Testing, testing...to further one's art

It's tempting to dive into art supplies and just start creating willy-nilly. And if that works for you, by all means do it. For me, it has often led to frustration and an awful feeling of utter failure...not to be melodramatic or anything. The sage advice to make value plans, color studies, technique samples, and so on has not been my usual procedure. Now that I'm back in art school (the home school variety) for the last few months, my studio contains a growing pile of test pieces. 

The general goal is to figure out a way to combine drawing, painting, and fabric to make artwork using reality as a jumping off point for improvisation.

Making color charts has been very useful. This one is for my stash of Neocolor 2  water-soluble wax crayons. Other media that can work with fabric with varying results include Inktense pencils, water soluble colored pencils, acrylic paints and inks, pastels, and so on.

Here are a bunch of samples...don't like most of these except the close up of the jaguar eye. One of the criteria beside my liking how something looks is was it fun to do? There's no point in coming up with an approach that is totally tedious, for example, given my attention span. Yet, I'm also not interested in something that looks like it took five minutes and demonstrates little skill.

Another batch, am liking these better. In general some samples utilize Lutradur (non-woven polyester), some are typical quilting cottons, also have experimented with paper laminated onto fabric. Some are collaged with acrylic gel onto panel, others are sewn together like a quilt. Re the quilted ones, I've decided the "puffy" look is not working so instead of cotton batting have tried felt, interfacing, and (my current favorite) flannel.

An important factor has been to be as open-minded as possible and question every assumption about what my art can/should be, what materials to use, and what form will it take. I've made a lot of progress but as always am impatient to get on with it and just make art. 

There does happen to be a piece in progress that I'm excited about, so if it doesn't get permanently mired in the proverbial ugly phase, it will appear in this blog soon. Happy creating!

Pumpkin Art Quilt Demo

© 2014 Loreen Leedy

While browsing for produce in my favorite store in early October, I rounded a corner and found heaps of bright orange pumpkins. It was a striking display and later I couldn't resist making one with fabric. In addition to using paint, the idea was to render the pumpkin without laboriously cutting fabric shapes to create the image...but how?

A orangy yellowy batik with leaves seemed like a good starting point. This is actually the reverse with some of the paint showing through but it gives the general idea. Some reference photos helped with making a same-size sketch on tracing paper. I lightly drew it on the fabric with a white chalk pencil (or possibly regular school chalk, can't recall.)

The scribbly pencil lines on the the right side of the sketch are where the darker values will go. 

Rectangular chunks of fabric were arranged either randomly or with some values placed with the light source from the upper left. The rectangles were glue-basted in place. Then the lines were painted with black acrylic using a pointed round brush. The acrylic bled a bit on some of the fabrics but it was in keeping with the casual look. 

In order to separate the pumpkin from the background, acrylic paint was applied. First the black lines were masked off with torn-edged paper tape. It's a low-tack white paper tape, no idea if it's still being sold (this stuff has been rattling around in my studio for YEARS.) In any case, it worked well to protect the line work. The paint was applied with a scrunched up piece of waxed paper, which gives a nice random texture. The pumpkin gained a cream-colored "glow" and a plum shadow. It looks good but another time I may skip that step.

With the mask removed, the emerging pumpkin requested a few more chunks of fabric. The edge of striped fabric at the bottom was tinted orange and the stem got some brown lines. Love the stripes. Stripes make me happy!

It's always helpful to desaturate a photo to look at the art in grayscale to determine if there is enough contrast. Looked good to me.

Batting and a backing were pinned to the top for the quilting stage. In order to preserve the irregular blocky edges, the stitches stop about a half inch from the edges. The stitching consists of free-motion straight and zigzag stitches, mostly. I haven't decided how to mount this yet...on a stretched canvas? On a plain quilted support?

The balance of realism and abstraction works as I had hoped in this piece, which is nice. One minor complaint is that the style of the line work is somewhat old-fashioned...perhaps "retro" is a more positive way to look at it. Being hypercritical of lines is an occupational hazard of being an illustrator, alas. Also, the bluish chunks look a little out of place. There are some blue tones in the thread but from a distance that doesn't show. Then again, maybe it would be boring without the blue. If I really wanted to it would be fairly easy to cover up the blue with different fabric, but it's not bothering me enough at this point.

