design

In Black and White: Using Black and White Photography as a Design Tool

| ellenanneeddy

I have a secret design tool. You probably have it too. In your pocket. Yes! It’s your camera phone.

We’ve most of us succumbed to using our cell phones as our cameras. It’s one less thing to stuff in my bra, since most of my clothes lack pockets.

One of the hardest things to evaluate in your art is value. Value is the darks and lights in a piece. Color is like candy. Or antidepressants. You reach for them because it feels great.

But value is so much harder. And vital. Texture and color shine out. But value separates the different components in your piece. The best way is to see it in black and white.

I haven’t mussed much with black and white photography since you had to give black and white pictures to newspapers. I’m really dated by now.

But a black and white image will show how the values are playing in your quilt. And will help show you how your design is moving. Your eye will follow a path made by the brightest object. If you make those objects into a path through the piece, you have a visual path that will showcase your work best.

And current cell phones make it simple. There’s a preset in your camera program that will give you a black-and-white photo.

I used this technique when my friend Sharon asked for some design help on her quilt. You’ll find it at A Visit to the Studio: Dsignng with Another Pair of Eyes,

Every design has a path through it. It can be clear and obvious. But what if it isn’t? And how can you tell?

The black and white photos tell us everything we need to know.

This is the beginning picture with the fish with reeds. This didn’t quite move the way I wanted it to. The reeds didn’t form a clear enough path.

Here we see the placement for the smaller fish. But you’ll also find the placement of the reeds moves things better.

Here’s the final picture with bubbles. The eye travels through the piece with grace.

I always encourage you to take pictures of your piece as you work on it. It’s great to have documentation about your work. But it’s also a great design tool.

The next time you’re unsure about the design of a piece, take out your phone, take a picture, and see it in black and white. It will tell you all you need to know.

Flamingo Legs and Other Troubles: Designing for Smaller Images

| ellenanneeddy

Free motion stitching is versatile. One of the graces of working free motion is the effects you can get with the stitching, just out of the angle your fabric goes through the machine. It’s about filling in space.

I’ve been asked by someone to do a flamingo quilt. I’d been hesitant in general to quilt flamingos because they’re a signature piece for Ann Fahl who won at Paducah with an astonishing work called Flamingo Garden. I haven’t wanted to step on her turf. I hope she won’t see my working on a flamingo in that way

But as soon as I started to look at flamingos, I was hooked. The colors are eye-popping, after all those properly grey birds and they are outright silly. I’m in love.

So I drew up three flamingos bathing. These are much smaller birds. They’re around 18 inches as opposed to 40″. Their impact is different and the coloration on them has to be different. It makes sense. If you’re filling in less space you have to cut out some of what you’ve used to fill in a larger space.

There are several ways to do that. One is to use fewer colors. When I choose colors, I choose the darkest of the base color, then a shader color, a range of the base color dark to light, a shocker, and then the lightest of the base color. That range can be massive. It’s not at all uncommon for me to use 60 colors in an image. But for these little birds, it has to be less. I ended up using about 20 colors

The other way to expand the space is to use a smaller zigzag.

Finally, I used a straight stitch instead of a zigzag stitch for the detail overlayer.

Every piece is different: in size, in coloration, in stitchery. But I’m pleased with these little birds.

Breaking Through Borders: Establishing Movement through Frames

| ellenanneeddy

Being someone who does nature quilts, it seems unnatural to frame a background with a border. Nature doesn’t fit into a picture frame very well. Of course, there are times when you simply have to. You have a 50″ subject that needs a background and 45″ fabric just won’t stretch far enough to accommodate.

But there are other reasons to create a border.A border can emphasize a light source in the center. A border can bind your subject into the frame of the piece, capturing it almost. Breaking through that border establishes the idea that your subject can’t be contained. That it’s moving so hard and so fast you can’t keep it in a box.

This heron just turned out to be too big for any of the fabric I had. I considered splitting a light source, but the background was just too good to cut up. So instead, I bordered it.

Borders are basically a frame. And like other frames they either offer something special or they really detract. You can use a border to create a different atmosphere, to give a boundary, or to simply expand the fabric. In this case, I needed the fabric extended, but I didn’t want to make it a square box for my subject.

Unbordered, Equal Borders, Gradated Borders

These rectangles show three options: an unbordered piece, a piece with equal borders, and a piece with gradated sizes. Equal borders make a plain frame for the subject. But a gradated border gives weight to the bottom, gives a travel direction to the eye, and starts the movement of the piece before the subject is even applied.

I cut my outside strips at 5″, 6″, 7″ and 8. Narrowest on the top. Widest on the bottom. The green inner border is almost the same value (black/white) as the purple so it doesn’t make as hard a border statement.

The head of the bird is in the lightest (narrowest) spot and his feet are where the sun don’t shine.

The frame also creates a light source in the center, illuminating the bird.

Using a border, not only to make more space, but to define light and direction is an easy way to make a frame. And pulling your imagery out side the box breaks the border in a way that makes the whole piece move. What could be easier?

