Author: Laura Kate

One of six children, I was raised by a busy mom, who instilled in me a love of fabric. Though I learned to sew and knit at a young age, it was the arrival of my first grandchild that pushed me into action. A long-time knitter, I am now ready to explore all things fiber.
Posted in embellishing, hand embroidery, painting

Playing with Fiber Embellishments

Posted on by Laura Kate

Ever since I wove a small tapestry on a hand-made loom, I’ve mused about weaving threads over a water color painting. So today I am playing around with the idea.

I started with this 4 by 6 painting I did last December.

It’s an exercise from Kateri Ewing’s book Watercolor is for Everyone. After drawing two columns of randomly sized rectangles, the artist applies selected colors, reversing the order of application in the second column.

I thought this painting would be a good background for my proposed thread embellishment because of its rectilinear structure. To start, I poked holes at regular intervals along the outside vertical edges. Next I stitched a zigzag pattern across the painting with no. 3 cotton twist thread in a gold color.

Now what, I asked myself. How about creating points along the thread intersections by tying knots? Okay. For this step I chose a dark cool green shade.

To further reinforce the intersections, I painted shapes with a metallic paint.

Not a bad way to spend a quiet afternoon. It was soothing and meditative. It reminded me of those picture stitch cards that I worked as a girl when learning how to sew.

Now I have a brand new perspective on what is possible with paint and thread.

You can learn about Kateri Ewing’s work here:

My Books | Kateri Ewing

Posted in quilting

F.O. Friday: Round Robin Quilt

Posted on by Laura Kate

I’m so happy to get this fiber object moved to the finish line.

CAN YOU TELL HOW HAPPY I AM?

This is my Stay at Home Round Robin quilt, a group quilt project that took place in January and February. You may recall some of my earlier posts on this topic.

SAHRR 2021 Last Round Celebration

After all the piecing was complete, I was unsure of how to quilt it. In the quilt’s center I had used the walking foot to sew parallel lines that pinwheeled outward. But the checkerboard border seemed to act as a visual line, stopping the progress of the parallel stitch lines.

After months of procrastination, I made some decisions. The checkerboard border was quilted free motion in a sort of figure eight pattern (the symbol for Infinity.) Each square ended up with a circle inside it. I then continued my parallel lines beyond the checkerboard all the way out to the edge. EXCEPT: I sewed spirals (the shape of galaxies) around the stars and log cabin corners. The straight lines filled in everywhere else.

I call this quilt Expanding Universe. Each challenge caused the quilt to expand over and over. And the choice of a pinwheel block in the center, with corresponding smaller pinwheels in the last border reinforced the idea of spinning outward. The finished quilt measures 60 inches square.

Thanks to brother-in-law Steve for snapping these lovely photos of me enjoying my Expanding Universe.

Posted in painting

Sleeping Babes Revisited

Posted on by Laura Kate

Yesterday I made a watercolor version of the sleeping baby posted earlier this week.

Here is the original photograph:

And my take on this portrait using watercolor.

Somehow in the process of painting, the little mite’s coloration was translated from dark hair to straw-colored red hair, and the facial tones got very rosy, especially the lips. I guess I am channeling Lu.

Anyway, this sketch pleases me. With practice I am learning how to manipulate multiple layers of wash, getting the colors to blend better.

Pigments used were raw sienna, yellow ochre, quinacridone red, burnt sienna, ultramarine blue, carbazole violet, and tiny bit of permanent alizarin crimson. This was worked in my brand new 5 x 8 inch Hahnemuhle watercolor sketchbook. The paper was very forgiving.

Posted in painting

Finished Object Friday – Painting

Posted on by Laura Kate

During my lessons with Ross Meyers, I wanted to learn how to paint a portrait. He had given a good lesson on drawing faces. Now I was ready to paint one. I found this photograph on Unsplash to use as a reference. (Unsplash.com is a site where photographers give permission to download and use their images. without attribution.)

I liked that it was a very clean close-up of a young man. I saved the photo in black and white format in order to simplify the values. Then I did a contour sketch at home on water color paper and brought it to class.

The first question I had was about pigments suitable for portraiture. Ross suggested yellow ochre, burnt sienna, alizarin crimson and burnt umber. I didn’t have the umber, so I got out payne’s gray. He demonstrated the first wash – over the face and hair. While it was drying, I moved on to another painting. I never made it back to this painting until yesterday.

Starting with the same palette, I painted the neck and the lips, brows and eyes. Next I increased the shadows and added more details to the face.

I decided that the background should be a dark color. I chose violet, but mixed it with indigo so I could get some texture and granulation.

Today I added more shadow and beard stubble, painted in the eyelashes and put a pale grey wash on the T-shirt. Here is my young man now.

While my version is not an exact rendering of the original photograph, I am very happy with this finish. He looks a bit exotic – I think it’s the long Roman nose. His face is slightly tough but with softness around his eyes.

After this effort, I am feeling more optimistic about painting people’s faces. Maybe I will try painting a family member now.