Sometimes Fabric Does All the Work

New Mexico Twilight

copyright 2003

I have talked already about the things you can use for inspiration. Here's another example of being inspired by a piece of fabric. I hand-painted the sky fabric after I had taken a class from the famous Mickey Lawler of Sky Dyes.

With this piece, that wonderful sky was created from using purplish blues and a strong orange (those secondary colors again!). It reminded me immediately of the strong twilight colors out in the West. It didn't take a whole lot more fabric or "doing" to come up with a piece that catches the essence of New Mexico and Arizona--that is, amazing colors and vast spaces. Perspective also came into play here because to create a lot of desert space in front, those mountains had to be small.

When you are designing landscapes, sometimes you will also find serendipitous things in the fabric that can play into your design. If you look at the moon above, you will see that the fabric behind it has a light or whitish area. That was a perfect place for the moon! It makes it look like the moon has lit up the sky just like it does in real life.

The desert space was created from a great piece of batik which had lots of coloration, including some light areas, like on the left. This creates a feeling of reflected light and adds interest.

It didn't take a long time to make this piece, but it makes me happy every time I look at it!

Newest Landscape--"Traffic Jam"

"Traffic Jam"

c. 2008

Last week, I attended Paula Reid's class at Sew Many Ideas. The class was about using your machine to add embellishments such as cording, ribbon, yarn, charms, etc. Paula is a machine quilter and has quilted about 30 or so of Alex Anderson's quilts.

I took a beautiful hand-dyed piece (mine!) of blues and purples. It already looked very "underwatery" and very luminous. I added some ribbon, cords, and yarns in similar colors and in very random designs.

When I got home, following up on that underwater theme, I found these wonderful little wooden fish buttons! I was on a roll. I had lots of shells and I also found a piece of irisdescent tissue-type fabric which would make some great underwater creatures of some sort. These I free-cut very serendipitously from things I remembered from tv shows, aquariums, etc.

I made a "base" of tangled hand-dyed threads and went from there. At the end, that got some additional beads, as well as the shells. There are also some specifically-placed crystals, as water would get glints of light.

Make particular note of the colors used here: the lime green in almost the center, the orange threads, and the purple--comprising all the secondary colors! There is color repetition as well; some purples in the fabric, the fish, and down in the threads, the green fish and those "thready" things in the lower right center, and some white in the fabric and the shell in the lower right. Repetition of the colors leads your eye through the piece.

I had great fun with this piece, and it was done within the week! Ye-ha!

Landscape Post No. 6--About Backgrounds

Different people use different ways of constructing "intuitive" landscapes or pictorial quilts. I started out by using some sort of foundation to design on. When I first started, I used a piece of muslin cut a little bigger than the size I wanted, and I used that as my "canvas." And that is one way. However, it adds an extra layer to quilt through.

Another way is to use the sky fabric (if it has one) or "background" fabric as the whole piece to build on. The problem with that is that I don't want to waste my great fabrics (like hand-dyed or hand-painted) by hiding them behind other things in the bottom half of the picture! As a result, I started planning out where my sky stopped and earth began and cutting fabrics accordingly. I overlapped them and stitched. The seam got hidden by trees and other things. The cottage piece above is an example, except in this case, it looks like the middle ground fabric actually got added on to the front of the background row of trees.

Another way I have tried is using a piece of batting to construct on. This works pretty well and it "holds" the pieces to it. It needs to be about 3" bigger on each side than your anticipated size; this gives some room for error or to get a little bigger if you need to.

In the end, they all work! All pictorial and landscape artists have their own technique that works for them, usually gained from trial and error.

For me, the secret has been to do a little more planning, a little more sketching and designing up-front. Obviously, that is what the award-winning experts do. Once you have your design worked out, how best to construct it may be the easier part.

Landscape Post No. 5--An Example of "Inspiration"

I mentioned in an earlier post using something for inspiration, like a picture, etc. In this quilt, "Along the Woodland Ride," my inspiration was my love of buttercups in spring. They make me happy! The title came as I was working on the piece. It's from a favorite poem.

In starting this piece, obviously the first choice had to be the fabric for the buttercups. It was going to be all about them! I had some lovely variegated yellow, hand-dyed, and I proceeded to take it and cut them free-hand. You would be surprised what your intuition will do if you try that. Besides, it's just fabric and you can cut another one and use the best! And nature is not perfect, therefore your cutting doesn't have to be either.

In this piece, the second thing to come was the background. I wanted it to display buttercups as you find them--anywhere out in nature! Here, there, all willy-nilly, they are. It's hard to see in the pic, but I stitched outlines of trees to give the impression of the forest behind. This piece was constructed very intuitively. By that I mean, I started, did something, then evaluated what the next step was to be. . . .

In the end, there were two things which "made" this quilt. I wonder if you know what they are? (It's a test!)

First is the choice of the batik for the rock. Its light color gives the impression of the light in the piece. (Look for the other things that seem to reflect some light also.)

Then, this piece needed some sparkle. What do you think did it? It's that little touch of purple flower, which is a complementary color to yellow, and it's right up front, but not so much of it as the yellow.

Also in this piece, I did use both hand-dyed and commercial fabrics. I even used the back of the fabric to look like more reflected light (see the foliage to the right that's flipped over and pointing down).

When I look at this piece, it gives me joy! And that's enough.

