Living This Creative Life

I have two favorite quotes. The first one is by Emile Zola, "If you asked me what I came into this world to do, I would tell you that I came to live out loud". I don't know who the second one is by, but it goes like this, "If you're not living on the edge then you might as well jump". Both of these sentiments sum up my personal philosophy of this experience we call life on earth. Enjoy!

Sunday, February 3, 2013

Art Every Day, Sunday February 3, 2013

Good Afternoon,

So, I have to confess, this took me about 3 hours.... yes, 3 hours to complete a little piece that is just 9" x 11".  I knew it would take longer than my 1 hour window, but I wanted to try out a new technique. I had lunch with my daughter, Jaz, the other day and bemoaned to her that she has not yet asked me to be a featured artist at one of the art shows that she manages.  She responded with "I figured we get to this sooner or later... how 'bout you do the next one... April/May".  Thus reminding me of the old adage (one of my favorites) "be careful what you wish for, you just might get it". So, since I haven't put out a whole lot of new work since the last show I had which was about 18 months ago, I'm going to have to get busy and try to get around 8 new pieces done in the next two months.  No biggie, I love working under pressure!
This piece features a base of raw silk that was topped with a 3" strip of lightish blue Lutradur which was topped with several layers of silk hankie fibers dyed in bright warm colors which was in turn topped with a fine layer of cheesecloth dyed in the same color way as the fibers. I stitched half of the layered section using red violet thread and the other half using bright orange thread because I ran out of the red violet.  It's all stitched with circles with heavy stitching between them.  I tore away the cheesecloth and fibers in some of the circles to reveal the blue Lutradur underneath.  This was done as I stitched.



The photo on the left shows the piece after all of the quilting was done but no melting had been done.  The piece on the right shows a closeup of the burned away Lutradur in some of the circles as well as the background stitching which is about 1/16" apart.

This was very fun to do and I will definitely use this technique for the show.

Till tomorrow,
Heather

1 comment:

me said...

Another piece I REALLY want to see in person! Your photos are great, especially the close up one after you are finished- but I would love to see the texture for myself.

Another tip for the notes I am taking through this- layering a certain way allows you to stitch through things that maybe would be a nightmare otherwise, like silk hankies!

How great that you ran out of one color thread and added another, it's so interesting to see the vein of red violet through the orange!

Having the blue circles peek through like that adds so much dimension and really pulls the background into the scheme of things.

I don't quite understand HOW you made the circles pop out like that, but I would like to learn. I just love how the threads of the cheesecloth make grids on the other circles. I have really not used cheesecloth very often, but you are really showing its versatility in this series.

As always, your quilting is divine :) Congrats for getting another show!