“Heirloom Pumpkins” – Day 2

I didn’t too much thread sketching done on this piece today, but it is starting to take shape. I started by outlining the sections on the main pumpkin in the foreground with black. Then I added some yellow on the parts of the sections that are the lightest – the highlights. I’m not sure if they are light enough yet.

I added white thread on the areas where the pumpkin had some warty, lumpy blemishes.

I want to blend the area where the orange of the pumpkin fades into the deep shadow. I’ve already added some sage green there, and will go back in with some oranges, too. You might not be able to see much of the green thread in these photos, as the lighting conditions were kind of dark.

I’ve started to add some shadows to define the segments on the green-gray pumpkin.

I am wondering if I should sketch in the boards on the wall behind the pumpkins. It kind of looks like a dark October sky, and I am liking it. I could just quilt the sky to suggest clouds and keep it simple. If you have an opinion, let me know what you think.

“Heirloom Pumpkins” – Day 1, PM

After working on this for about four or five hours today, I have most of the fabrics ready to fuse down. I’m liking the change to the blue background. The light yellow was just too blah. The black looks really dark at the bottom of this piece right now, but I think once I add some black on the dark orange, and some orange on the dark black, it will be a more gradual shading. There will be some detail added in the black area.

On the orange pumpkins, I stayed in the medium value range, since I'll add a lot of lighter and darker thread on top.

In the photo below, you can see how it started out. The light blue is just a background fabric that got completely covered up with the pattern pieces. The black lines on the positioning overlay (clear upholstery vinyl) help me place the pattern pieces exactly where they need to go.

In this photo, I have the dark areas at the bottom placed, and am starting to add the darker orange on the main pumpkin:

I am almost ready to start thread sketching. This is always exciting to me, since the piece totally transforms and comes alive.

“Heirloom Pumpkins” – Day 1

I am starting to prepare to cut fabric pieces for my new work, “Heirloom Pumpkins.” I researched the varieties in my photo, and discovered a great, big world of heirloom pumpkins with intriguing names like “Long Island Cheese,” “Cinderella,” “Red Kuri,” and “Jarrahdale.” There are heirloom varieties from Australia, France, Japan and New Zealand that are now common at farm markets near me. If you are interested in learning more, the website The Daily Green has great information and photos. What wonderful biodiversity there is in my favorite squash!

This is the second of two projects I am designing specifically for my Once in a Blue Moon Fiber Art Retreat, which will be held in Black Mountain, NC (near Asheville) Oct. 4-7, 2012. I just finished “Passion Flower,” which is the other project. You can read all about it in my previous posts.

The varieties in my photo appear to be Fairytale (the orange one in the foreground), Muscade de Provence (the green/orange one behind the Fairytale to the right), and Lumina (the white ones in the background).

I started digging in my bins of hand-dyes and batik fabrics, and found a good range of oranges, browns, whites, grays and blacks that I think will work. Instead of using beige or pale yellow for the wall, I'm going with a blue-gray that I think will be a nicer color combination with the oranges and whites. You can see it in the upper right, above my pattern. 

I’m sure I won’t use all of these fabrics, but I like to have a good range of values and colors before I start, so I have a bigger selection. I’ll start by finding a good medium value orange fabric, for example, and then find values lighter and darker, but in the same color family.

The photo below shows some of the whites, grays and tans I'll use on the other pumpkins. The light wasn’t so great on this photo, but it still looks like I’ll need to find a lighter white to use on the lightest white pumpkins in the back.

Okay, I'm off to start cutting out the pieces! I’ll post again when I have something to show you.

Quilt styles explained

I’m featured today on The Learning Center, hosted by Pat Sloan. The topic is quilting types and styles. Pat asked some well-known quilters to talk about a style they often work in. My post is on art quilts. Ever wonder what is meant by a “modern quilt style”? Don’t have a clue about what an ATC is? There are photos and descriptions here that will make everything clear!

“Passion Flower” is done!

