I needed some kelp for the bottom of this shore scene. I wanted something textural and yet not dense.
There aren’t a lot of great pictures of kelp. But I found these in an art nouveau book of botanicals. It twists. And it’s long and narrow with crinkled edges.
As a lucky find, there was this strange yarn at the rescue mission sale. Both of these are loopy yarns. They were in vogue several years ago for scarfs. They have loops woven in that will make great kelp. The color also fits into the scheme, blending with the heron.
It can be spread apart to look like kelp. That’s a difficulty all its own. You can spread yarn apart, but there aren’t enough fingers to hold it that way and free motion over it. You also can’t free-motion it without it being caught in the darning foot.
So I took a two-pronged approach, I knotted the yarn where I wanted it to spread,
I couched it in place with a regular presser foot, so that I could control the width of the yarn.
I covered it with a Dissolvable stabilizer. Then I stitched it all down with the darning foot where I wanted the kelp to be. I wet down the stabilizer to make it go away.
Some yarns need special care. Don’t be afraid to use several approaches to get what you want. In the end, all that matters is the result.
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.
I love minnows! My dad used to bring me home minnows when he’d been fishing, so I could watch them. They aren’t exactly like fish visually. They have parts that are solid, but they also have fins and underbits that are really translucent. How do you do that in thread?
I used to not pay much attention to the kinds of metallic threads I used. I mixed them all together by color and that was that. But lately, I’ve been paying more attention. Metallic thread is not only shiny. It comes in different kinds of transparency.
Why would that matter? A more transparent crystal thread gives a translucency to your embroidery. It’s not quite see-through. Most wound metallic threads are not at all see-through. But the flecked metallic threads can be to some extent.
Most metallic threads are not. They are a strictly shiny surface that reflects, in both ways, the solidity of metal.
Metalic-colored threads have the shine, but they are not see-through either.
Crystal metallics are different. They have a translucency that translates into your stitching as being see-through.
With some careful planning, the bodies of the minnows are mostly solid, but the mixture of metallic silver and iridescent white crystal makes for transparent-looking fins.
It’s a trick, but it’s a cool trick.
These minnows will be in Shadow on the Shore. I’m not sure how many minnows we’ll use, but there’s always room for leftovers.
For some while I’ve been wanting to make reflections in water, and work with shadows. I also have usually only done river and pond water. This image made me want to break out into shore surf. The heron has her wings up, so that they distort the shadow and the fish won’t see her.
I’m a bit uneasy about what the surf should look like. So I did some research. I love Japanese art, and looked through some imagery on waves on shore. Sometimes it helps to have a good idea what something looks like. These drawings were great waves. They gave me a place to start.
I broke down the drawings into simple shapes. And I cut them in a lot of different blues, and a specific glistening white.
But I needed to make the shadow. There may be more sophisticated ways to do this, but I traced the embroidery onto Steam a Seam 2.
I’ve changed backgrounds a lot on this. I finally settled on something a bit brighter, so you could see sand and sky.
The first one I cut was purple. It simply wasn’t dark enough.
Black glitter tulle worked better. I patted on some glitter tulle and cut the shape out.
I cut out wave shapes and layered them together.
The sky is pure sun headed into greenery, and I didn’t want to do something bold with it. Instead, I added spirals heading from gold to green to feel like the sun shimmering down.
I’m pleased with this although I haven’t ironed it down yet. The placing of the heron is really delicate. So I’m looking at it for a while before I commit.
Things to know about layering sheers:
Sheers may look different once you’ve ironed them. Have a test piece so you know what it will look like.
Your Steam a Seam 2 will make your needle skip if it’s not ironed down properly. That’s harder to do with multiple layers. And if you use lace the glue will come through
Layered sheers take more ironing to stick. But you don’t want to melt them. Use a no stick pressing cloth to iron them down and clean it after each piece is ironed. I use a non-stitck Scotch-Brite Scrubby. When you are all done, lay a piece of cotton scrap over the top of it and iron on hot. The excess glue will melt into the scrap. Make sure you don’t transfer glue from the scrap to your piece.
Sheers make wonderful shadows. I’ll stitch all this down with monofilament nylon so there are no hard edges, just shadow, sun and sea.
I sat down yesterday and mixed the colors for dyeing. It felt like I was sitting in a circle of old friends. Scarlet, sitting next to Fuschia who had just made friends with a new color Dragonfruit, and was waving across the color wheel to the Lemon/lime.
I’m dyeing fabric today in preparation for surgery. If I’m going to have to go through heart surgery, there better be a really big pony after all the poop. So a pile of fresh fabric waiting for me is sensible. It fills the time while I’m waiting and it leaves me with a lovely pile of fabric to dream about until I can sew again. It’s good preparation I think. And a good way to fill the waiting time.