Post No. 4 on Landscapes: Some Good Examples

Here's a fascinating site on how this lady actually illustrated a book by creating landscapes. They're really great. Plus she used techniques she learned from Jo Diggs, a wonderful landscape artist particularly skilled in the use of light (see some of Jo's work at www.mainecraftsguild.com/diggs.html and also at www.skydyes.com ).

www.aghines.com/whistling/whistlingprocess.htm

Also, here's a great fiber artist who's used large stone formations as her inspiration:

http://www.labadiefiberart.com/links.php

Making landscapes in fabric is really no different than creating landscapes in other media; it's the fabric as the medium that creates problems to be resolved--as is true with any medium.

Landscape Post No. 3

There are two more art concepts that are important with landscapes: perspective and scale. For instance, perspective means things look bigger close up than they do far away. Like in real life, a man we know to be 6' tall when he's close by, looks only an 1" tall when he's half a mile away.

Perspective also involves the use of scale. Scale is flexible, because it all depends on the particular size and subject of your art piece.

For example, if you are using commercial fabrics in a landscape, the scale of your fabric needs to match where it is appearing in the picture. A flower in the front of the picture would be a bigger scale, or size, that one in the back of the picture, because of perspective. A flower also needs to approximate in your picture size, what its size would be in its surroundings in nature. For example, if you are making a 24" x 36" landscape, you wouldn't use an 8" rose (even in front) because it would be out of scale for your landscape size. However, if your piece is actually about a closeup of a rosebush, the scale of an 8" rose might be fine.

One other rule you should know about perspective is that colors get softer (lighter and less detailed) and grayer as they get farther away. That means your darker, brighter mountains should be in front and lighter, grayed colors should be used for the mountains in the back. This is where dyed gradations come in handy. But this rule applies to everything really. The most detail and brightest color of a tree, for example, would be in the front and the detail and color lessens as you move toward its rear. Study the picture above as an example of how these concepts play out. Note the brightest color and clearest detail in front and the graying colors and reduced detail in the distance.

If you study your favorite fabric landscapes, you will likely discover that one of their charms is that they have appropriate perspective and scale.

I'm Simplifying!

I picked up a good book at the Goodwill (I have a number of great book finds from thrift stores!) called Wherever You Go, There You Are. That's one of my favorite sayings actually, so it made sense to pick it up. This book is about the art of Mindfulness. Kind of being where you are when you're there!

The first thing it's made me realize is that my studio is keeping me distracted. I have a large studio this time (luckily!) but it's full! I had enough stuff to fill it up when we moved, such as my window treatment padded table, and two commercial sewing machines in addition to my regular ones.

The problem is that my Gemini nature (the "twins" sign--except in my case, it's more like sextuplets) keeps many interests going all the time. So my table is full of 2-3 cutting projects, my large rolling lining dispenser straight across currently displays fabrics for an unfinished upholstery project, a "landscape" vest, the "vegetables" quilt top, and the 17-year-old "tiger" quilt top. On the nearby floor are fleece lap quilts, hemmed and unhemmed, for the Sleeping Bag Project. Below and on the old telephone table are 6 new (i.e., this year) projects in boxes or containers. At the corner are the stack of books I'm "letting go," either on E-bay or to give away. Then there are the bunches of new fabrics on the floor that I haven't worked into the stash closet yet.

On my "office" table are my genealogy notebooks and recent information to organize.

Is this making you tired? Maybe this is why I'm waking up at 6 every morning--there's so much to be done! I can't walk in here without becoming discouraged and confused. "What do I work on now?" The answer all too frequently is: the one that's the most fun! That means things get dropped by the wayside, and like the tiger quilt, don't get finished for years.

So this afternoon, I'm simplifying! I'm putting away projects that are hanging around visually, so I don't look at them when I look up. I'm keeping out the one or two I'm working on, and want to finish. I think this will greatly help my creativity and increase my energy. I'm going to try that rifle thing, and stop my usual shotgun approach.

But right now, I've had a long day already. Gotta have a short nap. . . .

Try This for Comfort Food

I read cookbooks a lot, and they help me when I have to come up with something on the spot, which I did this week. This recipe turned out to be great comfort food, was good as a leftover, and easy! I keep packaged chopped ham on hand for use in salads or omelets, and I needed to use up the package.

Ham and Noodle Casserole

1/3 of a 12 oz. pkg. of wide noodles
1 1/2 cup chopped ham (from a pkg. or leftover)
1 c. frozen green peas, thawed
3 boiled eggs, chopped
1 can cm of celery soup (or mushroom)
1 can milk (add more if needed when mixing together)
1 1/2 c. shredded cheese, cheddar or other mixed
Black Pepper
1/4 t. salt (to taste)
1/4 c. chopped onion (optional)

1+ c. bread crumbs
1/2 stick butter, melted

Cook noodles in boiling water until just done, likely 5-6 minutes (they will cook some in the oven also). Microwave peas and onions, if you choose to use them, in a small bowl in the microwave for 2 minutes only. Mix soup with milk and stir in cheese. In mixing bowl, or your large pan from cooking noodles, mix everything together: cooked noodles, ham, peas, onions, chopped eggs, salt and pepper, and soup/cheese mixture. Pour into a round, 4" deep, greased casserole.

Mix bread crumbs with melted butter and pour over casserole. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes until bubbly around edges. Good with a salad or tomatoes. This would be a nice casserole for a potluck as well. 6 servings.