art quilting

Where Does the Art Come From: Feeding Your Eye

| ellenanneeddy

Books currently on the desk

This has been a counter-productive week. My leg went out ( still not sure why), and I’ve had some low-grade flu. So my studio work didn’t happen. Instead, I worked a bit in my library.

When I married Don and moved, I stripped my library down. I have several libraries. One is for personal information and entertainment. Small kitchen library. And a pile of art books. Somehow that has continued to grow.

Where does our art come from? We’d like everything to be completely out of ourselves. I’m not sure that’s possible.

We have several illusions about art. We’d like to believe all art is original. But it’s not. Art comes from our response to other images. All art is in some way derivative. Different pieces of art hold a conversation over time. Art changes how other art is made.

We are told only artists are artists. That’s just wrong. Art is not unique to artists. It’s a part of our genome. It’s the ability to view our world differently. In our view of the world, we begin to change our world. when we work with those images, we change ourselves, and that changes the world. Just a little bit. It’s the creation of sense, beauty, and order. We have to silence the voice that says we are not artists. Because it’s the voice that tells us we can’t. Because it strips us of power that has always been our own.

So how do we kick start art? We need to feed our eyes and refuse to hamstring ourselves. What our senses bring gives us all kinds of inspiration.

But back to art being derivative: We work with the images that set us on fire, move our inners, pop out our own eyes or perhaps someone else’s. And there is never any reference like a book. The zoo is closed. The science program moves too fast. The web pictures are tiny. Your own library is a wide world portal that never closes; Not even at three am.

So I look for books with enough animal pictures to know how many toes a frog has and what angle the leg is at. I look for landscape books, garden books. pet books, pictorial archives, amazing art artists, and how-to techniques. And beautiful kid books.

I love my library. It fills my eyes. it fills my head. It fills my life.

I jus made myself bookplates for the Galesburg address. This is sneaky. I get to open every book, if nothing else but to put the plate in.

Take your inspiration where you find it, but build up inspiration where it waits for you, like treasure in heaven.

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.

Rethinking Cut-Away Applique

| ellenanneeddy

Most of the time when I applique fabric, I use a fusible like Steam a Seam 2 and I cut out my shapes. Except when I don’t.

Cut out applique works well for smaller, stable pieces that can be cut and moved around. Cut-away applique is better for elegant curved lines you just can’t cut out and move around..They shim out of shape too easily. And then they never lie flat.

Direct Applique

  • Attach a layer of fusible to the applique
  • Cut out the object before you glue
  • Stitch down free motion zigzag
  • 1 step process, just stitch it on
  • Thicker lines

Cut- away Applique

  • No fusible glue
  • Lay down a sheet of applique fabric
  • Straigh stitch in the design on top
  • Cut it away excess fabric
  • Stitch it down free motion zigzag
  • 2 step process
  • Softer, smoother lines

For this frog, I wanted a sinuous curved vine with curlicue tendrils. Not something that is easily done in direct applique. Larger cut-away applications can distort a bit. If we put a layer of the applique fabric over the top, stitch it down and cut it away, it’s a much cleaner, smoother line.

In cut-away applique, we stitch the design on an extra layer, and then cut-away what the excess.

Then we stitch down the edge with a free-motion zigzag stitch that can be smooth and lyrical like the design itself.

Here is the cutout vine ready for applique. What has changed? I used to draw and cut the leaves as well. I’ve done those separately to avoid some of the distortion.

Cut-away applique with Lace

The same process works with these lace butterflies. Rather than glue them on, and have the glue show through, I stitched around them straight stitch and then cut away the excess fabric. I had though I was adding butterflies, but I think they look more like the shadows of butterflies, which is much more cool.

Cut-away works as well with lace. These butterflies were part of a lace fabric. I stitched down the leaves and bugs, cut away the background, and stitched down the lace with a small free-motion zigzag stitch.

These techniques are neither right or wrong. It’s about using different techniques to get the results you want. It’s all a part of your tool box, for you to use as you want.

Seeing Spots: Some Strategies for Shading around Garnet Stitch

| ellenanneeddy

We worked with garnet stitch to do octopi several weeks ago. That was an all-over garnet stitch that could be shaded across the piece. But what if we want separate spots and smooth shading around them? How do we go about that?

What we need to do is to define the spot clearly, and then shade around it. But shading with one color around the spot negates a color range shade. We need to put in our spots and then shade around them defining different sides of the spot with different colors.

We start dark to light with the darkest threads first. The first color needs an outline stitch done at an angle to define the shape. Then we’ll shade out to the side, and then smooth the line between the outline and the shading.

But after that row, there’s more shading than outlining. When we come to each spot we outline the spot on that side and shade past the edges of it. Then in the next color row, we outline it from the other side and shade it into the earlier colors. The spot is clearly in the color range but it’s defined by the outline around it that fits the shading as it changes.

It’s a cool trick for including spots in a smooth range of colored stitchery.

For more information about shading colors check out The Long and the Short of It: Blending Stitches with the Long Stitch.