I started dyeing fabric at thirteen. I found a book in the library that blew me out of the water, with it’s papercut illustrations. The Emperor and the Kite, by Jane Yoland used paper in variegated colors that resembled the hand dye I still do. I wanted to work with the technique and it never occured to me to dye or paint paper. I dyed fabric with Rit.
This all happened in the kitchen sink and my father who was the major cook in the house had opinions about it. My father was almost non-verbal, but he looked like I’d kicked his puppy when he saw the kitchen after I was done. He unblocked the sink, scrubbed it down and said nothing. He always understood the passion around projects. He had his own, and he often helped with mine.
But it set something in me. I don’t really want colors that stand apart from each other .I want them to mingle and to dance within the fabric itself. I’ve been dyeing fabric in some form ever since.
Colors are about relationships. They have relationships with each other that depend on how they are formulated. I am not a dye master. Or someone who can responsibly measure dye and mix it reliably. I dump dye into a cup. I buy a bevy of colors and use them knowing how they relate to each other.
“Knowing the definition of a word is a pinpoint on a map. It tells you where you are. It doesn’t tell you how to get where you want to go. It’s the rawest of beginnings.
In the same way, color theory feels like the the dreariest driest subject in the catalog of art education. We look at the wheel and say the canticle, red and blue make purple, red and yellow make orange…. It feels like a recitation from kindergarten. And sadder still, it’s not always true. We’ve all mixed yellow and blue to get the most grizzly browns. It feels like finding out about Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. A nice story for children but not really true.
Part of what we’re missing with that is the reality that it’s a theory. It works, simply when it does work and when it doesn’t, we need to explore why. Color theory doesn’t account for imperfect color. Color me surprised. Another thing that is imperfect in a imperfect world.
The most interesting distinction with mixing color for me is the contrast in thermal energy. Each color in its imperfections leans a bit towards the yellow sunny side, or the greenish shady side. If you mix all sun colors or a shade colors, the combinations are clear and bright. If you mix sun and shade, you get earth colors.
So if I place Lavender and Orchid together, as sun colors they blend into each other. If I add Lilac, a shade color, the combination browns out a bit. Still light purple but with a browned quality. If I add a sun color like Clear yellow, it will stay clear. Lemon yellow with its shade qualities will brown it out.
The real question is not where we are on the map but where can we go. What color theory really describes is the relationships between colors. Within the color wheel, the spots within that wheel define the same kinds of relationships between different colors. Those relationships go back to that primary list of monochromatic, complementary, and analogous color themes that seem so very dull. Because they define the tension between colors.
For dyeing, you have to know the name and know the color. They all lean one direction or another. There are no perfect primaries, secondaries or tertiaries. If you know which way they lean, you can predict the effect. But you never know exactly what the dye on fabric will do. And it’s never the same. Each piece of fabric is unique.
The distance between colors, creates the pull across the wheel. The closer they are to each other, the least pull. The least tension. The least excitement.
The farthest distance any color combination has is directly across from each other, as complements. Those are combinations that tug and pull and electrify us. Colors right on top of each other are smooth and slide into each other.
It’s not one combination. It’s a circle of combinations that create the same feeling. We can move the circle endlessly and get the same energetic result.”
Which is why it’s such a good thing I know these colors as my friends. I know who the mix with and who they fight with and what it will look like after they have a party together.
I’m spending two days dancing with color to pour myself into that joy, instead of the apprehension about the surgery. After all, color is really an antidepressant. And I’ll have a lovely pile of new fabric to play with after I’m back and healed.
Normally I don’t talk much about my health. I have the usual amount of 70-something booboos, which I consider boring, and I’m sure most of you do too.
This is more serious and it’s got me spun a bit. I have an ascending aortic aneurysm that has started to widen. I’m going to be having heart surgery as soon as we have all the testing done.
I have insurance but there’s a significant amount of preparatory work that is not covered. I find myself with a three thousand dollar gap that I have to find to have the surgery.
Etsy has a new program where the buyer can make an offer for an item and the seller sets a lowest price. I’m not doing this with the quilts at the Peoria Art Guild. I have an arrangement with them we have to hold to. And I’m not doing this with quilts under $500. But I’m arranging the other quilts so that you can offer me as much as 40% off the quilt.
If you want to pay a little more, you can ask for any discount up to 40%. If you really want something and want to offer less than that, call me. I am a motivated seller at this point.
My friends, my students and my fans have always been so kind to me. If you can help, or if you’ve been waiting for a best price, this would be a great time to buy a quilt. Thanks!
Yesterday I gave a lecture on the Visual Path at the Peoria Art Guild. The best thing about lectures is that they help you think about what you do without thinking. I know that a major component of my design decisions is largely about making work move. Lectures give you a reason to think it through so you can talk about it.
