Oil paint stick rubbing

Gilding the Lily: Adorning Fabric Rubbings

| ellenanneeddy

A couple of weeks ago, I did a series of small rubbing pieces. I use rubbing plates and oil paint stick. I focused on different backgrounds, flowers, bees, dragonflies and butterflies. It’s an endless river of design choices in a tiny scale.

I’ve loved working with tiny pieces. It’s nice to have a quick result, and they’ve proved to be popular. Who wouldn’t want a delightful piece of art that fits everywhere and doesn’t cost much.

The rubbing plates I’ve been using are a limit of sorts. I still haven’t figured out how to make my own. I will. I want it bad enough, I’ll do it.

But I’ve enjoyed working with these flower plates to stretch what they might be.

But there’s another side. It’s soothing to spend a couple days just stitching. The rhythm of the machine, the movement of design, and the feeling of watch thread flow from the needle to the fabric all create a tao that’s gotten me through endless tough times. Demanding focus to actually color in the lines is very good for me. A lot of my stitching can be mindless. This is not. I have to try to hit the line.

I’m going to show you some of these before and after I’ve stitched them. It’s a magical change that always thrills me.

They are transformed by stitching. They’re lovely, just as fabric rubbings but they change in amazing ways, once they’ve been stitched.

These are supposed to be waterlilies. But with some background and color changes, I think they make fine Dahlias.

These are supposed to be forget me nots.

But I love them as carnations

But there’s another side. It’s a place to explore and work with colors differently and stitches differently. Not endless change, but small differences not tried before. Is there anything I haven’t tried. Of course there is. Move it over a quarter of an inch and add peach, and I’ll bet I’ve never done it before.

I’ll be finishing these little quilts in a day or two, and they’ll go up on the website and onto Etsy for sale. You’ll find tutorials on rubbings and stitching on the video page.

Take time to try things out in little ways or big ones, as your work needs. It feels great to stretch a bit.

Over and Over Again: Ladybugs, and the Need for Serieous Work

| ellenanneeddy

No. I did not misspell that. All art, all creative process is a journey where we ask questions about design, color, shape, materials and techniques. Each piece we do is an answer for the question. Do I make a big moon or a small one? Out of Angelina Fiber? Or tulle? Or that strange gold brocade I just brought home? Do I make rays? Or a big circle, or spirals woven into each.

How do you do the black and white parts of a ladybug? Bobbin work again, but showing different directions.

Put them all together and they make a series. Series work helps us answer a billion and one questions.

There are no right or wrong answers. But each quilt gives you other questions to try. And since experience is the best teach, each quilt is a new experience, even if you will never do it again. Try a new thread. Will it work from the top or shall I put it in the bobbin? This machine likes this kind of poly monofilament. Will it work better with a cone holder? Horizontal or vertical? Endless questions that can only be answered by an endless dance of doing.

But the other reason is fascination. We regularly explore bits of the world that fascinate us. I’m fascinated by bugs of all kinds, but in red? Red? Where’s the red?

Well of course, I now have a reason to explore all those reds together. What if she isn’t really red?

Do I find repetition boring? NO! I find repetition changes everything as we put together the puzzle of each piece

So, if there’s something I don’t know the answer to, I sit down with a pile of new work that just might give me the answer. I’m not repeating myself? I’m on a journey. Who knows what I’ll find.

Creating Color by Underpainting

| ellenanneeddy

I talk alot about color theory, choosing of threads and creating color schemes. The nature of thread painting is no different than any other art. It’s a creating of colors from components. How you arrange those components changes the effect you get.

I usually line up colors light to dark and add in a shocker and a shader. That color scheme gives us a smooth layer of color that builds on itself. It’s pretty. But it hasn’t got a whole lot of depth.

Sometimes I separate the the scales into a dark and light zone. That creates a deep separation on the scales without any shading. That’s pretty too.

I wanted something different for this fish. I wanted the scales deeply separated and clear. So I underpainted my fish first in blues, purples and greens, and then over painting with yellows and oranges.

