Redbird in the Morning 2004 Hand embroidery on twill, patchwork, machine quilted.
Birds are some of my favorite subjects. Here’s one I made inspired by the techniques in the book Painting with Stitches by Sue Dove. You can see more of my birds at my website.
Welcome to everyone clicking from The Brave Girls’ Club newsletter!
Thomas Edison once said “Genius is one part inspiration, ninety nine percent perspiration.” Which means, of course, that ideas are plenty, but what actually is important is that one spends time actually working to see the idea come to fruition.
I have shared my journals and process in the past , as well as written about some of my inspirations. Today I am going to share what I am working with right now.
On my birthday, I was gifted with a book about the life and art of the textile designer Vera. I had read an article about her in American Artist magazine when I was a teenager and have been inspired by her work ever since. That same day we also visited the Franklin Park Conservatory, and I took nearly one hundred pictures of the plants and wildlife on exhibit that day.
Here are a few of the images from that trip:
I loved the red and green striping in this plant, and see several pattern possibilities in the structure.
This piece is crying out to be rendered as an abstract stitching to explore the different textures and colors.
This may end up being a knit piece. Or perhaps a machine embroidered piece with individually embroidered petals.
I love this tree with all the different eyes. The fringy bark just puts it over the top. So many ideas, cannot pick!
With these photos in mind, I made a few sketches in my Moleskine, and translated one of them into fabric.
Vera’s Conservatory, 2011 18” X 24” Hand dyed cottons from my friend Diane Eyerman’s collection, commercial batiks and commercial cottons. Machine appliqued and machine quilted.
Detail of the tree bark.
Detail of the machine quilting.
I really enjoyed translating my experience at the Conservatory that day into a piece of wall art. I already have plans for more pieces based on the images I took. Lots of inspiration, now it’s time for the perspiration! :D
Since becoming a Kreinik designer last fall I have worked on several pieces using their wonderful threads. The pink shoe piece (Boogie Shoes), the coral reef (Octopus’ Garden) and generally playing and planning on what to do next (I really want to recreate Birds’ Eye View using the wonderful Kreinik braids) .
One piece which has been in process since early December was finally finished last week. Sometimes it goes like that, where I start a piece and have a lot of excitement and desire to see the completed piece, but then something else equally as shiny and attractive comes along, and so the original piece patiently waits on the design wall for me to come back around to it.
Last week I was avoiding working on another piece which was giving me trouble, so it was easy to pick this piece back up and put the finishing touches on it.
Twelve Step, 2011, 54” H x 41.25” W Hand-dyed cottons from Diane Eyerman , hand-painted and silkscreened twill, commercial cotton, Quilter’s Dream Green batting , thread from Kreinik and Madeira. This piece will be on exhibit at the Parkersburg Art Center during the month of June 2011.
In this detail you can see the sparkle from the Kreinik machine threads that I used for the swirl quilting and for the buckles on the shoes. The fish are a design I made, turned into a Print Gocco silkscreen.
I liked how the figure and ground relationship changed with the different hues of blue. This helped to accentuate the swimming feeling I wanted from this piece.
Another detail of the thread and the fish. I loved how our fabrics worked so well together, even though they were created months and miles apart from each other.
In Wednesday’s post, I am very excited to host *the* Crafty Chica, Kathy Cano Murillo, who will answer my question about how she changes gears between working on her wonderful art and writing her lively novels. I will be reviewing her latest novel Miss Scarlet’s School of Patternless Sewing and there will be a giveaway for two lucky readers!
One subject which often appears in artwork is the humble flower. From the old Dutch masters to Georgia O’Keeffe and more, many artists have chosen to recreate flowers in paint, clay and fabric.
Over the past twenty years I have created many floral pieces as well. here is a small sampling.
Anthurium 1989 Acrylic on canvas. 30” x 40”
Flowers for Keiko 2004 7” x 9” Machine embroidery, machine quilted.
Flowers for Angie 2006 24” x 18” Hand quilted, machine quilted, embellished with beads, sequins and mirrors.
Tulip Time 2010 6” x 6” Machine applique.
August 2002 Journal Quilt Project, handmade felt, machine embroidery, 3D appliques, shisha mirror embroidery.
Hollyhock Journal Page 2009 11” x 8.5” India ink, watercolor, paint pen and found quote
Floral Medley 2010 24” x 40” Applique, found objects, machine embroidery, machine quilted.
Bird of Paradise 1989 22” x 30” Dry pastel on paper. This image is reversed from the original so that I could make a photo transfer with it.
Bird of Paradise II (Study in Orange and Green) 2011 8.5” x 11” Machine embroidery on cotton twill.
No matter how many times I revisit floral imagery, I always find something new to marvel at. Do you have any favorite subjects that you return to again and again?
My children have always made art with me. I couldn’t imagine not creating when they were small, and so they always had some variation of art supply, and close supervision as we worked side by side. It helped keep me sane during those demanding toddler years and helped give them a leg up when it came to making art for school. I never held back on what supply they could use, I just made sure it was a child safe alternative (adhesives) or I did part of their work myself (cutting).
My youngest is soon to be 12, and he shares my studio with me. We do the occasional show together and we brainstorm ideas for our work. It’s really nice to have an art buddy so close at hand!
His favorite medium is polymer clay. He’s sold many pieces and has even taken a few commissions.
You can see some of his older work in the background, while his newer work is in the foreground.
We bounce ideas off each other, and take inspiration from each other’s work. Recently I created this sea scene:
Octopus’ Garden 2011 Machine embroidery with Kreinik threads, machine pieced and machine appliqued. I still need to measure it, but it’s around 36” x 36”
We have an upcoming show opportunity, with parameters of no larger than 5 inches in any direction. Izzy chose to make his own coral reef.
Izzy Stern Coral Reef 2011 5” x 5”
Detail of the sculpture. He was very concerned that the colors be accurate. I love the eel peeking out from behind the fronds, and you can see the tentacles of the octopus that is hiding behind the anemone.
This is one of his most ambitious pieces to date. I am really excited to see where he goes next!
It’s funny to see how you influence your children, or friends, or other people in your life, even if you don’t realize you are. Sometimes a little encouragement and belief in their abilities can go a long way.
Sorry, I couldn’t resist the pun. Last summer I did a small painting for my friend Tricia’s show. The theme was “shoes”. I have been drawing and painting shoes from way back, and so I delighted in this opportunity to try something new. I have a pair of toddler jellies that I found at a yard sale several years ago and this was a good time to play with that image.
Too Coy 2010 10” x 10” Acrylic and silkscreen on canvas
I had fun drawing the image and filling it in with color, but nothing beats my fabric, and I wondered what it would be like to blow the shoe image up and re-create it in fabric.
Boogie Shoes 2011 36 1/2” H x 31” W
This piece was done on whole cloth that I painted using SetaColour paints. It was painted on a hot August afternoon, and I sprinkled salt on the wet paint and let it dry in the summer sun. The batik was something I picked up just because I liked the color. I love when things work together to help create a piece of art. It’s almost like it creates itself.
Here’s a detail of the stitching. The grid quilting was done with a combination of YLI Candlelight thread (used in the bobbin) and Kreinik machine quilting thread. This was my first experience with the Kreinik machine thread and I was really pleased with how well it worked.
You might have guessed from my last post that when I find an image I like, I like to create it multiple times. There will be more shoes in my future, including this one, in process:
Twelve Step, in process hand-dyed and hand painted fabric, silk screen, applique
Are there any images you like to revisit over and over again?
