art statement

Shimmer: Defining the Background

| ellenanneeddy

I have two quilts I’m finishing right now that you’ve been watching me work on. The threads I choose make all the difference in their background effects. Shinier threads will create a shimmer, a wet or wild area. Less shiny threads are more indicative of air or ground. I’m treating them with different threads and patterns to create a specific effect in each case.

For a very wet look, I’ll use Sliver and other flat threads. These really shine across the surface. I prefer them for either starry nights or for water.

The other thread I’m using is Madeira’s bug body thread, FS2/20. This amazing thread has a black core that gives it a very different texture. Zigzagged it does look like bugs. As a stipple it has a sharp look without the intense shine.

I consider both these threads incredibly beautiful and essential. But I use them very differently. Because they create an incredibly different texture. Why is that important? The texture defines the area for our eyes. Shiny thread will create that wet feeling. A sharp undefined metallic does excellent air or dirt, all defined in our thread choices, with no more work to it than that.

Green Heron Hunting is set with water, air, leaf, and ground elements. The air and the ground are very similar. I don’t want a soft look. It’s fall, so I want it to be crisp and textured. So I chose Sliver for my stream. But the ground area with the frogs and the leaf tree tops are stippled zigzag with the FS2/20. There’s a glint of metallic, but it’s different from the high sheen of the water and the eye separates them immediately.

For the air, I chose a driving straight stipple pattern to suggest wind. But I put in a repetitive garnet stitch in it to make it look more driven.

For Fishy Business, the background is all water. So I used Sliver-type threads exclusively. The very shimmery background contrasts highly with the completely poly-embroidered fish. They both shine, but in very different ways.

Your thread choices and stipple patterns define the background. Contrast is the key. If your background and images contrast each other, they will stay visually separate, and help your eye to see the separation.

If you’d like more information on stippling and threads, check out. Skimming the Surface: Bobbin Work as Stippling.

Good Bones: Rocks To Water

| ellenanneeddy
923-21 In the Reeds 2

Building something with dimension usually means it has a recognizable top and bottom. Design-wise, I believe you should be able to flip a piece on any side and have the design still move and work. But it loses a great deal of credibility if you have upside-down fish. It’s not a good look.

Be that as it may, it helps to have a recognizable border between sky, land, and water. How can we make those obviously separate, without just putting a line across it?

There are several subtle ways and some pretty direct ways.

Dyed cotton thread in the sky, thick metallic in the water

The easiest subtle way is to change the kind of thread you are using to stipple. Not the color necessarily. The kind of thread.

Threads separate in how they’re made and how much they shine. Metallic threads usually shine more than poly or rayon, certainly much more than cotton. Sliver-like threads that are flat tinsel shine the most. Next, come the twisted metallics like Supertwist. Then there are the wound metallics like Superior metallics.

Now, if water is shinier than air, and air is shinier than earth, you can separate them out by having different threads stippling the piece. I usually use Sliver or #8 weight metallic threads for water, and Supertwist for sky, and/ or earth. If they shine differently, your eye will automatically sort them out as different.

# eight weight metallic threads in water

But the best way I know to establish earth is rocks. This is not subtle. It’s an in-your-face statement of land. A pile of rocks at the water’s edge defines the water/earth border immediately. Ad it’s so easy to do.

I cut rocks out of leftover hand dye. I pick anything that is rock color, always adjustable to the color of the background, and cut a whole lot of rocks for when I need them. They’re backed with Steam-a-Seam 2 so I can move them around at will until I iron them down.

Fishy Business is a mostly water quilt. But a pile of rocks in one corner establishes the bottom of the pond. I may have globs of thread and some water ferns later to create more movement. Now all I want to do is establish a baseline with the rocks and start getting the water to flow.

I’m using soft edge applique techniques for this. Soft edge has no visible stitching or edge to it. Neither water or rocks are improved by having a hard applique edge around them. Instead, I’ll go around the edges with monofilament nylon and a zigzag stitch. There’s more information on, this in Sun, Clouds Water and Rocks.

I cut some elongated c shapes to make water from. Both in blue and green for the water and yellow for reflected sunlight.

You can see the progression on this in these shots. I started with a corner pile of rocks to establish the bottom of the pond. Then I added in the water ripples made of sheers backed with Steam-a-Seam 2. Since each fish I put in the water changes where the water ought to be, I’ve added them one by one and adjusted the water around them. I added sunlit water shapes across the middle.

