted batting I had at home (I took the morning off from the gallery and don't really have my mini home studio set up yet).  I grabbed the large black piece of fabric that has the discharged, filigree design on it along with a piece of mottled gray canvas and dark gray jute.  I stitched the hell out of the negative space of the discharged piece so that the filigrees would stand out then I stitched the jute in a miniscule crosshatch.  I stitched the elaborate design on the mottled gray piece then colored it in using a fabric marker.  Lastly, I added the three beads to repeat the batting color.

I'm not sure how much I like it.  I know that I don't "not" like it, but the scale and proportion of the two swirly designs are a bit weird. The smaller design is physically in front of the larger design which is a bit confusing to the eye because our sensibility says it should be the other way around.  

Ah well,

Tomorrow is another day for art making, till then,

Heather

Art Every Day, Thursday, May 16, 2013

Good Afternoon,

Here is today's new piece.  I wanted to play with red and black and the really pretty batting you see underneath these fabrics.  So, I ripped the base red fabric so that I had about 3/4" of batting showing on all sides then I ripped the dark gray strips and laid them down.  I then laid down the piece of light red and folded the ends of the dark gray strips up over it then folded pleats into gray strips and pinned them down.  Finally, I ripped some squares from a dyed black and started stitching.  

I wont explain the stitching, you can see it for yourself, but I love how the layers look and how the stitching is effecting the depth.  I also really like the dimensionality of the pleated up bits and I really, really like the color combo.

I also spent quite some time in the past two days working on the open/closed signs for my gallery.  They are pictured below.  They were fun, but really ate up the time.  They were quilted first on the bright yellow green using black thread then I painted them using Silks paints.

Till tomorrow,
Heather

 

Art Every Day, Wednesday, May 15th, 2013

Good Afternoon,

Here is today's new piece.  I wanted to have fun with contrasting stitch and textural embellishments.

I began with a piece of yellow, heavy canvas and topped with bits of orange, red violet and more yellow.  I stitched the background in yellow thread using a mix of straight lines moving in every direction with swirls thrown in every so often.  I stitched the orange with red violet thread and swirls.  It was really orange until I stitched it, now it's pretending to be red violet.  The red violet square was stitched with straight lines and matching thread and the yellow pineapple silk in the middle was stitched with red violet thread to really accentuate the stitching.  I topped it all with a knot of ribbons, threads and torn fabrics.  It looks like a present! I like how the stitching has allowed each layer to act independently from each other. 

Now, I'm off to paint the vest I'm going to wear to the opening reception of the show "Spun" at the Denver Art Museum tonight - fun, fun.

Till tomorrow,

Heather

 

Art Every Day, Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Good Evening,

Despite fighting with my machine most of the afternoon, here is today's new piece. 

I'm always extra pleased when I can manipulate color to my will, which is exactly what took place here.

I began with this yummy, blue/brown color way, throwing it on a bright white ground that was set on top of a delicious blue green tinted batting.  I really just wanted to push the envelope with texture then bully the white and make it bend my way. 

So, I layered everything up and stitched down the blues with simple blue lines and the brown with some biggish stippling.  The nubby bits that run down just left of center and the brown bits along the edge of the cheesecloth are some of the strings/threads that come out of our washing machine during the dyeing process - it was the cluster of those fibers that made me choose the blue/brown color combo.  Anyway, they were stitched down with blue thread too.

It's what I did to the white that excites me.  Because a pure, crisp white like this one always tries to rise to the surface above most colors sometimes even pure hues, I quilted the hell out of it with a minute 1/8", straightish crosshatch grid and viola! back it goes into negative space - take that you overbearing white! I win.

At least until tomorrow,
Heather

 

Art Every Day, Monday, May 13, 2013

Good Afternoon,

I got up this morning and immediately started "Spring Cleaning". With all of the moving from one studio to another on the tails of a teaching trip as well as trying to keep up with wholesale orders, my house has been bordering on mayhem for quite some time.  So, I'm spending my two days off from the new gallery/studio, getting my home space in order - it's  really a gross mess!

I threw this piece together first thing then forgot to upload it - so here it is now.  It began with some finger painted/over dyed linen in tones of red violet and orange with some hints of yellow orange.  I topped it with the black square which I had stamped with red violet De-Colourant some months ago.  I played around with adding more black to quiet down the negative space and came up with the placement you see above.  The quilting is somewhat simple, lots of black stitching in the negative space of the stamped design then some decorative stitching with two threads through the needle, one yellow orange and one hot pink. Then some simple wavy lines in the negative spaces with the same two threads and to finish it off I added some knarley knotted up bits of fibers to the center of the stamped square and the lower geometric black shape.  

I'm rather pleased with this little one, I find it fun to work with some of my older exploratory bits and pieces.  There's always a risk when adding stitch in contrasting thread but I think it's working rather well here.

Hope you have a glorious day, till tomorrow,

Heather

  

Art Every Day; Sunday, May 12, 2013

Good Evening and Happy Mother's Day,

Here is today's new piece.  It is made entirely from dye painted batting.  Everything is free form cut with scissors (I inadvertently took all of my rotary cutting tools to my new studio). I began by cutting the gray batting sections to place on the two opposing corners.  Then I topped the gray sections with little flourishes in two more colors.  Next, I cut the stems, leaves and flowers. I laid everything out to make sure I liked the layout then removed everything so that I could stipple the background.  Then I put the corner pieces back in place and quilted them.  Next, I repositioned the stems and stitched them down along both edges.  Next I stitched on the long narrow leaves, right up the center only.  Then I added the lower flowers by stitching down the centers only.  I stitched on the upper flowers using a sloppy, swirly stitch to make them look like lilacs.  The smaller leaves are stitched up the center with veins added to make them curl up a bit.

I love how the batting responds to stitch, it curls up along the edges and shows the slightly lighter color of the backside.  It is of course quite a bit thicker than fabric so there is a whole bunch of physical depth too. It was a fun little experiment.

Till tomorrow,

Heather