Every artist has conundrums they are trying to solve within their work. For myself, making movement is one of those. If I’m filling the world with images of birds, bugs, lizards and frogs, I would hope that they would be breathing, living, moving birds, lizards and bugs. So how do I do that?
Here’s a section of my lecture with some of the rules I’ve decided help me.
These rules may seem silly or simple. But I use them every day. If I want to make things move, I can tilt them, change the size dimensions, create the illusion that they’re falling, or put them in a progressively larger or smaller conga line. All of those are cheap tricks. But they work.
That got me thinking, how many artists have rules they’ve made for themselves that help them to do what they want with their art? And what happens when we break those rules? Are we reminded why we thought to do that in the first place? Or are we liberated by realizing that rule isn’t all that ironclad?
The very cool thing about all this is that no one gets to apply those rules to us as artists except ourselves. It’s not so much a box we’re stuck in as a useful gridwork we can choose to use, or not.
My visual path pieces always make me think about how to make my eye travel through my whole quilt, just for fun. So if I were to bend my rules a bit, what would that look like? Each quilt is an answer to a question that I haven’t figured out just yet.
Last Friday night, we opened my show at the Peoria Art Guild! It was a lovely opening. Lots of folk. Lots of friends. Lots of artists I just met. I couldn’t have been more pleased. Or more humbled.
For all of us, who do art seriously, it’s a really private process. Even if you share your process online or in class, there are some things you really do in a very private space. All the left turns, small errors, large disasters and turn-arounds happen in that private space with presumably no one watching.
I’ve never felt very precious about that. I treat my mistakes as learning curves and have always tried to share them, just as a point of being real with students and other artists. It’s especially true if you teach. You owe people the truth about your process.
But when it’s in front of the public that feels very exposed. All the things you wished were better, smoother, flatter are out there, just as they are.
It reminds me what art is for. Art is about retelling our story. It’s the ability to see our world in a way that changes us, and the things around us to be stronger, better, more beautiful, more whole, more brave inside or out. And the journey we take as a storyteller is much more transformative than the story itself. and an inscrutable process, all of its own.
I love when my friends come to a show. They’ve walked with me sometimes close by, sometimes at a distance as I’ve made this work. It’s as much a part of them as it is me.
I love when I meet other artists in this same inscrutable process, doing something no one ever thought of doing before and finding their way to put it into being. They are a privilege. The glimpses we share of our processes are like watching thoughts take form, flesh, and flight.
And then there are the people who come to see that transformation. And respond. I’m always humbled that the images I have to work with have meaning to other people. And grateful for their kindness. This was a huge gift for me, and I want to thank the Peoria Art Guild, Shannon, John and Jeff, and Dana for opening this amazing opportunity for me. And Don for his endless help and support!
So come see the show! It will be up for the month of September. And come join me next weekend for classes. We’ll learn how to make Fantasy Flowers and Bobbinwork Dragonflies next weekend. And talk about how to build a visual pathway through your art.
I’ve just finished two pieces I started earlier this year. It’s a good thing because the show at the Peoria Art Guild hangs next Saturday. I’m fighting off a summer cold and feeling drained. Except that I wish my nose would drain.
Endings are hard for me. It’s hard for me to finish a quilt. All that passion, all that energy stopped. It feels wrong in some ways. I’m a bit like the artist who is done when someone takes the piece away from them.
Except that at some point, you really are done.
So this is why I almost always have a number of pieces in process. I still need to work through the last of Great Blue. I’m lost after I finish a major piece. I’m hunting for the next passion. And it needs to be a passion. To go through the drawing, the stitching, the dyeing, the quilting, and the embellishment is an immense amount of work. That takes endless energy, which is fueled by passion.
What am I looking for? What is it that I need?
color
Amazing color is always a draw! It can come through the dyed background or from my subject, but I can’t work without color. The images have their own color, but the light of the piece is the fabric background itself. Like a colored lense it sets the tone of the art. Everything is seen through that lense.
Form
The shape of things is incredibly exciting! Bird wings, frogs jumping, the intricacy bugs, the Fibonnacci progression numbers in space and time leave me breatheless.
Movement
The way those forms move. To see them in flight, in water, in repose, in play. I want to play with them.
Memory
Some moments change your life. Watching a heron land on a friend’s pond. Standing eye to eye with a Komodo dragon at the National Zoo. Standing in a training pond with dolphins. Watching the sun rise over a little waterfall at Spring Lake, through a fringe of wildflowers. I am imprinted with memories that always call me back to that point of wonder.
A Male Cassowari watching me …
So what do I do, when a piece finishes? I wander through books looking for the color, the form and the movement for the passion for the next piece. Do I know what’s next? I’m finding Cassowaries interesting. It’s like a thug dressed up for the ball. How dare you be that blue, that red with that yellow? Maybe.
