Tag: inspired by nature

Posted in collage, colorwork

Inspired by a Bird

Posted on by Laura Kate

The idea for this fiber object came to me one morning while porch-sitting with a book. It was a gorgeous day, but I was poring intently, with all my focus, on the book in hand. Surprisingly, I no longer remember what I was reading. The probable cause of this memory lapse was the very thing that intruded upon my thoughts. A catbird had begun an insistent and virtuosic song. The sound tore my mind from my book and into the present moment. Looking about, I failed to spot him. So instead of continuing to search with my eyes, I closed them and sat back in my chair.

Pretending that I possessed synesthesia, I imagined what that birdsong might look like, if it were visible. There were deep chortles and murmurs, but also squeaks, shrieks and ascending melodies. It went on and on. And on. Eventually the catbird flew off.

Here’s what I wrote in my journal: “Sky-inspired painted background. Reverse applique to suggest an unseen bird. Throaty -chortling purples, warm tones high pitch trills – bright white squeaks. dashed gestural lines to suggest direction of pitch. Parallel wavy lines for a musical staff.”

All very poetic. But I want to make a piece of visual art, and as such it must have form.

This week I got underway. Since my fabric paints were out, I started with the background. On a piece of white quilting cotton I stroked colors that I thought would make a good sky at daybreak – pale blue, violet, peach and gold. I achieved this rather startling canvas:

Paint is still wet here

What sort of a sky has leaf and dark green in it? None I’d ever seen. I was prepared to set it aside and start again. But on second thought, I chose to continue with this background. The unconventional sky colors can represent the effect of birdsong on the air. Here is my bright background after it dried.

Next comes the sketch. I put the catbird’s silhouette in the lower left.

Now the hard part. Searching my fabrics for the colors mentioned in the journal, I found some purples and some brassy bright scraps. Also a few interesting prints. Most of yesterday was occupied with choosing, cutting and attaching fusible to the back of my chosen fabrics. Here is what this applique quilt looked like at the end of the day.

“Catbird Sings” stage one
Close up

While I am keen to get on with this work, I need some supplies. So I will have to pause pending a visit to the craft store.

Posted in drawing

Second Sketch Soloman Seal

Posted on by Laura Kate

Rather then draw the plant from the photograph I cut some stems and brought them indoors to draw them from life. They were set in a jar and placed on my wood table in the studio.

This drawing focuses on the leaf shapes.

The shadow on the wall is not evenly toned, the way a real shadow is. But I wanted to do this sketch quickly (for me, anyway) and therefore left it as is.

Posted in painting

Learning Lessons, Trying Stuff

Posted on by Laura Kate

I’ve chosen the title to this blog because it’s the message I give students who are learning new skills in fiber arts (and other arts, in my case.) This blog is about my latest water color painting lesson and the resulting painting.

First, my inspiration. I have a lovely birdbath in my backyard. Everyday I watch the activity around the birdbath and think about painting it. So I chose it as my subject, for what I intend to be a series of paintings.

This is a morning shot. I am using this photo as a reference for my first painting of the backyard birdbath. In this first stage, I paint the subject.

I have sketched in a male cardinal to provide a focal point for the painting.

Next I used pale yellow and gold washes for the background underpainting. Let me say now that This was my Favorite Point in the process. Everything looks the way I want. The rocks, the pottery, even the background. From here on, it was a struggle.

Next came layer two. I added green to delineate the background and painted the cardinal with a wash of red. My instructor showed me how to paint a reflection in the birdbath and how to paint blades of grass in the middle ground.

Once everything dried, I added shadows to the birdbath, finished the bird, added the foreground, and dropped in a few spots of color to the middle ground. I also used a dark blue to under-paint the background. Here is the finished painting.

There’s a lot I like here, but there is plenty that I don’t.

I did Try Stuff. I Learned Lessons, and now I am ready for a Do-over.

Posted in painting, quilting

Spring Green Progress

Posted on by Laura Kate

This past week I spent a good amount of time on this project. Since the background fabric is complete, I focused on the subject and the foreground. On Wednesday, I got out my fabric paints and created some terracotta and dark neutral colored swatches.

While the fabric was drying, I finalized the design layout. Because the foreground was the interior of a building, I decided to use the piecing instead of applique technique. The stitch lines would be straight and follow the lines of the greenhouse interior. Here is the full-scale drawing that I used to make the pattern pieces.

Next I traced each of the lettered sections, cut the traced images apart, pinned them to the fabric and cut each piece.

Following my decision to use a reverse-applique technique to replicate the little seed pots, I had made a template with elliptical shapes. I now traced these shapes onto the corresponding fabric pieces.

One of three sections that have seed pots.
Ellipses are cut out
Laying the cut-outs over the background fabric to check placement

Everything looked like it would fit. Starting with piece A, I sewed the pieces to each other in alphabetical order and stitched the resulting block to the background fabric.

Completed piecing.

My vision is that the bright green color glowing up from each seed pot symbolizes the energy released by the seed as it germinates. You know what I mean – like the way superheroes are drawn.

Here is an image of the project as it stands now.

I awoke several times during the night to ideas about the next step swirling around. I had so many of them! When I awoke early this morning, I could recall only a few. Too bad. I guess I could force myself to get out of bed when this happens, track down my notebook and write those ideas down. But I digress.

The next steps involve adding some final touches of paint, stitching down the raw edges of the ellipses and making the quilt sandwich.

I will also practice drawing and stitching the seedlings before working them on the real thing.