I’m pleased with this so far. Nothing is sewn down yet, so I’ll leave it up and look at it in case it needs adjustment.

Having a sticky fusible like Steam-a-Seam 2 lets me design this way. When I’m ready, I’ll commit and iron it down. It’s a very fishy business after all.

Going Home: After a quilt is Sold

| ellenanneeddy

My show opened Friday night in Havana IL. I had thought Havana was a quiet sort of place. No. Not so much. We had a pleasant stream of people that flooded at around 6:30 and finally trickled out at 8 after we’d sold several quilts and a good chunk of fabric. I was stunned. And very grateful.

Whenever you’ve stopped working your art, restarting it changes it. Different interests. Different subject passions. New tools. Changed abilities. It’s your work, only different. You can’t step in the same river twice. The river is different and so are you. So you have to wonder. Is the new work as good? Will people respond? Is it a new direction or skill, or an obsession that will pass?

Something that is kind of a confirmation is, will it sell? It’s kind of a confirmation because often work that is very good is waiting for exactly the right people and the right home. But it’s a huge compliment to have someone want to take your work home.

I firmly maintain that my is alive and has a life of it’s own. It has jobs to do that have nothing to do with me. It may go places I never get to visit. It is there to change people, to change how they feel, how they think, how they respond to their world. I can’t do that. Sometimes my art can. It certainly changes me.

Here are the quilts that sold last week!

I treat sales as a adoptions. I’m always so delighted when a quilt moves on to it’s right place. It’s one of the reasons I always offer trade up rights. I want you to have the right quilt.

But there’s another thing that happens. Buying a quilt is a transaction, not only in money, but in support. When someone buys a work, large or small, they are giving me the means to continue to work on my art. Whether they know that or not, I do. And I am so grateful! Whatever it is an artist I do, you are helping me continue to do that. I am grateful for the journey and that you travel with me. You are the heart of my art.

And thanks again to Don, who put up with temper tantrums at sewing machines, driving, mobs and show panic. How did I get this lucky?

The Art of Unintended Consequences: How Can You Plan When You Can’t?

| ellenanneeddy

I love people who show me their quilt sketches. They have plans. They draw them out and then they execute them. It’s a great theory. I wish it worked for me.

It never has. I can plan all I want. Things shift and change under me, and the thing I’ve planned changes too. Quilt pieces shrink. Distort. Turn out to surprise me. All I can do is trim my sail to the wind.

I pieced up this split light source a couple of weeks ago. My hope was that it would go with my meadow owl. Unfortunately the owl was brown and the meadow was bluey green. That doesn’t sound bad but it just didn’t meld. They looked like two different quilts happening because they were.

The owl, with all of it’s purple shading ended up on a lovely purple/yellow backing.

The split light source piece lay folded up by the photo wall. And I looked up and found my left over koi.

These koi go back. They’re aged. I brought them with me when I came to Don from Porter almost 7 years ago. They were supposed to be a part of a koi pond that just never happened.

I’d tried several backgrounds, and they just weren’t easy to place. For one thing, they were red, white and black. That’s not my normal color scheme. I had a top started for them that was humongous. The whole thing left me quite overwhelmed. So they did what half finished pieces do in my studio. They traveled from the floor, to the photo wall, to the chair, to a suitcase, and back again to the photo wall. I don’t ever throw them out. You never know when their day will come.

Last Saturday was that day. I was trying out backgrounds for the owl. The pieced background did not make the cut for the owl. And there were those koi, hanging on the photo wall.

Splush! They fit right in. I made a batch of kelp. One of them was way too big, but the others slid around the fish in a lovely arch. Just add bubbles.

Could I have planned it?

Not a hope, not a prayer. But I’m thrilled.

Why do I think this happens? It could be part of my dyslexia. I’m not able to put things in order or sequence very well. But I have another theory. I think a piece of art has a life of it’s own. It’s more of a birth process than a conscious design exercise. I know pieces of mine have gone places I could not, done things I couldn’t have done. They have their own lives. They are not my children. But like children, they have their own path.

