Art Every Day, Monday, June 17, 2013
Good Afternoon,
After spending way too much time this morning on the computer..... I finally got up and did today's piece. It's my day off from the studio so I let myself slack off this morning looking at artist's sites, recipe sites, facebook, yada, yada, yada.
One of the nice things about doing these small pieces each day is that I can test out ideas and theories without a huge investment like I did with this piece. There are a lot of ideas that I flout about as I teach and talk about art quilting and one of them is the idea of "over quilting", meaning quilting in such a way as to overwhelm both the quilt and the viewer. So, I thought I'd give it a try with this piece.
I tried to over quilt it as much as I could stand. The piece is very simple with no piecing for the quilting to easily overwhelm, but there is high contrast and an intricate piece of vintage crochet. I love how despite the quilting it's really easy to see the layering. The largest, darkest piece of cotton on the right hand side was laid down first on top of gray batting. Then the smaller rectangle of Mexican Jute went down on the left hand side. Next the doily bit was placed and its raw edge was covered with the strip of canvas which was finally topped with the long strip of watermelon colored cotton.
Everything but the red was quilted in light gray and the red was top stitched in a matching thread. I chose to do the largest density of quilting in the large neutral area because it was reading farthest back (this is the opposite of what I would usually do). Then I placed the smallest or closest density in the neutral on the left hand side. It was sitting in the mid ground and surprisingly still is. The long feather in the canvas section has a density that is between the densities in the other two sections. It's more decorative but there are areas where it does not contrast with the fabric and therefore you loose some of the design. It is sitting in the mid ground behind the red strip. The piece of crochet is only top stitched around the edge and once through the vertical middle. It is coming forward along with the red strip.
I love the ghostly look of the darkest fabric with it's bits of light gray shining through and how it is receding despite the fact that it isn't as heavily quilted as the other gray areas. But it's dark and it is under everything else.
All in all, it was a great experiment. I only wish that I had tried to find another doily arc or reduced the number down to one. The two are somewhat boob like.
Till tomorrow,
Heather
1 comment:
I read all the way through your description, thinking about what you were saying, looking at the piece, and then I got to the end, and had to laugh out loud. Because that is SO like you, to just say out loud what we are all thinking. And that is one of the many things I love about being your friend. You are always honest and I love that. It also makes for great fun in classes. lol
I suppose this is one of those pieces where the color is doing its job, despite the quilting. I think the moody piece of dark fabric on the right would look the farthest back even if you hadn't quilted it at all, because even using the bigger quilting in the lighter color didn't bring it forward.
The others, with their variations won't do anything but sit where they are in the mid-ground, but I wonder if that is because they are so similar to the batting behind them?
I also wonder if thread color made a difference in how they acted? I found myself wondering what the piece on the far left would have done if the bubbles had been black instead of grey?
I love the pops of color against the stormy grays in this and you did a great job of balancing the asymmetry. That's such a tough thing to pull off in my opinion.
I really enjoy the texture in this one too. The doily is great both visually and texturally, and the quilting is a lot of fun, especially on the right, where it looks like a giant web you should be beware of. And if I haven't mentioned it before, the flecks of metallic that are sometimes in the batting are fantastic.
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