It’s done! I finished facing “Passion Flower” this morning. The final size is 15" x 19-1/4". Here are some detail shots:

This is one of the projects that will be offered to students at my Oct. 4-7, 2012 retreat, Once in a Blue Moon Fiber Art Retreat. This afternoon, I’ll start work on the second project, which is based on my photograph of these pumpkins at a farm stand several falls ago:

“Passion Flower” quilted

Tonight, I finished thread sketching and free-motion quilting “Passion Flower.” Tomorrow I will try to face it, and take final photos.

I had lots of fun adding texture and details in the leaves in the background of this piece. There is a lot to look at here!

“Passion Flower” – Day 5

I’ve added some light pink and dark purple to the petals of my passion flower, and I’m feeling better about them. I didn’t get much time to stitch yesterday, but I’m making steady progress. Some days I just have to grab a few minutes here and there, as I’m busy running kids to appointments, lessons and practices.

This piece will probably end up being about 16" x 20". I really love the combination of colors in this piece. I’m glad I decided to go with a brighter pink for the flower, instead the duller purple color it really was. 

Here are the threads I’ve used so far. This is my favorite thread for thread sketching, Aurifil Cotton Mako 50 weight. Nice and light, so I can build up the thread as much or little as is needed. I will be adding some other shades of green when I get down to work on the leaves. 

“Passion Flower” – Day 4

Here’s how my passion flower looked by the time I went to bed last night. I made good progress with the thread sketching on the main flower, especially the radial filaments, stigmas and anthers at the center. You can see it a bit closer here:

I did some thread work on the petals, but I can see that I need to go back in with darker thread – maybe even some purple-red – to get the shading right. It still looks too flat to me.

“Passion Flower” – Day 3

Hooray! I’ve finished fusing down all of the pieces in “Passion Flower,” and I’m ready to start thread sketching. There are a lot of details and shading to be added with thread. The photo above shows how the piece looks right now; the shot below shows it under the positioning overlay.

This is one of two projects I’m designing to teach at my retreat October 4-7 in Black Mountain, NC. 

One of the trickiest parts of this piece was the many small “radial filaments” (the purple squiggly things that radiate out from the area in the center (which contains three stigmas and 5 anthers). When researching this plant, I discovered that the passion flower may have been named after the passion of Christ in Christian theology. The numbers of things in this species were said to represent specific things in Christianity (10 petals representing the 10 apostles, excluding Peter – the denier – and Judas Iscariot – the betrayer; three stigmas representing the three nails with which Jesus was nailed to the cross, etc.) Interesting.  

The radial filaments will get a good deal of thread work on them to add the white striations you can see in the photo on which this piece is based:

As you can see if you compare my piece to this photo, I took some artistic license, and changed some of the details. First, I made the color of the flower and buds more pink than purple. I wanted the color to be brighter. I left out the green foliage in the upper left corner, simplified some of the leaves below, and made the sky bluer. 

There are two buds in the photo; I made the one in the lower right pinker, because I thought that the bright pink color helped move the eye around the piece better. And odd numbers are usually more dynamic in a composition than even ones. 


I also chose to do the buds and vines in a very bright chartreuse, so that they stood out better against the background.
 

In the next few days, I hope to have some of the thread sketching done; I’ll share my progress here as it moves along.

“Passion Flower” – Day 2

Today, I’m starting to cut out the pieces for “Passion Flower” and place them under the positioning overlay I traced on clear upholstery vinyl. Each piece has to be traced onto the fusible adhesive (I use Lite Steam-a-Seam 2), then fused to the wrong side of the fabric and cut out before it is positioned.  

Here are some of the fabrics I am using on the flower. As you can see if you look at my previous post, I am changing the colors somewhat, going with a pinker shade for the petals.

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Starting “Passion Flower”

I am starting work on a new piece based on this photo of a passion flower. (I took the photo at Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden more than a year ago.) It is one of two projects I am designing specifically for my Once in a Blue Moon Fiber Art Retreat, which will be held in Black Mountain, NC (near Asheville) Oct. 4-7, 2012. 

