Design

Butterflies: Shading and Blending

| ellenanneeddy

This week brought me two sewing machines at the shop. That doesn’t stop production, but it does structure what I work on. My 770 bounced out of adjustment when I hit a lump of too-thick thread, and my 630 is not seeing the thread up top and won’t sew. So what is left is my 220.

Make no mistake! I love my 220. It’s a three-quarter-head Bernina that is my go-to classroom machine. It has limited stitches, but all I want out of life is really zigzag and straight. And it has the heart and guts of a Bernina. Perhaps because it’s smaller, I tend to be protective of it. I do hate having only one production machine in-house because if something else happens….You guessed it. An addict is always an addict. I guess at least free-motion stitching isn’t fattening.

So I’m stitching small component pieces right now. I’ve been working on white butterflies for a while, with several different plans for them.

I wanted some white butterflies, particularly for the purple heron quilt. It needed brightening. But white is always difficult, because it’s usually just too bright. And flat white has no shading in it. So how do you build shading in white? You’re left either working in pastels or greys to try to get a dynamic between light and dark.

Of course, using a too-wide range of pastels creates a color that looks like a nursery toy. And grey is basically boring.

So here, my solution was to start with a periwinkle blue, use silver, and then iridescent white thread to top it off. The blue shades the darkest parts, the silver is a nice in-between, and the iridescent white sparks off the lightest areas. It’s always a good plan to shade dark to light, with at least three colors.

But while I was working on the white parts, I realized I wanted to fill the eye spots and edges differently. I put in a darker edge and either a lighter side of the same shade, or a brighter spot in the center. Rather than see that as shading, I think of it more as blending color.

You can’t do this without enough colors, and the colors on metallics are always more limited, but the Madeira Supertwists were designed with a darker and lighter shade of each color. I outlined with a darker shade and filled in with the lighter. The effect is a more dimensional space.

I have several quilts in mind for these butterflies. Next, more new ladybugs! Shading with black threads.

A Visit to the Studio: Designing with An Extra Pair of Eyes

| ellenanneeddy

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I always love it when people visit my studio. Studios are workplaces, the equivalent of an artist’s ivory tower. They also can be messy, wild, and full of possibilities. But they can feel lonely. I remember a conversation with an African Fiber artist. She told me she was writing from Darkest Africa. I don’t doubt that, but I told her I was within the shadow of the cornfield. It’s true.

So it’s wonderful to share studio time with others, to get their input, to help them with their work, to share the vision, and to get an extra pair of eyes.

My friend Sharon had been working on a contemporary quilt that had her nervous to start. Sharon’s a veteran seamstress with fine quilting skills, but she wasn’t used to the contemporary approach. She spent an afternoon where we tried a whole lot of things, just to see.

She wanted to do a piece with triangles on it. We placed the background on the wall. She had triangles cut of yellow, purple, and fuchsia cotton prints. We place them up randomly. It didn’t quite do it. But we took a black-and-white picture to see what was happening.

Black and white photos show us value. The light and dark of a piece define how it will be seen, what will stand out, and what will be the background. We noticed that the yellow really stood out. So we decided to use the yellow as subject and let the other colors support the yellow as the background for it.

It was still pretty random, so I suggested drawing a pathway across the quilt. She drew a path. She arranged the yellow triangles on the path and made a background of the fuchsia and purple triangles. Much better.

But the yellow was an odd calico, and it didn’t have a lot of punch. we pulled out some yellow sheers and lame`s. Since they were so shiny against the cottons, they illuminated the path. We cut triangles out of those and replaced the yellow calicos.

The black-and-white photo confirms that this is a strong design.

Sharon’s really pleased with this quilt. She’s ready to sew and sure of her design. I’m sure her niece will be thrilled when she gets it. I was delighted we had worked through some design decisions in a way that will help Sharon as she works on her next masterpiece. Studio time is holy.

I do have people schedule studio time. I even have a guest room at the studio where they can stay if they wish. And I do video conferences as well. We do whatever my student wants. I either teach them what they want to know, supply moral and technical support or help them work through design decisions.

Is it like class? No. It’s much more personalized. It’s a way of connecting artist to artist, with a second pair of eyes, to explore where your work might go next.

As for myself, it makes me think about things I never really work with ordinarily. That’s always a good thing. And I love the company.

