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!

Thursday, May 30, 2013


Art Every Day, Thursday, May 30, 2013

Good Evening,

Here is today's new piece.  It began with a piece of fabric that I painted last week.  I layered the painted piece on a hand dyed deep blue green cotton voile then tucked in a couple of strips of hand dyed pineapple silk in a deep orange. 
I frayed the hell out of the silk then using a pale tint of yellow thread I stitched around the painted orange circles and blue green spikes then quilted long wavy lines in all of the white background that are about 1/8" apart.  The heavy quilting in the background really pushed the circles and spikes forward.  I stitched small circles in the orange pineapple silk using a variegated brown thread.  I finished the piece off with some simple wavy lines stitched in the blue green and some twisted blue green strips of fabric couched along the two edges with the orange fabric.
I really like the piece.  It's got such great depth, the swirls in the background are a nice play off of the spikes and circles and I like the little bit of black paint that is repeated along the edge with the black batting.
Till tomorrow,
Heather

1 comment:

me said...

I spent a few minutes looking at this after reading your description, because had I not read it, I wouldn't have believed that the circles and spikes were painted and not fused on, and I kept looking for the white background, wondering if the pale tint of yellow thread could actually do THAT to a white background? Did it?

I do realize that colors affect each other as well, and being alongside that lovely orange and having the orange circles could also be affecting the background color.

In any case, the focal points are DEFINITELY being pushed forward by not being quilted.

There is so much beautiful texture in this. I love all of the frayed edges of the silk, the tied ends of the strips, the edges of the voile, and even the texture you got from the small, wavy, vertical quilting.

The wavy quilting also gives great movement. There's an undulating feeling from it, and repeating it on the outside edges gives the whole piece a soft feel. The circles and frayed edges just play right into the undulation, as do the smudges of black, and swirls in the background.