Splitting the sky: The Advantage of Split Light Sources

| ellenanneeddy

I don’t piece well. It’s not my skill. Anything that takes accuracy and careful cutting really isn’t my skill. The new 770 Bernina came with a foot that does make it better, but I don’t normally do large pieced tops. I know better. It’s not pretty when I do.

But there are rare occasions when I piece a split light source top.

Why? Why walk into accuracy land and piecing?

A light source brings you fabric with direction, and a built-in world. That world can be integral by itself. But if you want to filter the light as if it were through haze, woods, or shadow, you can piece two light source fabrics to create that shaded look. There are several approaches, with different effects.

Vertical Piecing

Where the Heart is

Where the Heart Is was pieced from two separate yards of the same blue/orange color range. I lay both pieces together on the cutting board and cut them in gradated strips, 2″, 3″, 4″, etc. Then I sewed them together with the narrowest light of one to the widest side of the other, in gradation. Set in a vertical arrangement, it makes for light flowing through the trees.

Horizontal Piecing with a Frame

Envy

Envy was one horizontal light source yard, split in gradations with a half yard cut in 2″ strips put between. The piecing creates a sense of space. The narrowest strip in the gradation defines the horizon line.

Piecing within Multiple Frames

Sometimes I split the two fabrics with the light at the widest on one side and the dark widest cut so they can carry the light across the piece. Twightlight Time was also double framed with a 2″ and a progressive border. Having a narrower border on the top weights the bottom of the piece.

Piecing Machines

Lately, Don found me a Singer 99 at a yard sale. For those of you not familiar with these darlings, they are a featherweight industrial drop-in bobbin Singer. They only straight stitch, but the stitch is impeccable. They are tougher, and faster and they use bobbins that are still commercially available. I’d never seen one before, but I fell in love instantly. It took a little work and some creative parts searching, but Don got it working for me and it’s perhaps the best piecing machine I’ve ever had. Did I mention Don is my hero?

So I pieced the guinea hen’s background on it.

How do you keep it straight? It’s tricky. If I get them out of order the fabric doesn’t progress correctly through its colors. I make all my cuts, leave the fabric on the cutting board until I can number the pieces all on the back side. Since there are two pieces of fabric cut, I label my fabric, 1a,2a, etc. and 1b, 2b, etc. and chalk in the sequence on the ends so I can always keep them in order.

Expanding Fabric Size

Sometimes there’s just a beautiful fabric that needs to be bigger. That’s been known to happen too.

I needed a background for What the Flock, a grouping of guinea hens. I’m low on fabric and money right now, so I have to make do. I found a purple piece that should make a great meadow, but a yard was just a bit small. So I pieced in another half-yard to expand it. I cut the half yard in 2.5″ widths and graded the yard-long piece in segments of 9″, 8″, 7″, 6″, and 5″,

Seam Rollers

For those of you like me, who hate to run back and forth to the iron, there is a seam roller. You can use this gadget to flatten your seams right where you’re sewing. Roll it over the seam and you’ll have flat, ready-to-sew seams without the iron woman run.

I don’t piece often, but these backgrounds are worth it. I love the shaded light and the action of light of the fabric across the piece.

Into White: The Search for White Thread Painting

| ellenanneeddy

Some things are an experiment. Some things are a quest. Some things are like the holy grail and you keep searching for them interminably.

White is one of those things. When you’re working with thread painting, the easy answer is many shades of grey and then white, or many shades of beige and then white. Both are incredibly boring.

“Why couldn’t you just make it white?“ I hear you say. You could. If you want it to shine out stronger than any other element in the quilt and you don’t care about dimension, you could. Pure white can be like an out of place spotlight in a quilt.

So the quest is, what mix of colors, greys and beiges will make a white that will have good depth, cast and drama. And look like it’s white.

In that quest, I’ve done a step by step photo study on this bird, in hopes to study it.

I’ve talked about zoning and shading before so I won’t flog that in this blog. “Rethinking White” is a post about shading white applique flowers. It’s a bit different than totally building color in thread. Because it’s built on sheers instead of strictly thread. But you may find that a useful difference.

Dimension is made by arranging colors from either dark to light or light to dark. It builds the illusion of shape. The progression of colors creates shade and shadow.

Here is my thread range I chose. It’s a mix of blues, purples, greens greys and beige, laid out dark to light.

I’ve put together some process shots to help explain.

