Art Every Day, Thursday, January 31, 2013

Good Afternoon,

What joy! I love, love, love this quick and easy piece.  I just set back and listened to the piece of dyed canvas.  I pulled out a mess of hand dyed ribbons, trims, cheesecloth and other weird stuff and watched as my hands danced over it and laid it in place.  I tied it all up in a bow then stitched it all down. Pleased. Very Pleased. A great way to finish off my first month of making art every day. 

Hope your day has been a delight,

Till tomorrow,

Heather

 

Art Every Day, Wednesday, January 30, 2013,

Good Morning,

Last night while watching an episode of ART21 I heard this artist say the most wonderful thing.  I'll have to go back and get her name, but to paraphrase it she said; "When the line wavers, when it's imperfect, that's where the beauty is".  I couldn't have said it better myself.

This new piece plays with more of my rayon ribbon, this time it's rainbow dyed and laid atop either black or white.  I added some rainbow dyed rattail in a maze like structure and threw it across the other areas too.  The maze like quilting in the negative spaces between the strips of ribbon repeat the rattail maze and cohere the piece together.

It makes me happy.

Till tomorrow,

Heather

 

Art Every Day, Tuesday, January 29th, 2013

Good Morning,

Here is today's new piece.  I'm still playing around with that delicious cheesecloth and rayon ribbon. I think I may have overdone it with this piece.  The swath of color is so large in comparison to the size of the background that it dwarfs it.  Scale is so important especially when working really small or really large.

My intent was to really invite the color in to the black background but now looking at it as a photograph I see that I could have made each strip of color about half the width and made sure that all of the colors together did not take up more than one third of the design field rather than half of the field which is what I did.  Basically, I didn't leave enough background to support the foreground.  

I do however, like the quilting in the negative space and how it tries to support, through repetition, the focal point.  Ah, I love to learn!

Till tomorrow,

Heather

 

Art Every Day, Monday, January 28th, 2013

Good Morning,

Here is today's new piece.  Normally I crop the photo so that it looks neat and tidy on all sides, but the bits hanging over the edges of the top and bottom of this piece are playing vital roles so I wanted to show you the whole thing.

Today I wanted to continue playing with embellishments and began this piece by laying out strips of dyed rayon ribbon in a mix of yellow through blue green. Once the ribbon was stitched down, I added the flow of cheesecloth and lightly stitched it in place then glued on the string of bone beads.

I like it overall, but find the placement of the beads a little too predictable.  I might add some more, but, maybe not. I do like how the color in the strips of ribbon are playing off as negative space.  I will likely explore that some more.

Till tomorrow,

Heather

 

Art Every Day, Saturday, January 27, 2013

Good Afternoon,

I took the rare opportunity this morning to sleep in.  It was nice not rolling out of bed till 9:00.  But it sure does make it hard to fit in everything you want to do on your day off when you get started two hours later than usual!

Here is today's new piece.  It's all about texture.  I'm always sorry that you all don't get to see the rough edges in these pieces.  Seeing them squared up like in the photo above isn't nearly as good.  Well, anyway, I began this piece with some dyed painted batting that I layered up with two different colors of cheesecloth along with three different dyed, crumpled fabrics, some cotton ribbon, wool fibers and a strip of velvet. Everything is stitched down rather loosely and bone beads were added at the end. 

I risked mayhem by adding so many different mediums so I kept the color way very simple with mostly red  violets and yellow orange (gold),  Before adding the bone beads and the dark strip of velvet, there were no focal point or counterpoint, just a bunch a texture strewn about the surface.  I like how the hard, round and triangular beads move your eye across the surface and with the help of the ribbons/fibers/velvet drive the eye as though going through a maze. This is one of my favorite color ways but I think it ended up a little heavy on the red violet and doesn't have enough of the gold.

Making it felt a bit like making one of my sculpted quilts. Plus it was a lot of fun using so many of my hand dyed products.  All in all, a great way to start the day.  Now, a bit of housekeeping, then a movie with my man.

Till tomorrow,

Heather

Art Every Day, Saturday, January 26, 2013

Good Morning,

This morning I was pondering, as I have been for about a week now, the meaning of beauty. I watched a documentary on the painter/cartoonist/writer, Wayne White, last week and he finished off a lecture he was giving with the words, "Make beauty". All week I've been wondering what the hell that means.  Clearly what he considers beauty is different from what I consider beauty.  

Today's new piece is a bit of writing on the subject of beauty.  I simply layered some green dye painted batting with some yellow dyed silk then set on a piece of blue cotton and blue dye painted Lutradur.  I then stitched a flower in the blue area and cut away the excess from the edge of said flower.  Next, I stitched some sentiments in the background using matching thread.  I then finished the edge with some twisted, rainbow dyed rayon ribbon then went after the flower with the heat gun.  The bonus; the gun burned the silk! Yeah, I love the burned silk around the "damaged" flower.  Is it still beautiful? For me, there is no beauty without meaning and power.  This was a great exploration!

Till tomorrow,

Heather

Art Every Day, Friday, January 25, 2013

Good Morning,

Here is today's new piece, in two orientations.  The way I designed it on the bottom and the way I believe it should hang on the top.  Note how the squares on the upper half of the piece shown in the bottom photo  look as though they might make the piece topple over on you whereas all of the squares in the photo on the top look as though they are moving out toward you, flowing from the bottom.  

My reason for doing this piece, which is very similar to one that I made earlier but with circles, was to see how adversely effected the foreground of warm colored squares would be by the highly decorative triple clam shell design stitched in the cool negative space. I was very pleasantly surprised by the fact that the background stitching has not overwhelmed the foreground.  The color as well as the on top positioning of the squares is trumping the texture in the background.  Plus, the quilting is quite heavy and is contributing to the color of the background's desire to recede.  All in all, a very good study!

Off to the studio to dye!

Till tomorrow,

Heather

 

P.S. Thanks again to both Steph and Christa for your comments. I can't tell you enough how nice it is to get feedback on these design studies.  I'm so glad you're journeying with me.