Is it extra work? Yep. Would I do it all the time? Probably not.

But one of the wonders of doing Koi is their textures. The textures of fins and scales and their sense of motion is all of that.

So I started underpainting with the complements of the piece. Since the fish is yellow orange, the underpainting should be blue. green and purple.

He’d be pretty if I just continued in that range. Instead, after establishing the darker underpainting, I painted over with yellow and orange threads.

After that, I added a light layer of turquoise metallic thread for flash and black outline for definition.

This is where I think I’m going with this. The underpainting separates and lifts each scale and the outlining nd flash stitching punches it visually.

If you are keeping score of colors on the color wheel, you’ll notice it has a full range of analogous colors from Yellow, green, purple to blue.

Is one method better. Heavens, no! It’s a matter of having choices and knowing what those choises offer you. Now I’m off to stitch rocks and hostas.

Tiny: Embroidered miniature Bugs

| ellenanneeddy

I’m worn out after doing a bunch of big pieces. Big is of course, relative. I consider anything past 33″ x 43″ largish. I like workin that size. But the last ones have stretched larger, and I’m tired of shoving large wads of fabric through the machine.

I’ve been working on a white garden piece. The idea came fromThe White Garden, a speculative fiction about Virginia Wolf. She was thinking about an all white garden for the blackout, so that the moon would show on the white petals. I found some embossing plates that were wonderful prarie grasses. I put them on dark blue hand dye in shades of white and blue.

I’ve never had the dicipline to plant only white flowers. Too much of a color junkie. But I love the idea.

This is a visual path piece. It’s about 12″ x 45″ So everything has to be tiny.

So I made a strip of white and pale flowers. But then it needed moonlight and bugs. No one said the bugs had to be white.

How is tiny embroidery different than large pieces. Several things work differently. First off, I want to avoid a thick outline. So instead of embroidering on a sandwich of hand-dye, felt, stitch and tear, and totally stable, I left out the hand dye, and embroidered on the felt instead. Since I wqs using black outlines, I used black felt. Using felt reduces the bulk, but I found it could not be ripped out or sewn over. This is partially why I made a lot more bugs than I would need.

I could have embroidered tiny pieces within the piece. But I chose not to this time. It still makes for a lot of distortion. So I did a batch of moths, fireflies, snails and rocks.

Embroidering tiny pieces insists upon simplification. The usual shocker-shader colors are too much. A simple range works better: gold and green, white and blue, green and blue.

The fireflies are also mostly unshaded. There’s no room for anything except the primary colors of red and green.

So my white garden is full of wild color, very tiny bugs. I think I could find my way in it.

Finding New Tools: Whose Tool Box do you Take Things From?

| ellenanneeddy

As quilters, we are excellent borrowers. Quilting as an art form is relatively new. Art quilting really didn’t exist until the 1970s. Rotary cutters were originally used by fashion semstresses. Surgical seam rippers and hemostats are medical tool that tranformed instantly into quilt tools. Men’s fishing bags, now designed in woman’s colors are the package of choice for sewing kits. We know a good thing when we see it. And we’re not too proud to use it. It doesn’t even need to be pink.

Those tools were life-changing for me. I will never work the same way I did without them. I didn’t personally develop them. Most of them were handed to me by a quilter who knew how life changing they would be.

My dad had a saying about horrible projects. “If it’s too hard, takes too long, or is just too awful, you have the wrong tool.” His other saying was, “You can use a hammer for a saw, but it’s hard on the hammer and what ever you are sawing.”

So this week, I found a new tool box to raid. I’ve been playing for some time with rubbing plates and oil paint sticks. This is another borrowed technique, and I love the textures and colors it adds in my work. But I’ve run out of rubbing plates. I’ve kind of bought all the ones that weren’t Christmas, sentiments, and animal prints. I’ve used them to a lather. I’m working on routing my own patterns. But I’m still looking for anything else that will serve.

So I found metal embossing dies on Amazon.

