Still Painting in Details

 

 

This week I continued to paint details.  I worked on the tree that stands in front of the house.  I started with a grey and black material.  I turned it over and painted the backside using burnt sierra, greens, purple, and another shade of brown to paint the tree trunk and branches.  It took awhile for me to get the hang of painting on the fabric.  It also took time waiting for the paint to dry between layers and colors.  The black of the material came through the material to give it some texture and contrast.

 

Well, I got to thinking (a dangerous thing for me to do) and decided to paint in the bricks on the house.  Just  a crazy thing to do, but I think it will pay off in the finished product.  This  in itself  was enough to kept me busy for the rest of the week.  It does look pretty good if I may say so myself.

 

There is nothing prettier than when the Cherry Blossoms are out around the Tidal Basin in Washington, DC.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stepping Out of the Box

 

I choose the pink of the brick as my background material. 

 As usual, I used the lightboard and tracing paper to make my pattern;

 

 

traced the pieces onto  Pellon Fusible Webs & Adhesives, Wonder
under; and selected and numbered the material I was going to use.  

The major difference with this project is that I have decided to use paint to highlights and to add the
small details.

 It will take longer to make this quilt because the painting on the fabric is definitely taking me out of my comfort zone. My biggest concern is; "How will I quilt this?"

Unfortunately, being back at school will add to the time it will take me to finish this project.  Looking at where I am on it, I feel as though I have accomplished quite a bit this week.

In 2001, we went to Nome, Alaska to visit my youngest sister who has made her home up there.  She took us to see the "Train to Nowhere".  It was built during the Gold Rush days and remains there today.  The men who built it didn't think or  know about the marshy tundra during the summer months.  The tracks sank, thus the train for transporting the gold went "Nowhere".  It still stands there today as it did many years ago when it was first built.

Quilting a Townhouse

My next project is not a dog.  I am going to try and do my son's townhouse.  His townhouse will allow me to explore with dark and light shades as well as different but limited colors.  Also, I have less negative space to deal with than I did with the dogs.  If it turns out decently, it will make a nice Christmas present for him.

 

 I converted the picture to black and white to better see the dark and light shades.   This will help me to choose the shades to bet get better contrast in the wallhanging.  Choosing the colors is alot easier than choosing the shades to get that eye-popping contrast and dominance.  The brick is lighter than the tree and bushes in front of  it.  There is shading on the grass and sidewalk from the tree casting a shadow, as well as on the house.  The railing is a thin black line.  I will keep looking and making note of the light and dark shades before I choose my material.  I cropped off the sidewalk in front of the house, I may have to put it back, I'm not sure at this point in time.


Mom took these pictures when we visited the Grand Tetons National Park in the summer of 2011.  When there are stopped cars on the road in the park, we know there is wildlife somewhere.  I stayed with the car in the middle of the road, while she hopped out and enjoyed the sight.

 

 

 

 

Hello Olive

Olive is finished and she looks as mischievous as she is in real life.  I can check off this Christmas present.  Looking at it critically, I squared off the wallhanging before I attached the binding, but it doesn't look square. It looks as if it is dipping towards the center.  Mmm, something else, I will need to concentrate on improving.  Having thought about it, I think I should have blocked it first.   Also, I need to work on the background to help make the composition as a whole more appealing.

Here is a picture of Mt. Rushmore, SD that I took ten years ago on our Little House Trip.

Looking good, Olive

I solved my pink border dilemma, it's blue.  Since Olive had a mischievous look on her face.  I decided to put her in a bed of flowers; pink flowers that is.  Cathy, you got your pink in the wall hanging.

Luckily, I took this picture before the extreme heat and the storms we had this summer.

To stitch Olive, I used the stippling stitch, but now I wished I had just stitched along the edges of the material to make her puffier.  I decided it was time to come out of my comfort zone of just using the free motion stippling stitch and meandering stitch.  I drew the top of the flower in the background and free motioned stitch them.  I also decided to shade the flowers not with fabric, but with magic maker.  I know, that wasn't a wise medium to use, but easy and familiar.   Next time, I will use paints.  I think the fabric I chose for the border just adds to the mischievous look Olive portrays.

 

 

 

It looks like someone took watercolors and painted the sky; a beautiful sunset over Lake Michigan.

 

 

Colors and Piecing

I had trouble deciding which color palette to use with Olive.  I had several shades and I kept looking at the opposite ends of the spectrum.  When I finally looked in the middle, and went from there, it finally hit me which shades to use for Olive.  Olive spent a lot of time hanging on my design wall this week with me just staring and thinking.

It was easy to find the larger shapes in Olive and trace them.  I pieced Olive together differently than I did for Lucy. For Lucy I traced all the shapes onto the fusible web and then I ironed them onto the material. For Olive, I traced a shape and then I ironed it onto the material.  I went shape by shape because even though I had the material lined up from the lightest to the darkest, and had numbered the shapes on the pattern.  I just had a difficult time imagining the shades on Olive.  Doing it shape by shape took a long time, because I would stop quite often and pin it on my design wall and just stare.

First,  I did her body because it was the easiest to pick out the shapes and shades.

Next, I did her head, but something was missing.  Her head looked flat.  Thinking of my painting lessons from Karen Winslow in July,  I realized the top of Olive's head needed to be darker to give the appearance of dept.

Olive's owner likes pink.  I thought about making the border pink, but it just didn't work for me.  So back on the design wall went Olive and I left her alone for several days to think about it.  Next week, I hope to complete Olive.

Here is  pretty view from our visit to Vermont this summer.

Can you believe that rainbow?  The brillance of it?  Also, look at the formation of a second rainbow to the right of the main one.  If you look closely above the roof, you can even see the beginning of the rainbow, something I have never seen before.  It was truely "candy" for the eye.

Olive, it's your turn

The first week back is always the hardest and most tiring.  We sit through meeting after meeting, thinking when do we get time to work in our classrooms.  How many weeks left of school?   Like everyone else, I will once again treasure my weekends and days off....to quilt.

I have three projects sitting on the back burner that I am just itching to get started and I have my Christmas gifts to make.  Hopefully, Olive, will be my last dog portrait for awhile.

 As you can see, she like the other dogs,  is very cute and very much adored by her owner.  Olive is a rescue dog, that Cathy fell in love with at first sight.  I have pictured putting Olive on a geen background with a blue border.  Also I plan to add daisies  to the right side of Olive. I am thinking about having them start outside of the picture at the bottom of the border and spring up to cover part of her body, thus the reason for the blue border and green background.  Olive looks and is playful, I want to add just a little bit to her portrait, but not take away from it.  This week, I mainly played with Olive's photo.

  I put her photo in Photshop Elements 9 and changed it to grayscale.

Then, I cropped and applied the posterized filter to further define the edges.

Also, I decided to use the pencil tool with a white color to outline some of the shapes to further define the major shapes before tracing her.

Tomorrow, I will sort through my fabric stash looking for material to use.

Even on hot, humid days, there is beauty to be found.