Do you want to come to the studio? Contact me and we’ll set it up.

ellenanneeddy@gmail.com
219-617-2021
1405 S. Seminary Street
Galesburg, , IL 61401
USA

Studio Essentials: The Glory of the Design Board

| ellenanneeddy
1023-22 White Cherry Pond

Years ago I was in an Amish shop, where I made a purchase I really probably only could have made there. I bought 6 yards of black polyester double knit. The poor lady was scandalized. I was dressed in hand dye, obviously not only English but art quilting English. The Amish keep black polyester double knit for men’s suits. Clearly I was not making suits for some nice Amish man.

But it’s the perfect cover for a design board.

I have in the past hung things up on a balcony to the back porch and walked down the alley until I could see it right. That’s a bit hard on a daily basis, and I no longer have a balcony.

Do you need a design board? Yes. Yes you do. You need to really see what you’re piece is doing.

I have a lot of tools in my studio. I love my machines, my irons, my cutting and ironing table. But queen of them all is my design board.

I no longer work in bed quilt sizes. It’s irrelevant to art quilting. But most significant show quilts are largish. Average size for my work is about 36″ x 45″. It’s hard to find a flat surface that size that has nothing on it. Certainly not the floor. Never mind the other things that already on the floor.

The cutting table accommodates that size, but looking at something on a flat surface gives a distorted view. The only way you can really see your quilt is to hang it up.

Different placements for the bird on my photo wall

There’s a rhythm to doing any kind of art, and once you start working makes you want to push through. It feels good to do that. But it’s a trap. If you don’t look at what you’re doing, it’s easy to do something you wish you hadn’t. Does it need to move over an inch? Is the drawing the way I want it? Are the colors working? If you can’t see it, you can’t evaluate what you’ve done. I can’t really see it on the table., either. The perspective is off when you see it lying flat. So up it goes on the wall. It’s worth leaving it there a day or two if you think something’s not right. You can’t see what’s wrong if you don’t look at it.

My wall a sheet of 4″ thick sheet of blue dow insulation snugged up against the longest wall in the sewing room. And it’s covered with that black double knit.

Blue Dow is available at most building stores like Loews and Menards. It comes 4′ by 8′. It is lightweight and you can pin projects up easily. It can be cut to shape with a bread knife.

Any large piece of fabric like a sheet, felt, or double knit can be used for a backdrop. Black, grey or white make good backgrounds. I like double knit because it doesn’t collect lint and the black is a nice dark black.

It’s also my photo wall. Having a photo wall and set up in your studio gives you consistent photos. If you have the same camera, the same lights and the same background, your photos fit better in with each other and are easier to adjust, since you know what to do for them.

I also usually take a picture of the days work as the last thing I do, so I can evaluate my next step. Usually I post it on Facebook if it’s interesting, but at least for myself, I can see what’s going on. And plan what to do next.

For more information about how to evaluate your piece and it’s progress check out The Importance of Backing Up and The Wrong Bird: The Importance of Not Settling.

For information about photo walls and lights, see Fiat Lux: Studio Illumination

dimensional daisies: putting backgrounds into perspective

| ellenanneeddy

I’ve been working on this owl for some while. I have her soring over a meadow and I’ve wanted some wildflowers to make that happen. Daisies seem like a good way to start with this.

But how do I make the depth happen? I get that I make the daisies at the bottom larger and the ones in back smaller and less detailed. But how does that happen in proportion?

As a theory, I’m going to try to treat this as a prospective issue. There’s one point perspective and two point perspective. If I treat the daisies like I might telephone poles, can I get them to create a retreating background to the piece?

I’m not one hundred percent up on art perspective so I did a little research.

One point perspective creates a retreating road that goes into a horizon line. Everything comes into that one point on this grid. You can work it from any angle but it ends at the vanishing point.

Here’s the straight line, street version of this. It naturally creates a background that retreats.

Two point perspective places an object in three dimension in the center of the piece.

It naturally comes forward. It creates something that lands smack in the front.

That kind of perspective won’t give us a background. So we need to be thinking in terms of one point perspective.

I’ve been playing with several backgrounds for the owl. Not at all sure I’ve found the right one yet. Perhaps building my meadow will make it clearer which one I should be using.

Here’s a plan for daisy perspective. The slanted line horizon line is the body of the owl.

This background worked a lot better with the daisies and the owl. It picked up the purple shadows in the feathers and sets off the yellow flowers. I did a huge pile of daises, in gradated sizes.

The larger daisies at the bottom gradate smaller until they reach the mountains. It’s daisies used as telephone poles.

What happened to the gradated piece? That’s another story. But it’s already got a home.