Art Every Day, Sunday, June 9, 2013,
Good Afternoon, here is today's new piece. If you're looking for yesterday's work, I honestly forgot about it until about 10 last night and I was too damned worn out to do anything at that point. So, today's will have to suffice.
Today is my 6th anniversary with my hubby, Tom. He gave me a card this morning with this fun metal heart in it. He said that iron is what you give on your sixth and that he figured I'd find a way to use it in my art and I did.
I began with a piece of dark orange hand dye (one of my favorite colors) which I laid on top of some blue batting (his favorite color). I quilted it with a wavy crosshatch that is about 1/4" to 1/2" apart. Then, I stamped it using 6 different heart stamps and various blues. I then attached the iron heart with some hand dyed blue embroidery floss and couched some variegated orange rattail along the edge where the fabric meets the batting using some blue green thread.
Though I'm not a big lover of heart motifs I'm quite pleased with how this turned out. It's not cutsey like so many heart based things are. The high contrast of the direct complements adds a sense of drama and the layers of stamped motifs in various values/scales of blue add a lovely depth. The sheen of the metal heart is echoed with the sheen of the rattail and stitching the heart down with cotton helps the hard shiny metal not look out of place. All in all, it's a nice piece.
Till tomorrow,
Heather
1 comment:
Happy Anniversary! You gotta love a man who pays attention to some little details- what to give on the right anniversary, and what to give his artist wife :)
What a great study in direct complements! Both the batting and the orange background have lovely color variations which not only add the depth you mentioned but light and interest as well.
There is a lot of visual texture here, not only from the different stamp patterns, but the direction in which they are stamped on the fabric, and the luminosity of the paint they are stamped in.
The background quilting also adds some texture and support and it's interesting to see how it appears to be behind some of the hearts and in front of some of the others.
The iron heart and its floss tethers add some great tactile texture, along with the rattail. These elements also add some beautiful shine to the piece. It's definitely a strong and pretty but not frou-frou heart statement.
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