They are a bit deceptive. They are not in pretty colors. They’re all metal dies used for embossing. They work just fine for oil paint stick rubbing. They are smaller than I expected. But I was most excited that there were weeds and grass flowers in them. I’ve wanted some wild weed rubbing plates forever!

Plain silver, celedon, sand, and metallic white against blue.

I have a brand new set of tools for my tool kit! And a new tool box to raid.

Where does this go?

Version 1.0.0

I read a fabulous book called “The White Garden”. It’s speculative fiction about Virginia Woof. It sugguested planting a white garden in WW2 that you could see in the blackout. I was charmed by it. But my self control is not good enough for me to do that in a garden of my own. I always choose color. It’s a character flaw. The concept still makes a great image. I love these glowing weeds at night. All it needs moths and/or fireflies.

So who’s tool kit do we borrow from? If we’re smart, we’ll grab anything that works. Most of the time you get a look at something being used in a way you’ve never thought of before. Like cutting chiffon with a sodering iron. Yep. That’s a thing. I can’t wait to try it.

Where’s the best place to learn about the unauthorized tools? Other quilters of course!

Old Toys in New ways: Paint Stick Lace

| ellenanneeddy

oil paint stick lace

It’s always nice to find a new use for an old tool. I’ve loved oil paint sticks for years. I use them for fabric rubbings and find them an exciting way to design.

I’d pulled some out for a friend who had come to the studio for a visit. They were still on my table, and as I went to put them away, I thought about lace and organza.

painted organza

I’ve painted lace before. Almost all the lace I’ve worked with has been polyester or nylon, so you had to paint it with acrylic paint, the kind that comes in little bottles at Joann’s and Walmart. You mix the paint with water and with fiber medium. Then you can paint it with sponge brushes. The effect is a soft spread of colors with a kind of plastic-like hand, that you can iron, and iron on things.

It’s pretty. But it’s always pastel. You know how I feel about pastels. Yes, there’s a reason for them. I still have to be talked into it.

So I thought about a white piece of lace I bought a while back at a garage sale, and painted bits of it with oil paint stick.

Tips for Working with Oil Paint Stick

  • Use a sheet of freezer paper to protect your table,.
  • Peel off the skin on the paint stick with a potato peeler.
  • Peeling along the long side of the paint stick gives a wider brush stroke.

They can be rubbed against a surface and blended with each other.

The differences are stunning. Both are cool, but in very different ways.

Oil Paint Stick

  • Has incredible bright color
  • Won’t spill
  • Uses up quite a bit of paint for one piece
  • Takes time to dry
  • Doesn’t need brushes
  • Cleans up with Goop or Go Jo
  • Only paints on one sided
  • Sets with a hot iron

Acrylic Painted Lace

  • Paints up with sponge brushes
  • Drip dries within a couple hours.
  • Sets with a hot iron.
  • Pastel to moderate color

Will I use them both. Of course! I love using sheers, and colored sheers give me a way to shift the color of my quilt surface. Having a bright option instead of just a pastel one is a big present under the tree.

Hand dye with oil paint stick lace overlay


I’m working on an ibis that needs a small pond from above and some clouds. New shaded grey/blue/beige laces might be what that needs. I love new toys!

Show panic: Getting Ready with Grace

| ellenanneeddy

I’m delighted to announce I’ll be doing a show of my work for the Peoria Art Guild this September, 2023. Right now I’m running around the studio like a frenzied ferret. It’s not pretty. But it’s show panic. It’s how it’s done.

The show will open Friday, September 1st. I am so excited. I have a pile of new work to show and I’m so pleased to be able to do that in person with you.

These last two years have been a renaissance for me. I’m working larger, in wilder images and on fire with the art happening. Not bad for a lady at the other side of seventy.

So here is a review of last year’s work.

Major quilts

There are some large unfinished pieces almost ready to go.

small Works

As you can see it’s been a busy year!

