Month: November 2023

Developing Ideas: Leaf Mantises

| ellenanneeddy

You saw something fabulous. And you want to use the idea of it in a piece of work. How do you do that?

I have an obsession with praying mantises. It’s not about their social structure. It’s about how they look and move. I’ve always found them fascinating.

Lady Mantis 2

It’s really true that if you can’t see something, you can’t really draw it. Or design around it. So my first steps is to find a bunch of pictures. I’m not looking for something to copy. I’m looking for how they hold their arms and legs, and what angle the head is at. It’s research.

I love the leaf mantises. Some are green leaf, some are dead leaf. They made me want to scurry over to my leaf collection.

I’ve collected silk leaves for years. They come from craft stores, the Dollar Tree and rummage sales. So, could I make a leaf mantis from silk leaves? It turned out to be a pretty easy trick.

I sat down with my leaves and arranged them into a bug. They stitched down nicely. It was an experiment, but I’m thinking I’m on to something here.

So, more pictures, more research, and maybe several of them dancing in the woods. One of oak leaves, and maple leaves, and who knows what else.

Why is This Butterfly Ugly? Color VS background

| ellenanneeddy

Sometimes I think I should call my blog Studio for Real. I probably make the same bumbles and false starts as anyone else. I do try to show them to you for several reasons. It’s good for you to see that perfect is an abstract that doesn’t exist. That anything worth doing is worth doing badly. And that everything is basically an experiment. It’s Wednesday at the Micky Mouse Club. Anything can happen.

I’ve been working on the purple heron for a while When I put in the white lotuses, I wanted more. More of that white sparkle. So I started some white metallic butterflies.

I had some leftover felt squares and I used them for stabilization. But they weren’t all the same color. I didn’t want to put a layer of hand-dye into the sandwich so I didn’t.

Three quarters through the butterfly I turned it over to photo it. It was ugly. Irredemably ugly. I’d stitched my colors from periwinkle, sage green, silver, to crystaline white. Was it that really pale green that did it? How did it get grungy?

That happens a fair amount. Particularly when a piece is half done. A lot of times it gets better as you go on. Or put the eyes in.

It is better cut out. But compared to the ones on teal or white felt? No contest!

It’s official. I’ve found an officially ugy color. That soft sage green is only good for fish and frog tummies. I won’t use it with something I want sparkly white.

But it’s also deeply affected by the bright green background behind it. My backgrounds make a big difference, particularly if I don’t add in a layer of hand dye. That dark green did me no favors.

Next I decided just to see what the difference would be, to make up some butterflies in Poly Neon with white felt. I thought I might need more brightness.

Surprise! I’ll use these brighter butterflies, but not in this quilt. The metallic ones are more subtle. I wouldn’t have bet on choosing subtle, but this time it’s right.

Do I always thrash around about decisions? No, not unless I do. We all need the time in our art journey to try things out, to take false steps, and to turn, turn again until we come round right.

Medical Update 3: Hurry up and wait, Will you?

| ellenanneeddy

Late this September I was diagnosed with a leaky heart valve, an aneurysm, and a capillary blockage. Since then I’ve been waiting for the doctors to make up their minds.

It’s serious. It’s very serious. And the doctors seem to need to talk about it very seriously for the next month and a half to figure out what to do first. I’m very frustrated by having to hurry up and wait. They tell me the diagnosis is early enough that we can take some time to decide.

In a way, that’s a good thing. I’ve found myself in a grief process connected with this, and it’s given me time to get past my disbelief, shock, rage, and depression associated with it.

It also gave me some time to sell some quilts to have the funds to take care of whatever else isn’t in Medicare or insurance. For those of you who have purchased quilts to help me, I don’t have words to thank you enough. I feel much more secure and safe because of you.

For the moment, it seems like nothing is going to happen before Thanksgiving. Christmas we’re still figuring out.

So in the middle of that, I’m doing the one thing I know how to do best. I’m working on new quilts, and new techniques. I’m focusing on new work. And I’m grateful for the love and support you’ve all shown me. Especially Don.

I’ll keep you posted. It’s all happening eventually. And until then, it’s all right now.

Can I Kelp It? Couching Unusual Yarns

| ellenanneeddy

I needed some kelp for the bottom of this shore scene. I wanted something textural and yet not dense.

There aren’t a lot of great pictures of kelp. But I found these in an art nouveau book of botanicals. It twists. And it’s long and narrow with crinkled edges.

As a lucky find, there was this strange yarn at the rescue mission sale. Both of these are loopy yarns. They were in vogue several years ago for scarfs. They have loops woven in that will make great kelp. The color also fits into the scheme, blending with the heron.

It can be spread apart to look like kelp. That’s a difficulty all its own. You can spread yarn apart, but there aren’t enough fingers to hold it that way and free motion over it. You also can’t free-motion it without it being caught in the darning foot.

So I took a two-pronged approach, I knotted the yarn where I wanted it to spread,

I couched it in place with a regular presser foot, so that I could control the width of the yarn.

I covered it with a Dissolvable stabilizer. Then I stitched it all down with the darning foot where I wanted the kelp to be. I wet down the stabilizer to make it go away.

Some yarns need special care. Don’t be afraid to use several approaches to get what you want. In the end, all that matters is the result.

Waterlilies Vs. Lotus: Purple Heron

| ellenanneeddy

Whenever you do any kind of representative art, you end up needing to do your research. Does the frog have three toes or two? Does it matter?

Sometimes it really does. Sometimes it really doesn’t. But it’s always more impressive to get your details right.

I do water lilies a lot. Lotus, not so much. And I’m really not sure why. But for this quilt. I want lotus, with their big stand-up pads and their flowers standing proudly on their stems. I need the vertical motion of them.

So I went looking for pictures. When I did, I found lotuses and waterlilies side by side in the search for lotuses. So what is the difference?

I decided it was in the way the petals curved inward, Instead of having a petal shaded differently on each side, I shaded them so that the shadow was in the middle of the curve.

Each quilt gives me an opportunity to explore the shapes, colors, and shadings.. We look as artists for formulas that we can use. But in the end, it’s all observation set in the colors we play with. And a dance of choices, individual but built on all the choices before.