© 2014 Loreen Leedy

So that's the story of this pumpkin, hope you enjoyed it!

Loreen

my web site

Fruit Frieze Art Quilt, Step-by-Step

This space above the kitchen windows has been calling for artwork ever since we moved here...has it really been almost 11 years?!?

The vintage 70s-era stained glass chandelier provided the fruit theme so next I made a sketch

The fruit is big and cropped along the top and bottom to fill the art with a variety of colors. The original concept was to make several individual pieces mounted on canvas. After thinking about it, one wide, continuous banner made more sense. I taped together pieces of tracing paper along a long hallway and drew the fruit freehand.

Next the background pieces in medium and light tones of cyan blues were overlapped about a 1/4 inch and sewed onto the batting and backing. All of the fabric except the binding is left raw-edged, by the way. I transferred the tracing paper sketch using white Saral paper and blue removable pen, then painted the black outlines with acrylic paint. Painting directly is a tad nerve-wracking, as you can imagine. Then I washed on the basic colors of the fruit, often thin enough to allow some of the blue background fabrics to come through.

Because the piece was so wide (over 8 feet), it had to be rolled up and worked on in segments, starting on the left edge. There actually is a countertop in the room that would have been long enough but for reasons that escape me now, I didn't use it. Too much clutter, no doubt.

This middle section shows the red apple, bananas, and a peek of the strawberries after being painted then additional fabric added. To keep the fabric pieces in place I use thin basting glue, not fusible. Fusible is good on occasion but can be overkill and kind of a pain, what with the accidental ironing on the wrong side, etc.

Here is the apple close up. Hope these photos are okay...they were taken with my iPad, which is not very high-res. Some machine quilting is visible plus some hand-stitching with perle cotton.

The binding is made with various black on black fabrics. It was tough to photograph the whole frieze in place because of the lighting but this should give a reasonable idea. The vivid colors are a big improvement for the decor. The quilt has two sleeves on back with a break in the middle to leave space for a third nail. I used a piece of wood molding for hanging but it's not quite thin enough and causes a minor bulge. The plan is to replace the wood with aluminum bars which have been sitting in the garage for a month or two or three...

Here's another, rather extreme angle.

I'm happy with it and particularly like the plaid and checked fabrics. One thing that slipped my mind was the shrinkage caused by machine quilting. The width is about a half inch less on each end than I had planned, but nobody would know that. Except you, so please don't tell.

Some of my longtime readers may have wondered what happened to me since there have been no posts on this blog for three years. The main reason has been too many things to do and not enough time and energy to keep up with everything. So no worries, and I hope your artistic endeavors are going well. 

If you have any fruit-themed art you'd like to share, please feel free to post a link in the comments.

Loreen

My web site

The 2012 Quilting Arts Calendars are in!

They came in the mail recently and look wonderful. The animal theme inspired beautiful work...check out Miss Isabella, by Jill Packer:
My grey fox is the December image and can be seen in this post. The calendars are $14.95 and can be ordered from the Interweave online store.

Book reviews: art quilts, bead embroidery, making glass beads

It’s long past time to catch up on some book reviews, so without further ado:

Twelve by twelve is a beautifully designed book that arose from a challenge group of a dozen artists who created one 12" X 12" art quilt every two months over a two year period (Thanks to Gerrie Congdon for straightening me out on the time factor). The themes varied from Water to Shelter to Mathematics.

There are comments from each artist, detailed photographs, works in progress, studios to see, discussions of techniques, and much more in this 176-page book. As you can see by the cover image, some of the quilts have non-objective imagery, many are abstract, some are more realistic.

I’ve made a few quilts this size for the Quilting Arts calendar contests and for auctions to benefit SAQA and it is a good size to work with. However, making the commitment to creating so many so consistently is way beyond me... hats off to these artists for getting it done!

My only complaint about Sherry Serafini’s Sensational Bead Embroidery is that the cover image doesn’t begin to do justice to this artist’s glorious work. It's an odd view of a bracelet and all that darkness looks gloomy, while her beaded pieces are a delight to the eye. Check out her web site to get an idea. And don't miss her handbags, they are amazing.

I’ve been a fan of Sherry’s (along with a zillion other beaders) for years, mostly from seeing her work in Bead & Button magazine. Have only attempted some small pieces, but love the technique. It allows you to turn humble seed beads along with a few stones, jewels, or Scrabble tiles into gorgeous one-of-a-kind colorful, textured jewelry.