Wake It Up! Sparking Color With Overstitching

| ellenanneeddy

I love creating color with thread. The threads available make an endless choice of colors. You’re eye blends the bits f thread that peek out from their layers. It makes colors that are rich, dense, and complicated. What’s not to love?

But sometimes it gets too monochromatic. I was working on this heron and I wanted some fish companions for him.

When I picked out my threads for these, I wanted them red to stand out from all that grey in the heron. Red is funny. Like every color, it can lean either to the sun or the shade. A balanced red would use threads of both tempuratures. I used both kinds, a little purple and teal for shaders. And I threw in a green just to spark it.

By the time I got to the green, the whole mass was bland. Pretty. Stripy. Bland. I put in the green and it just woke up. Then more reds and finally oranges.

The green stitching on top is garnet stitch, in small circles. It changed everything!

Yellow overstitching creates a swirl on the fish face that helps round the face. Overstitching adds a color layer, but it also breaks through that bland smooth color.

It helps, of course that the yellow complements the purple, and the green complements the reds. But the textural elements also wake up the fish and feed our eyes.

IRidescent by Accident

| ellenanneeddy

Nothing is quite as daunting as a really large embroidery. This babe is almost as tall as I am (4′ 10″). I haven’t measured him yet, but he doesn’t fit on a yard of fabric and we’ll have to sort that out soon.

Part of what is daunting is seeing the whole on a piece like this. Part of it is that when things go through that awkward half-embroidered stage, they look really weird for quite some time while you’re finishing off.

I’ve always made a point of showing you all of my errors. Partially because I view that kind of honesty as helpful and partially because I don’t necessarily view them as errors. They are the path through that particular piece of art. Sometimes they even turn out to be helpful.

I finished binding one quilt in a bright green in the middle of working on this quilt. Went back the next morning, and finished a large swath of feathers, only to find they were that very bright green. I was appalled. I picked up the mustache trimmer, looked at the immense patch of green, and quailed.

Then I thought for a while. Part of the problem with herons is that they are mostly grey and dark blue. With bits of rust. They are exquisitely formed but the color scheme leaves much to be desired.

But what is grey? Any color can be made into grey either by adding a lot of white or a lot of black. It’s a matter of value.

So I gathered up all the colors I had that were the same values, not colors. I added a lot of rust that gives it a warmer color, which means I’ll need a background with warmer shades as well.

All those colors sort of made it rainbow-colored. And rainbow colors make iridescence. But since they’re the same values, it’s still greyish. I think it’s going to be all right. I’ll know in several days when it’s all stitched in.

A word about the photography. I just got a new to me iPhone 12 mini. I do think the pictures are an improvement. Let me know what you think.

If you’d like more information about ripping with a mustache trimmer, see the blog To Rip or Not to Rip.

Tiny: How Big Does a Quilt HAve to Be?

| ellenanneeddy

I’ve lately been working with some larger major works. This year has been about building back a body of work. And it’s been successful. Here are a few of the larger competition/gallery pieces I did this year.

These pieces excite me. They take a real chunk of time, but I’ve learned some technique this year that has speeded that up. But a large piece is about a lot of visual thought. It has to fill up space so it needs points of interest, both up close and at a distance. The longest part of a large quilt is taking the time to think it through. They don’t work like small quilts. I know people who enlarge a small design into a large quilt. I’m not one of them. The space gets filled differently. Larger quilts are made from a central object with paths drawn around them.

Smaller quilts are more like snapshots. Not much there. But it’s all good eye candy. I spent the last couple days pressing through some little artifact quilts (made with rubbings and found objects). Because they are so tiny they offer a lot of freedom.

Lately, I’ve been working smaller as well as bigger. There is something wonderful about a tiny world you can step into visually, as a private retreat. They are designed differently so they make your brain think differently. And because they’re small they’re affordable. Everyone deserves art.

Besides, tiny quilts can go in intimate small places. They don’t need a full wall. They don’t have to match the couch. They make a retreat into another world in just a tiny space.

This is the latest batch of tiny quilts. You’ll find them on sale in my Etsy Shop.

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.

Under the Skin: Thoughts about Shading

| ellenanneeddy

We’ve talked a lot about shading. I’m fascinated with making animals that are dimensional, and shading is how we achieve that. Shading is about delineating light from dark. But it can be a rough moment when you start to shade. It can feel really overdramatic.

I was working on this goldfish for a quilt called Fishy Business and I was struck with how very shocking it could be to stitch in with the complementary color all over your image. Every time I do it I take a deep breath and tell myself I haven’t ruined it.

The last color you put on is your lasting impression. Everything else just peaks through. But those sneak peeks are so exciting that they make it all work. Your eye blends the colors so that they stay fresh and don’t brown each other out.

I remember in class once insisting that a woman making an orange/brown squirrel needed to put blue in her stitching. She was appalled. And I understand why. But it all sorts itself out after you come back in with your primary color. It also gives you color under the skin, just like blue veins color our peachy selves.

So here’s to the courage to add the color that really seems like it might be too much. Undershading builds the dimensionality and tone. It creates unbelievable color.