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!

Saturday, March 2, 2013

Art Every Day, Saturday, March 2, 2013

Good Morning,

Here is today's new piece.  Yesterday I got to teach the second half of a batik painting class and my students enjoyed themselves and their new work so much that I decided that I needed to dig out some of my old batiks and use them in some of my daily art.  So, that's what got this piece started.

I chose to work with a fat quarter that had lots of free form swirls, squares and wavy lines.  I cut out a portion of it then cut that portion into long pieces along some of the white resist lines.  Then I toppped the violet batting with the slightly toned blue green.  On top of that, I set down the portions of the batik with some space between them for quilting.  

One of the things that is so fun about batik is that the resist lines are natural stitching lines, so I just followed them with white thread, knowing that I was going to add some decorative stitch in the negative space just to see how it would effect the positive space in the batik. I chose a blue green thread that was just slightly darker than the fabric and stitched designs that I knew would draw attention, but not too much.  I really like the way that the negative space with all it's decorative stitching is still being able to push the batik designs forward.  I think that is happening mostly because the background is toned and the white of the batik is so bright.

Till tomorrow,
Heather

1 comment:

me said...

Wow, that looks like fun to make batiks!

I didn't realize that there were so many separate pieces until I enlarged your photo. It is very cohesive and even though the white does stand out, the blue green looks like it is a part of your batik.

I love that the quilting in the background shows and I think the fact that it does have pattern is what supports the batik so well. It makes it look like one whole piece of cloth sitting on the violet. Very cool.