Head Shots

Dimension comes from having a dark, medium and light area in each color zone in your piece. If you can establish dark, medium and light, you can make depth, something that isn’t by nature flat. Then for interest’s sake I added a shocker and a shader color to spark it. Of course the beak and the eye bring it to life.

Changing Cast

The two things you are building are cast and dimension. Cast is the color under the color. Most colors either lead towards the sun or the shade. You get the clearest colors by using only sun or shade colors in an embroidery.

But sometimes clear color isn’t the goal. If you want to come to a neutral shade, you mix both. And try not to go too far from the center. It makes a fabulous blended shade, but it’s hard to accomplish.

The cast on the under feathers was more yellow than the rest of the bird. An over stitched layer of a bluer grey pulls the color closer to center.

White doesn’t have to be boring. Or grey, or beige. With a little thinking and a close eye we can create a blended white with dimension.

The Wrong Bird: Not Settling

| ellenanneeddy

Sometimes it just doesn’t work. most of the time I can see it in my head. Except when I can’t tell until I get it up on the wall.

I was a bit unsure when I drew the bird. But he had great movement. I stitched it out anyway.

Two things happened. It shrank and that was a real problem. How much? I had a notion so I measured. Roughly 8.9 %. Doesn’t sound like much but it didn’t help. I’d used a yellow thread in the mix that didn’t make me happy. And I hated his legs. They just didn’t quite work.

But honestly it was just the wrong bird. Much happier with this drawing. Ignore the lines with squiggles. They are off. It will have to be drawn in reverse for the picture.

Years ago in college I made a stone wear red queen as a portrait of my mother. Trust me. It was appropriate. It blew up in the kiln.

Stubborn is just tenacious in a different dress. I built again and this time it survived the firing. Of course they put all my work after that in the firings where a woman did work that always blew up.

So I have an extra bird I don’t quite know where it goes. And a bird I love drawn ready to go. Not a big problem as these things go.

Sometimes it makes sense to settle. Sometimes it costs your heart and soul. I hope not to get in too big a hurry to hear myself. Or to work until it’s right.

Update:

Here is where that bird finished up. He’s so much better sized for these fish.

This is what happened with the second bird drawing. Boy, am I glad I refused to settle.

Coneflowers in the Snow: Making Beautiful Blooms

| ellenanneeddy
Coneflowers

In all this snow I’m thinking of flowers. It’s just that time of year. If I can’t have flowers outside I’m going to make them inside.

I had this piece of fabric dyed as a Cenote, a well of color. On its side it reminded me of the center of a coneflower.

Sheers making up the flower

So I made coneflowers. Not just pink. Pink, magenta, and burgundy. I used lightweight felt and stitch and tear as a stabilizer.

I found a burnout fabric with gold dots, perfect for the center.

The threads define the final colors. Greens and oranges too. Nothing is pure pink.

Bird feeder 2

The hummingbirds were delighted to be invited to lunch. It may be snowing outside, but my inside garden is beautiful.

Building a Path: Creating Movement in Art

| ellenanneeddy

Two dimensional art is by nature static. It’s a flat image on a wall. So how do we make the image move? How do we make a two dimensional thing take flight?

There are several good tricks. Movement can be crafted in several small design decisions that convince our eye that the picture is in movement. This quilt I’ve been working on has a number of these features.

I was delighted when I saw a picture of a caterpillar perched on a fiddle head fern. I imagined a mob of caterpillars on the move, looking for lunch.

I started this quilt with some good movement in the fern heads themselves.

The Stems thrust upwards and the curved fern heads move at a spiral angle. Anything headed at an angle as if it’s falling is already in motion.

embroidery back
embroidery front

I embroidered a number of caterpillars so I’d have some choices in color and shapes

I placed them several times, looking for the right flow.

This is the one I liked best. I went off the edge with my butterflies.

I like the flow, but it also works because of the interactions of the caterpillars. The angles of the bugs also suggest movement.

Finally I supplied lunch. It doesn’t really add that much to the movement, but the leaves with bites out of them makes me smile.

So to add movement to your art:

Put things at an angle

Go off the edge

Place elements where they interact together.

Put things into a path through the quilt.

The purpose of that movement is to send the eye through the journey of the visual path, to experience each part of the quilt through movement across it.