There are 25 projects in this book with clear directions and supply lists and good closeups of the beaded earrings, brooches, rings, bracelets, and necklaces that show the details. There are projects for all levels of experience.

Creating Glass Beads by Jeri L. Warhaftig is designed as an intermediate level workshop, so beginners should probably start elsewhere. However, the tools and materials for the craft are well covered. Each “session” takes the reader through the process of making a project such as a pendant with gold leaf, an eye bead, and an intriguing combo of glass and silver “clay.” At the end of each session are numerous examples made by students plus a gallery of other professional artists’ beads made with similar techniques.

Making glass beads is a craft I admire but have avoided due to the use of actual *fire*...but if I ever dare to try it this book will be an excellent guide to exploring different techniques. After learning the basics from a very patient teacher, first.

It’s been fun being on Lark Crafts reviewer list, they publish some very inspiring books!

What is my 2012 calendar animal, you ask?

My entry was accepted into the 2012 Quilting Arts calendar, so WOOHOO! There has been a hilarious debate on my Facebook page about what animal it is based on only a section of the face. It’s been a good example of the power of the human mind to extrapolate on available information. Guesses for the image shown at left have ranged from lion to bloodhound to monkey to horse to bunny to goat to llama to emu to owl, and even pig or elephant! Then there was prairie dog, but that was a joke (I think!)

The closest guess (without hints) was wolf. But it’s not a wolf.

Without any further ado, here is Cautious:

It’s an animal that I’ve never seen before in person, but one day this little gray fox was investigating our bird-feeding station, and by sheer chance I happened to look out the window. The fox’s coat was beautifully glossy, and it had a full, bushy tail. The neck and ears were reddish, the rest was silvery gray. After grabbing my camera and snapping a few photos, I tapped on the glass and got this view. One of the fun characteristics I found out while doing research about gray foxes (but not red foxes) is that they like to climb trees!

Here is my post about making this artwork. And this Wikipedia page has some nice photos of gray foxes and more info.

2012 Calendar

Woohoo, I'm happy to say that my entry has made it to the finalist stage. Showed my critter’s right eye last time, so here’s the left. Guess I’d better sew that sleeve on now...

Update February 14: It’s in the calendar...so yay!

Watercolor pencils on fabric

My first completed project this year is for the 2012 Quilting Arts Calendar... might as well try for three years in a row! The theme is Feeling Pet-ty, in other words animals, a lifelong favorite subject of mine. The previous entries had fairly bright colors but the subject this time called for a much more subdued palette. I had not used watercolor pencils on fabric before, but because they are transparent and the idea was to allow the patterning on the fabric to show through, wc pencils had potential.

First, a little organizing was in order. These pencils date from a book project eons ago and were scattered about in various nooks and crannies of my studio. After corraling them into a semblance of order, a coloring chart became essential because of the nature of wc pencils. It’s very hard to tell just looking at the pencil what color it really is.

As you can see on the left, the colors change drastically when water is added.

Because I was not going to use plain white fabric, the pencils would be interacting with the underlying color and/or pattern. The fabric needed to represent the fur of my critter, without getting literal, necessarily. Below are the four contenders:

The one on the left was a possibility, the next one was too spotty, the next one too contrasty... the one on the right with it’s pattern of leafy, woodsy imagery seemed most promising. So, I scribbled on some colors (below) and brushed over them over with water. So good so far, time to jump right in.

The sketch was done in Photoshop, won’t get into the details of that now. Once it was printed out, I redrew it onto tracing paper. Someone had asked me awhile ago about my unusual method of transferring sketches, so here are some photos. The tracing paper sketch is on top, and I just draw directly on the fabric underneath. The pencil point is visible through the tracing paper.

I roll back the tracing paper often to see how it’s looking.

Also, it’s easy to see through the tracing paper where the pencil is because it is darker.

This method isn’t suitable in every situation, but because I was using a dark wc pencil and a thick line, it worked fine. Why not use transfer paper such as Saral? I do on many occasions, but this works just as well for me and there are no worries about a Saral line ending up in the wrong place and being tough to remove. How about a light box? That’s a good option if the base material is see-through enough. But, if you’re transferring a sketch to primed canvas (for example), a light box won’t work.