The Thread MAgic Stitch Vocabulary Book is Available in Kindle!

| ellenanneeddy

The Thread Magic Stitch Vocabulary Book went up yesterday on Kindle and is now available! I’ve been sharing my chapters with you so you can get a taste. This is the classroom book that shows you most of the technique

es I use for my work.

I will be teaching the class, Thread Magic Stitch Vocabulary Book for the Gems of the Praire Guild in Peoria on May 4th with a lecture on May 3rd.

This is my first guild gig in about 10 years. There are a lot of reasons for that, and I don’t know that I’m back to a gig I have to travel for yet. But I am so excited to be back in a classroom, and I’ve found there are so many techniques that have changed or modified over that period of time. And so many more things I can do with those techniques..

So I did this booklet, especially for this class. But it should stand alone as a set of exercises you can use to build your skills and stretch your abilities. There is a full toolbox of free motion techniques you can include in your work with just a little practice.

You can see several chapters up on earlier blog posts.

Product or Process. How Do You Learn Best

Bobbin Work

Hard Edge Applique

Skills covered
Free motion straight stitch
Free motion zigzag
Bobbin work
Hard edge applique
Soft edge applique
Working with Angelina Fiber
Working with dyed cheesecloth
Couching
Adding silk flowers and leaves
Globbing

I tried to write a book that would cover a lot of information in a small space. I’m hoping you find it useful. You can order the Kindle Stitch Vocabulary Book right now. The print book will be out at the end of the month, and it’s part of your kit if you are taking the class.

I’m so excited to be sharing this material with you and to be out teaching again with the best people in the world. Quilters!

Anybody Out There? Where Can I Go For Some Moral Advice?

| ellenanneeddy

Art seems like a solitary pursuit. And it is to the main. Most of us work alone in our studios for days without any input or comment, trusting on our eye and our sense of balance and color.

But in another way, no art is solitary. For one thing, one piece of art speaks to another piece of art being born. “This is how I am. You may be like me but you will be separate. But what you are is formed by the part of who I am. ” Your art work grows from one piece to another. The art itself, is almost just a byproduct. The real achievement is the skill and ability grown from the experience.

Art is also derivative. We would like to believe we are completely original, but all ideas are sparked by other ideas, images, thoughts, words and works. The task is to make them so wholly your own that the origin does not stand out and draw attention to itself. It’s there, if you’re looking and you know, but it’s overshown by what the artist does with it.

Good art blends between origin and action. We take what we know and build it into something separate and wonderful.

How do we do that on our own? Actually, I don’t think we can very well. Sometimes I put a piece up on line and ask a question of folk. I had someone ask me why I was asking them. I told her everyone needs advice sometimes.

In the beginning of my career, I went to a Chicago based art quilt group called F.A.C.E.T.S. It included Caryl Bryer Fallert, Ann Fahl, Jane Sassaman, Ann Wasserman, Kathy Weaver and a number of of other cutting edge quilters, some of them before they made their names. It was life changing. It was exhilarating. It was also hard. I learned so much from them. They didn’t change my art, but they helped me mold it. We grew in our careers, went other places, and the group, to my knowlege folded at some point. We’re all scattered now, but we did what we did because there were people to balance us and support us in our explorations.

The internet is a grand resource, but I’m looking for a group I can bounce things off of in person. I treasure sharing work with you on the internet, and your sharing in return. But I want the connection of really seeing the art and people’s faces as you talk to each other. Some things are different in person.

Galesburg is a pretty traditional place. I know the quilt guild there is probably not ready for art quilts, and I don’t want the trouble or fuss of pushing my way into a group that’s focused differently than would interest me. I don’t expect to find a ready made group of art quilters here.

So I’m thinking of starting a group here. I think it could be something that spreads online. But for now, I want a group that is real, here, in front of each other. So we can really see each other’s work and react to it. I don’t need a whole lot of people. But I want to be sharing work with others and take joy in what they are exploring.

So, is anyone interested? My purpose is to offer critique to each other, and support. It may end up in classes, but that is not my goal. My goal is to have work shown, seen and kindly discussed in a way that helps us all move forward.

Does it matter what that person’s credentials are? Not really. I knew an eight year old girl I could trust every time. Her eye was that good and she’d tell you. Not always with your dignity left intact, but she was always right. And I always followed her advice if I could.

Here are my goals:

To promote fiber art/ quilting that is exciting and edge cutting

To build a support group for people doing art in odd ways in odd corners in fiber

To celebrate and stimulate the creative process

To build a community for artists that gives them confidence and courage

To find someone to tell me, ” You need to move it to the left, three inches.”

Who am I looking for:

People stretching and growing in their art

People who work in fiber/fabric/ regularly as a way of life and are serious about it.

People who’s work is about new creative visions and techniques

People who have graduated away from patterns and are working with their own ideas

People who are kind and respect other’s works and ideas

So is anyone out there? Would you be interested in an art quilt group in Midwestern Illinois in Galesburg. Call me up or email me. Come and join me.

219-617-2021 ellenanneeddy@gmail.com