I am getting very excited about the retreat. Joyce Mullis, a friend and fellow quilter who is organizing the retreat and handling registrations (she’s also a wonderful cook, and will be preparing our breakfasts and lunches!) and I are planning some really fun stuff. There are only five spots left, as we are limiting this retreat to only 25 people. We will spend the first full day constructing the fused appliqué art quilt, and the second day thread sketching it. If you are interested in learning more about the retreat, you can download a PDF flier and registration form by clicking here.

Tonight I pulled out some green fabrics to audition them with the photo. I use this process to see if I have a good range of values in the colors I need. In some ways, the value is much more important than the color. You need to have very dark values, very light values, and everything in between. 

When I’m working on a piece that is highly realistic, I look for fabrics – I prefer hand-dyes and batiks – that have lots of variations in one color range, but without strong patterns or recognizable designs. Solid fabrics usually look too flat. I love working with batiks and hand-dyes because they usually are a nice heavy weight, and because their high thread count keeps the pieces from fraying too much. 

I will be sharing some photos of this project as it progresses, so stay tuned!

Meet your macro: Post from The Sketchbook Challenge

Have you been following The Sketchbook Challenge blog this year? I’m one of the host artists for 2012, and I’d love it if you’d join us! Get inspired to work in a sketchbook, and get your creative juices flowing! What follows is my post from a few days ago:

The theme for February – Close Up – got me thinking about the macro feature on my camera. When I sketch, I work a lot from my photos. I often don’t have much time to sit and sketch my subjects where I find them, so I use my camera to record what I see, and then sketch later. Here’s a sketch I did yesterday (above) based on the photo below.

I used the macro feature on my inexpensive point-and-shoot digital camera to take this photo. If you are not familiar with this feature, I urge you to get out your camera now, and look for it. On most cameras, it is the button with the little tulip symbol on it. On the camera in the photo below, it is just to the left of the "FUNC. SET" button. See it?

On this camera, when you push the macro/tulip button, you can toggle between the regular setting (shown as a little person in front of a mountain) and the macro setting, and it shows up on the big screen:

When you use the macro setting, your camera can shoot things – and keep them in focus – from only 3 to 6 inches away (depending on your camera; check your manual for details). Just make sure you are not zoomed in at all. If you zoom in with the macro setting on, it will go out of focus.

Here’s a photo I took several years ago, in the fall, when the blooms on my hydrangea had been touched by the cold, and had turned amazing shades of purple and maroon. Taking this photo with my macro lens helped me to observe the tiny structure with the pistol and stamen at the center of the bloom in the lower left:

Here’s a sketch I made from this photo:

When I look at the photo next to the sketch, I can clearly see that I need to work on value in this sketch. Nearly all of the values are medium values – there are not many lights and darks. I need to go back in and darken the green areas a lot, and add more shading to better define the petals. Discoveries like this are another great reason to try adding photography to your bag of tricks in your quest to become better at sketching.

Using the macro feature on your camera can help you start to see up close, to train your eye to observe the tiniest details in nature. You’ll be amazed at what you see through your lens.

“I See the Moon” is done!

Last night, I finished putting the facing on my newest piece, “I See the Moon.” As you can see, it is long and skinny – 24" x 60". It was fun – and somewhat of a challenge – to design and work in these proportions.

I am really happy with this piece. It gives me a wonderfully peaceful feeling when I look at it, and remember the song my parents used to sing me to sleep:

“I see the moon, the moon sees me

Shining down through the big oak tree

Please let the moon that shines on me

Shine on the ones that I love.”

I think that I also like it because of its clean, graphic quality. Plus, I love trees, especially in the winter, because you can more clearly see the structure of their branches that make patterns as intricate as lace against the sky. 

Maybe it’s because I was born on Halloween, but I have always felt that there is such magic in a full moon. To me, it is a symbol of serenity and stability, the sense that all is right with the world… and at the same time, of the mysterious, miraculous and fragile universe in which we live. I tried to capture all of these feelings in this piece.

The rising moon always reminds me of lyrics from one of my favorite singer-songwriters, James Taylor, in “You Can Close Your Eyes”:

“Well the sun is surely sinking down

But the moon is slowly rising

So this old world must still be spinning ’round

And I still love you.”