Below is the colored line before and after being washed over with water. Quite a difference! You can always add additional layers of the pencil, if needed, after the fabric is dry. Or, you can use the pencil on wet fabric, which really lays down pigment but may be a tad less controlled. By the way, in this case the amount of water being added is just sufficient to melt the wc pencil, not saturate the surrounding area.

How about setting the wc pencil? I tried ironing it, which didn't seem to do anything much. A wet tissue dabbed onto the pencil work is an easy test of whether the pigment is set or not. Painting on thinned acrylic gel, textile medium, or Jacquard colorless extender (tutorial with wax pencils here) probably would have worked but since quite a bit of the image was involved, there was too much territory to cover. Instead, it was sprayed with two coats of Claybord matte fixative. This is the main fixative I use, because it has a relatively low odor that dissipates quickly. As you can see from the eye detail at the top of this post, there was another whole layer of stitching to add, so I didn’t want pigment from the pencils to get all over the threads or have to keep smelling a noxious odor. The other advantage is that is doesn’t stiffen the fabric much, if at all.

The watercolor pencils gave me the soft look I wanted, so that was the main thing. Wondering what this animal is? If it doesn’t get into the calendar, I’ll reveal all in a couple of months. If it does get in, I’ll post more about this project closer to the calendar’s release date.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Home at last

Here is how A Free Spirit (on the right) looks in his new home in New Zealand:

Love the two images together...many thanks to Julia Arden for sending this photo!

The previous posts about how this mini-quilt was made are here and here.

SAQA auction starts today (Monday) at 2 p.m.!

Just a quick reminder that the Studio Art Quilt Associates benefit auction starts today. My wolf quilt is on the first page, click here to see thumbnails of the available artwork. There is a link on that page to get to the bidding form. Everything is $750 today, then the price is reduced each day until Friday, when everything costs $75.

Happy browsing and (perhaps) bidding, everyone!

Free Spirit will be auctioned for SAQA

Do you remember this wolf? I decided to donate him to Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) for their annual auction to benefit the group’s activities to increase awareness of art quilting. Almost 300 quilts are available, so there’s something for everyone. It starts on Monday, September 20, and is a reverse auction where the prices decrease every day until the works are sold. More details about how the auction works can be found here.


A large image of Free Spirit can be seen here. Two previous posts that show how he was made can be found here and here.


Have fun looking at all the artwork... it’s amazing to see what artists are doing with fabric, thread, and whatever else they can stitch on. : )

The 2011 Quilting Arts calendar is now available

My quilted artwork made it (again!) into next year’s calendar which can be ordered from Interweave. Below are teensy images of all the winning artwork for the 2011 theme, “Flavor of the Month":

Mine is on the left in the 2nd row down, the garden veggies floating on a light background. Not sure which month it represents, seems to be April. You can see a much bigger image here. If anyone would like more info, here are the previous posts about my calendar entries. 


Next year the theme will be “Feeling Pet-ty,” which will feature one of my favorite subjects, animals. The info about it is on page 70 of the August/September issue of Quilting Arts. I suspect there will be a lot of competition for this one and the entry date is earlier this year, January 7, 2011. Guess I’d better get busy!

Ta-dah...the finished wolf

After glue-basting the patches down and cutting out the wolf, I tried some possible background fabrics. The idea was to vaguely suggest a landscape while keeping it very simple. I considered introducing some subdued greens, but they looked hideous, so forget that!

The above colors were pretty good, but overall it was too blah. The fabrics below were almost what the artist ordered, but the gray “mountain range” seemed too similar to the wolf’s underlying fur color. I also fixed his mouth...above it looks like he has an overbite and his lower jaw was too rigid, so below it’s a tad more wrinkled.

So, after some free-motion machine stitching and a fabric binding, here’s how he turned out:

I’m pretty happy with this piece, all things considered. There were some glitches with the eye... next time I’ll probably paint the entire eye instead of fooling with teensy pieces of fabric. I’m not crazy about this “typical” binding and need to come up with a more interesting option. Maybe painting a more irregular “frame” that is rigid because of the acrylic paint and stitching it on would do the trick. (Will have to try that idea, probably doesn’t make too much sense!)


Last but not least, any ideas for a title? Other than Ta-dah, that is.