The process of painting dragonflies on postcards broke open my mental block.
I started painting fabric right away, after swatching the colors I want to use.
Using these colors and a variety of techniques, I painted backgrounds on rectangles of white quilting cotton. Earlier I had cut out dragonfly body shapes from craft foam. These shapes and an assortment of leaves were laid on the painted fabric to serve as masks. Laying the pieces in the sun printed the masked shapes.
The next day, I did more fabric painting, just to make sure I had enough selection.
With the backgrounds prepared, I began inserting the dragonflies into the pieces.
Day 34:
Day 35
I’m in love with this last guy. He will be the focal point of the finished product.
In the next week I plan to add finishing touches to these two paintings and begin work on the rest. My layout calls for five paintings sewn together with blue borders in between them. What happens after that is done will take a bit more cogitation.
For the past two weeks I have been laboring slowly but surely over this quilt. The first week was spent sewing blocks together and sandwiching the quilt. Because I plan to do the quilting in sections, I assembled the quilt in three pieces.
I dithered about for what seemed like forever to come up with a quilting plan. Many hours were spent viewing various classes on Craftsy. Christa Watson’ class “The Quilters Path” is one that gave me some guidance.
I started with the Around the world block. First I worked stitch-in-the-ditch every three inches to stabilize the section. Next came the free motion pattern. All of those straight lines needed to be softened and quilted down.
I worked gentle curves across the straight lines.
What remained to be quilted in this block were two large sections of background fabric, including the part with the whirligig. Christa’s all-over motif of loops with random flowers and leaves came to the rescue.
Here is a photograph of the completed sections of an adjoining block.
This is very pleasing to my eye. Having now completely quilted one of the three pieces, I feel that I will likely finish the other two by week end. Then I can move on to final assembly, binding and the Big Reveal!
While sitting on the porch this morning and staring at the remains of my coffee, it occurred to me that now is the dregs of summer. With nearly four weeks remaining, it feels like summer is in its worst stage. A late August heat wave has knocked the wind out of summer’s creatures.
Hydrangea’s brown flowerheads
By 9 am the thermometer has already reached 80 on its way to a dance with 100 degrees later today. The trees and shrubs are shedding some of the extra leaves they had optimistically grown earlier this year when rainfall was plentiful. In an effort not to add insult to injury, I have stopped mowing the lawn. It hardly matters, since the grass stopped growing once the heat and dry took hold. Well, except for the crabgrass. That manages to hog all the available moisture to itself.
Slightly fried hosta
I am keeping the birdbath full, although birds are in short supply this morning. Hardly anything is moving. Even the cicadas are silent. As I round the corner of the house on my way to the front yard, I encounter an exception.
These two little goldfinches had been feeding on echinacea seed heads. They scold me for disturbing their breakfast and fly up to the neighbor’s roof.
Continuing on my way through the gate, I spot one plant that is happy for the heat.
This lantana, which had been nothing but leaves all summer, suddenly burst into bloom. Like it was waiting for a hot dry spell. You won’t be surprised to learn that lantana is a plant of the southwest.
Lethargy is setting in. My husband gave me the third degree about my mood. Must I have to have a reason for feeling morose, dear? And if I do, must I tell it?
My mood doesn’t improve when I again ponder the dregs of my sock yarn skeins.
The cowl project I had started last Monday was not inspiring me anymore. I don’t know what it is about a cowl. It sounds like a good thing to knit, and yet, when it is done, I never seem to like the result.
That’s enough for now. To avoid pulling you, my dear readers, into my state of lethargy, I will close this sad post. Perhaps during the week-end I will have something creative to share. The heat is supposed to moderate a little.
The past five days have found me in a creative slump. Having got my turtle idea started, I am mulling ideas and fiddling with techniques for the next steps. As a reminder, here is my inspiration photograph.
There are two tricky parts for me: 1. How to portray the reflections, and what other elements should be included.
I did get the subject-turtle painted onto to white fabric, in two pieces.
I also added more wash to the background. My goal was to achieve some depth of color and depict some of the swirls and waves in the pond. That didn’t happen but I did achieve some nice shadows. Next I fused the turtle in place with Wonder-Under.
After practicing on scraps, I decided that I have enough skill to machine quilt the reflections. The advantage of this technique is that the thread can be very light colored, even shiny, against the dark background.
For additional elements, I may go with pond grasses….
… and damselflies. Maybe a willow branch or two. But I have yet to work out the specific images and techniques.
This morning when I entered the studio, I felt momentary pleasure at seeing my recent work. Maybe it’s a sign that today I will get my mojo back.
I am having issues with realism. It’s not what you’re thinking. This isn’t about reality. I have a firm grip on my personal reality, and also on the wider reality of life in the dysfunctional 21st century. No, it’s about trying to portray realistic images in my artwork. My dissatisfaction began to grow as I learned to paint with watercolor. All the instruction I have received so far focuses on rendering what I see in the real world. Specifically, I’m taught, how to paint in a manner that emulates three dimensions of shapes in the real world. It’s not going well. And now my dissatisfaction with painting has spilled over into my work with fiber, leading to a muted feeling about all my work.
When I began to experiment with fiber, I was inspired by the work of Gustav Klimt. Klimt began his training in applied arts. This influence shows in his paintings,which are filled with decorative surfaces. It’s the opposite direction of realism. He takes the human form and renders it as a surface, with delicate textural coloration. The rest of his canvas is bursting with a riot of color and pattern.
It is time for me to return to my first impulse about fiber art and make an abstract work. I’ve chosen a sunset as my subject. This photograph is one I took about a year ago during one of our trips to Wisconsin. My intention is to boil the sunset down to its essential lines and colors, sew strips to a backing fabric and then apply decorative stitches. I’ll use hand-painted scraps of cloth leftover from other projects.
I started out by making a rendering in crayon, placing an emphasis on the angular lines.
After working out the number of strips I will need, I scaled up the image to size, which will be 18 by 12. Next I assembled the fabrics.
I realized that I will need to paint a few more pieces to have enough grayish purple for all the clouds in the scene. So I found a few white and gray scraps that will be painted.
I also made a pattern in full size on butcher paper. I don’t have a photo of it for you, and it has already been cut up. As I made the pattern, I winnowed down the detail even further to get to the essential lines of the sunset. I am using muslin as a backing fabric. Work will proceed from the most complex strip (the sun) outward, first down and then up. After a few hours, I had the lower half assembled.
After getting to this stage, I felt a palpable sense of relief.
Tomorrow I will finish painting the fabric and assemble the rest of the piece.
Daily Fiber 