Violets for my Mom, and off to Melbourne

Today is April 14, my mother’s birthday. She would have been 77 today. I always picked her violets in the springtime, and they became a kind of symbol for the love between us. She has been gone more than two years now, and I think about – and miss her – every day. Today, I am on my way to Australia to teach at the Australasian Quilt Convention in Melbourne. I have a feeling that if my mother were alive today, she’d have been sitting in the seat next to me!

I’ll be attempting to blog from Australia (wifi willing!), and will try to show you some of the convention, and of Melbourne. I hope you’ll come along! 

Painted Comber

The fish of the day is the Painted Comber. This is the third fish I’ve painted for my new piece, “We All Swim Together.” He is a species of sea bass; beautiful fish with shades of pale blue and pale yellow, and darker areas of gold and brown, and distinctive black streaks on his body and up into the fins.

Painted Comber
Latin Name: Serranus scriba
Habitat: Eastern Atlantic, Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea
Depth: 300-450 feet
12-14" and 1-1.3 pounds

Narrow-Barred Spanish Mackerel

  

Today I painted the Narrow-Barred Spanish Mackerel. Such a beautifully patterned and colored fish! I was sad to read that it is listed as “near threatened” due to overfishing (see information below.)

Narrow-barred Spanish Mackerel
Latin Name: Scomberomorus commerson
Habitat: South-east Asia, as far west as the east coast of Africa; Middle East in northern Indian Ocean; Fiji and South West Pacific Ocean; Australia from Perth to Sydney; China and Japan
Depth: 16-984 feet
99" and 154-165 pounds
Notes: According to the ICUN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature) Red List of Threatened Species, “Several sub-regional stock assessment in the Western Indian Ocean report this species to be heavily overexploited, with some estimates of fishing mortality in the Arabian Gulf between two and four times over the optimum. In India, its current exploitation rate is estimated to be 60% over the optimum. In the Torres Strait, this species biomass has declined at least 40–50% since the 1980s, and has declined at least 40% in eastern Australia. In Queensland, management authorities determined this species to be overfished, and the fishery may be in danger of collapsing. Where data are available to conduct a quantitative stock assessment, results have shown at least a 30% decline in biomass or other indicators of population abundance over the past 25–40 years. However, there is little information on stocks of this species in East Africa, southeast Asia and in the northeastern portion of its range. Consequently, this species is listed as Near Threatened.” 

I took the shot below before I started painting the mackerel.  This is my cat Wicked, who loves to sit on my lightbox when I am tracing images. It is nice and warm! She is shedding her winter coat right now, and I had to pick a lot of tiny white and black cat hairs out of the paint. She is keeping a close eye on the fish.

Swimming along…

The start of “We All Swim Together”

I had meant to trace some more fish onto my fabric before I started painting, but I just couldn’t stand it, and this afternoon, I gave in and started painting. I love to paint. It is so relaxing, and I just forget all my troubles and get lost in it. I’m using my favorite textile paint, ProFab Transparent and ProBrite Pearlescent paints by ProChemical & Dye. 

This is the Blackbelly Rosefish:

Yes, it really is this brightly colored! You can see photographs of it on Google Images. He is about 15" long on my piece.

Blackbelly Rosefish
Latin Name: Helicolenus dactylopterus
Habitat: Eastern Atlantic Ocean from Norway to South Africa, and the Mediterranean Sea; and Western Atlantic Ocean from Nova Scotia to Venezuela.
Depth: 330 to 1600 feet
16-18" and 2-3 pounds
Notes: This is a type of scorpionfish. Color is variable. Spines contain toxic venom.

I am just getting started on the Painted Comber:

Getting started on “We All Swim Together”

Spotted Weever, by Susan Brubaker Knapp

I am very excited! I am finally getting started on a piece that has been in my head for several years. I’m planning to call it “We All Swim Together.” It will include fish from all over the world, both fresh-water and salt-water, and it is going to be a bigger piece than I’ve worked on for some time. I hope it will raise awareness about the amazing diversity of fish, and the issues affecting the world’s fish, particularly water quality. This is an issue I explored previously in “Running Deep,” which features Bear Lake Cutthroat Trout:

“Running Deep,” 17" x 22" (2008) by Susan Brubaker Knapp

Here are a few more fish that will be on “We All Swim Together.” I’m planning to sketch more — probably a lot more! — on my flight to teach in Australia next week.

Streaked Spinefoot, by Susan Brubaker Knapp

Narrow-barred Spanish Mackerel, by Susan Brubaker Knapp

For a while now, I’ve been sketching fish from specimen photos, and tonight, I enlarged some of the black ink drawings here and printed them out in sections, then taped them together:

 

Then I traced them onto a large piece of white fabric:

Three fish down, a bunch more to go before I can start painting!

Join me in Texas, June 3-6, with Quilting Adventures

 

I’m teaching this summer at an amazing retreat center in Texas with Quilting Adventures. There are still spots available, so please come and join me! This is a great way to get an in-depth experience with wholecloth painting and thread sketching. 