The show will start at the

Peoria Art Guild September 1-30

Opening
First Friday, September 1
Gallery talk: 4pm
Opening 5-8 PM

Classes:
Fantasy Flowers: making flowers from sheers and embroidery. Saturday. September 16th, 9-12
Dragonfly Sky: Working with bobbin work. Sunday, September 17, 9-3

Free Lecture: The Visual Path Designing Art in Motion. Saturday 16th, 1-3

Peoria Art Guild, 203 Harrison St, Peoria, IL, 61602, 309 637 2787 

Hours: Monday 9-4, Tuesday 9-6:30, Wednesday 9-6:30, Thursday 9-6:30, Friday 9-4 Saturday 9-2, Sunday CLOSED

To celebrate, and to pay for some of the show costs, I’ve put my current small quilts on sale on Etsy at 25% off. Check them out
Are you excited yet? I’m exhausted. But thrilled. Come join me!

Color Study: Why Red?

| ellenanneeddy

I’ve just finished Little Blues! I’m delighted with this quilt. It took me a while to get it finished off. In that process, on a whim I added some red silk flowers to the background.

Why red? Why not orange or blue or white? I did try those. But red was it.

I really think it’s worth the while to put up your color decisions on a color wheel. Just how you can see how they relate.

The color wheel gets a bad rap. It’s old fashioned, it’s boring, we all know how colors are made, it’s incomprehensible…. It’s still the best way I know to show the relationships between colors. It shows how colors are created. But most importantly, it shows how they react to each other.

The farther colors are apart from each other, the more tension there is between them. And like every good soap opera, more tension means more excitement.

At which point, you need to ask, where is this quilt going? If it’s in a baby’s bedroom, you might want to keep the tension and excitement to a minimum. But for a gallery? Bring on the excitement!

I was surprised when I put the colors up on the wheel. I didn’t realize how far around the wheel I had gone. But as you can see, the red zings across from the green. I don’t have much in there, but it wakes up a piece that has that sleepy analogous color thing going on without it. Not much. Just a handful of red silk flowers.

I consider using the whole color wheel a visual trick of sorts. It wins awards, and it’s showy, but color needs to be the focus of a piece for that to work well. But this almost full-color wheel is rich, satisfying, and just red enough to get attention.

For more information about color theory check out Color Theory: The Tug Across the Wheel and Thermal Shock: Shocking Color Choices.

Living Large: Strategies for Dealing with Large Quilts

| ellenanneeddy

I almost never do bed quilts. I did them when I was younger and watched them die as I used them. It was too depressing. I occasionally will do a baby quilt or a comfort quilt for someone dealing with illness. Mostly I do art.

And since art doesn’t have to be big, I don’t often make something bed-size to put on the wall. Except when I do,

This heron couldn’t be done smaller. At least I couldn’t do it smaller. He’s 60″ x 52″. He’s pretty much the size of God’s underpants.

There are some strategies for dealing with overlarge quilts. The first three are, don’t. But if you’ve decided it must be large, there are several things you can do that will help.

Strategies for Large Quilts

Break it into components. For myself, that means the embroideries. I do them separately and then apply them when the top is ready. But it might be working in rows or in segments. Different quilts will suggest different approaches.

Use larger details. Scaling up the design means there’s less work in it. Sometimes extensive detail just looks ditsy on a larger piece.

Buy extra sewing machine needles. Larger quilts require more tugging and pulling and that will break needles. Promise.

If you have a machine with a wider arm, this is the moment. The arm of your machine is the space between the needle and the mechanical right end. A lot of manufacturers make machines with a longer arm. That’s extra room to shove the quilt through the machine. It can be very helpful.

Use a design wall where you can walk away and really see your design. A design wall should be big enough to accommodate your work and in a big enough space where you can walk away and really look at it. For more information about making and using a design wall, here’s a blog post on it: Studio Essentials: The Glories of the Design Wall.

The other helper is what we used to call bicycle clamps. Roll your quilt, clamp them with these clamps and then you can maneuver it easier.

I don’t do large quilts often. But they do really make a punchline in a gallery show. So this heron is promised to a show at the Peoria Art Guild in September. We should have him crowing by then.

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