Art Every Day, Tuesday, June 25th, 2013

Good Afternoon,

Here is today's new piece.  In real life it's much more straight yellow and green.  The batting is green too.  Not sure why it photographed so blue and the yellow so, yellow orange.  Anyway, I wanted to manipulate white again and play with stitch motifs in contrasting color.   

I laid a piece of yellow dyed, mid-weight canvas down first and tucked the white down underneath it.  I topped the white with the five green squares then added the green (not blue) cotton lace which I topped with more white, some ripped yellow linen and a long strip of green velvet.

The squares are top stitched as is the green strip, small white rectangle and lace, each in a matching color.  I did the decorative leaf motif in bright green and quilted the white background with yellow thread, which you can barely see, in straghtish lines about 1/8" apart. 

The heavy stitching managed to push the white back and keep it behind the yellow where it physically is.  The big piece of yellow seems to sit on the same mid-ground as the green squares which is surprising to me, but it's probably doing that because of the heavyish green quilting.  

I like the piece, it's very spring like in it's coloration which pleases me.  

I've been playing with some very unusual compositions lately and coming up with some strange stuff.  This ones a bit off.  It's not really unbalanced, but it's got a strange balance.  I tried positioning it every which way and it looks best like this.

Well, I'm off at o'dark thirty tomorrow morning, flying to Cleveland to teach at the NQA show.  I've stitched up a bunch of daily pieces so I can keep up with this little project!

Till tomorrow,

Heather

 

Art Every Day, Monday, June 24, 2013

Good Afternoon,

Here is today's new piece.  It began with the vintage hand dyed turquoise hankie and some various neutral cottons and a medium gray batting.  I layered it all up so that I could feature the hankie on the bottom and right and the brown fabric with it's weird, stitched paisley on the upper left. 

 It is all very heavily quilted. and I love the quilting in the turquoise border the most. It gives it so much depth.  The background behind the brown rectangle is quite weird because it varies between dark and light and therefore it recedes in some areas and tries to come forward in others.  The stitched paisley doesn't show as well as I had hoped.  I now wish I had used a heavier thread for it. 

 I also wish that I had not tucked in the small bit of hankie lace just under the bottom right corner of the brown rectangle.  I think it's a bit much. I love this brown/turquoise color combo it's lively yet calm.

Till tomorrow,

Heather 

 

Art Every Day, Saturday, June 22, 2013

Good Afternoon,

Here is today's new piece.  I began it with the center most fabric that I created yesterday with thickened dyes.  I grabbed a couple of cottons in slightly mottled red violet and blue  to go with it along with some turquoise canvas and deep blue Mexican jute.  I layered it all up on top of some dull blue green boiled wool and stitched.  

The center is quilted in a dull blue green with just a few intersecting straight lines stitched at different angles.  The blue cotton is quilted in alternating straight lines and the red violet has a decorative feather in it.  

My favorite part is the coiled fabric circle in the turquoise square.  I like the piece, but mainly because I like the dye painted fabric.  However, it does have some balance issues which I would work to fix if it weren't a daily piece. 

There will always be another one tomorrow and I look forward to using this fabric again.

Till then,

Heather

Art Every Day, Friday June 21/Saturday, June 22,

Good Morning,
I actually made this yesterday and ran out of time before my private student arrived then as soon as I was done with her I had to set up and host our 3rd Friday event at the gallery.  Then, I told myself I would just take it home at the end of the evening (9:30) and get it uploaded then.  Well, I forgot both it and my camera at the gallery and was not going back for it.  So here it is now!

I began by laying yellow green and blue strips of hand dyed fabric down on a violet batting.  Both fabrics have jacquard circles on them.  Then I ripped squares in solid white, orange, watermelon, blue violet and a scrap of hand painted.  I layered those every-which-way on top of the strips of fabric and stitched it all down using a light, bright very yellow, yellow green. I used wiggle, horizontal lines in the blue background and stitched around the circles and stippled in the green background.  Both the blue violet and white squares got a stitched fan-like treatment and the warm colored squares were just top stitched.  I top stitched around the painted square and outlined the swirl.

My goal here was to see how the piece would react to just one color of thread, one that contrasted with all of the colors and how using colors that were somewhat disparate from each other would look in such a simple construct. I really like the whole thing.  It's got great depth and the circles in the green background just pop and help you see the small polka dots in the center painted square. The white acts as a great mid ground, strongly pushing the squares on top of it forward.

Till later today,
Heather

 

Art Every Day, Thursday, June 20, 2013

Good Morning,

It's been a long time since I've been able to begin an entry with that salutation.  It feels really good to be doing this earlier in the day! 

Here it today's newest piece.  It is an exploration in texture and embellishment.  I began by layering two fabrics on to red painted batting.  One fabric is a mostly yellow torn canvas and the other, larger one is a watermelon colored silk noil.  I toppend the yellow with some cheesecloth, silk organza and silk fibers and stitched them all down with far apart, wiggly vertical lines.  Then I quilted the watermelon colored background with swirls of various sizes.

Next, I cut the squares out of orange and yellow orange and set them in place.  I grabbed a bunch of fibers and ribbons and cut them into small segments and tucked them under the bottom edges of the squares.  Then I ironed the squares down and stitched them with a square swirl.  Next I grabbed some more fibers and twirled them up together and loosely tacked them down on the upper yellow canvas section.  

The last thing I did was add the circular dyed bone beads; one in each square and lots of them tucked into the fibers above.  I sort of like the piece.  It's a bit busy.  I like how the watermelon color sits in the background allowing the squares and fibers to come forward in the lower section and how the yellow upper section comes even more forward and pushes all of its fiber even more forward than that.  It's got great depth and loads of interest.

Well I'm off to chat up our Artist Talk for tomorrow night,

Till tomorrow,

Heather

 

Art Every Day, Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Good Afternoon,

Here is today's new piece.  It was my goal to see if I could coax the black, yellow green and white fabrics in the negative space to look like an integrated background while using some remnants of hand painted fabrics as focal points and adding highlights of strips in blue and red thus repeating all of the colors in the painted pieces.

I'm rather please with the piece and surprised by a few things too.  Look how much wider the painted square looks than the long painted strip.  Yet, I cut the square right off the top of the strip.  This is because of their backgrounds.  The white is expanding the square whereas the black is shrinking the strip. I'm also surprised by how bright and bossy the blue/red horizontal strips became after I quilted all of the horizontal stripes in the background.  What pleases me most is how integrated the background became after I quilted in using one color of thread, bright blue, on all three colors of fabric.  The white is trying like mad to come forward and it does look a little closer than the green and black, but it's still sitting behind everything else.

I WIN! I can control color, even bold white, with quilting.... and you can too.

Till tomorrow,

Heather 

 

Art Every Day, Tuesday, June 18, 2013,

Good Afternoon, 

Here is today's new piece and no, I wasn't craving pepperoni pizza while I was making it.  In fact I didn't notice it's resemblance to said pizza until I photographed it and now it's all I can see.

My intent was to use some more hand painted fabrics and to add to it a lot of texture and build on the movement the painted fabric contained by adding the couched, rolled strips.  

I do like the movement and the over and under undulation of the blue violet strips and I like the yummy frayed edges of the yellow linen.  I'm also digging the split complement of the blue violet with yellow and orange.  

The downside, other than it's pizza-ness, is that I really did some fun quilting in the negative space which you really can't see and I'm shocked at how much the white is coming forward in the painted pieces.  If I did such a thing, I would go back and quilt it heavily to make it recede more.  But that is not what these exercises are about.  They are about exploring the possibilities and seeing what happens.

Till tomorrows exploration,

Heather