Art Every Day, Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Good Afternoon,

Here is today's new piece.  What fun it was to do!  I began by layering blue violet on violet batting which was topped with a blue green square which was topped with a strip of light blue canvas.  I finished it off by tucking the edge of a vintage napkin under part of the canvas.  

It's pretty easy to see the quilting with the tight crosshatch in the background, swirly flourishes in the mid ground and the leaves stitched up the light blue canvas.  I completed it by coloring in the leaves "Quilt & Color" style using fabric markers then added miniscule dots around the leaves and vine to amp it up just a notch.

I love it; cool, simple, fun,

Till tomorrow,

Heather

 

Art Every Day, Monday, May 20, 2013,

Here is today's piece.  I'm still struggling, (because I keep forgetting to bring it home), with not having all of my tools/fabrics/stuff at home to make art with on my days off.  So I threw this little beast together with whatever I could find and hoped for the best.  I will probably go back and add the twisted yellow fabric all the way around the perimeter cause I like it, but I didn't have enough.  I like the quilting in the reddish area and how it echos not only the black stitched designs, but also the black and white stamped swirls.  The orange is a bit of vintage hankie.  The piece is noisy and a bit obnoxious, but I like it anyway because of it's friendly boldness.

Till tomorrow,

Heather

 

Art (Almost) Every Day, Sunday, May 19, 2013

Well, here is yesterday's piece.  I made it last night but found that I had forgotten my camera at the gallery and was not in the mood to go get it at 10:00 p.m.  So, here it is today.

It's a very simple piece; a layer of blue violet hand dyed cotton on top of black batting topped with a hand dyed piece of vintage crochet.  I dyed the crocheted piece from yellow to red from the center out and simply stitched it down as I quilted.  Easy, peasy.  I love how the light is glowing from the center and is quieter and softer around the edges.  Leave it to high contrast to turn on the energy!

and now, today's piece.....

 

 

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