Here are the details:

Quilting Adventures Summer Retreat 
Monday, June 3 – Thursday, June 6, 2013
at Deep Woods Retreat in Smithville Texas
Intermediate to advanced skill level
$595 per student includes quad-occupancy accommodations

 
Part 1: Paint & Stitch
Learn the basics of painting on fabric using my peacock feather design, then stitch the details with black thread – this design was featured on the cover of “Quilting Arts” magazine in 2010. We will cover transferring a design onto your background fabric, basic techniques of painting on fabric with acrylics, thread sketching your piece with black thread to bring your design to life, and quilting considerations.

Part 2: Wholecloth Painting
Next, students will select a botanical or still-life subject and learn the basics of creating wholecloth painted quilts from a photo, including: selecting the right photo for great results, which paints and fabrics to use and why, painting and blending techniques and quilting considerations.

Part 3: Thread Sketching Snowflakes
Finally, you will learn to gain control and improve accuracy in your free-motion thread sketching using my gorgeous, realistic looking snowflakes.  You’ll learn how to stabilize your piece to prevent draw-up, improve control while you’re stitching,  and how to regulate your stitches for perfect tension.

Here are some photos of the retreat center:

 

 

I’m in “Machine Quilting Unlimited”

Exciting news! My work will be featured in the May/June 2013 issue of Machine Quilting Unlimited. This issue features work by Ruth Powers, Helen Goddard, Charlotte Warr Anderson, and Barbara Hollinger, among others. My work is included in their “In the Studio” feature. It will be available in late April at select independent quilt shops, Barnes & Noble and Jo-Ann’s Fabric & Craft Stores nationwide.

Machine Quilting Unlimited is a fabulous magazine with in-depth articles on machine quilting techniques. If you haven’t seen or read it before, you are in for a treat! 

They have a special deal going between now and April 10: if you live in the U.S. or Canada and subscribe or renew a one-year print subscription, you get a 20% discount on the subscription price. (That’s a 42% savings over the subscription price.) The promotion code is SPRINGBREAK.

Projects in new Interweave publications

Some of my designs are featured in three new “Craft Tree” publications by Interweave. Each book is a compilation of projects from the pages of Quilting Arts, Quilting Arts Gifts, and Cloth Paper Scissors magazines. They retail for $14.99 each, and can be purchased on the Interweave Store online. 
 Notebook Covers includes my business card case:

 
Evening Bags includes my three Classic Evening Bag designs:

 

 

Fun Home Accessories includes my door organizer:

 

Sketching water for The Sketchbook Challenge

Water lily ink drawing by Susan Brubaker Knapp

This month’s theme on The Sketchbook Challenge was “natural surfaces,”and I decided to try sketching water. The drawing above is about 7.5" x 10", and is based on this photo I took several years ago:

 

I did this drawing in a small sketchbook I take with me when I travel to teach, and worked on it over the past month. I printed out photographs of things I wanted to sketch, and took them with me so that I could work from them on the go. 

I used crosshatching (lines drawn in at different directions) to get at the ripples in the water, and the changes in value. But I don’t think I captured it. I definitely don’t have the darkest values in yet. 

It is helpful to look at the drawing next to the photograph and examine the differences in value. I am also considering adding color to the ink drawing, and using dark shades of color to increase the values where they are needed in the drawing.

One of the tricks with ink drawings is to use different drawing/shading techniques on things that have different textures. The water was rippled; the flower was velvety. To add shading on the flower, I used dots, which look softer than the crosshatching does on the water.

 

Here’s a detail shot of the leaves and the stems, which were underwater. It was tricky to make the stems look like they were underwater, and add just enough shadows. 

 
By the way, if you’ve been wondering why you haven’t seen more fiber art and art quilts here, you’ll be glad to know that I am working on some (and I’ve been teaching  a lot!). It’s just that I’ve been working on a few things that I’m not allowed to show you yet! One is for an exhibition, and one is for a magazine article in the works. Stay tuned!

 

“Kick Off Your Heels” fundraiser

 

I just completed a pair of art shoes I am submitting for the Kick Off Your Heels fundraiser. It is a juried invitational with the goal of raising $5,000 for The Barbra Streisand Women’s Heart Center at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, California. They they not only treat women, but also educate and do major research on heart disease with women, exclusively. 

Did you know that more U. S. women die each year from heart disease than from all cancers combined? Organizers Jamie Fingal and Sue Bleiweiss didn’t either. After watching a segment on Katie Couric’s new talk show about this subject, they decided to put together a project to help raise awareness of heart disease in women. The link to the segment is here. All of the heels that are juried in to this fundraiser will be sold in May 2013. They are designed to be works of art, not wearable shoes. As we get closer, I’ll keep you posted on how you can help by buying a pair of shoes.

Here’s how I made my shoes:

I started with blue pumps purchased for $2 at a local thrift shop, sanded them lightly with sandpaper, and painted them with gesso. The shoe in the front is the original color, and the shoe in the back is painted with gesso:

I painted them sky blue with brown tree branches:

I bought the nest, eggs, silk dogwood blooms and the bird at local craft stores, and auditioned them:

The birds did not resemble any I’d ever seen in nature, so I trimmed their feathers and repainted them to look like chickadees, my favorite bird. Then I glued wads of paper inside the shoes, and glued or pinned in the moss, lichens, nest, eggs, birds and dogwood blosssoms. Here they are, all done!