National Quilt Museum USA 2012

 I'm thrilled to say that 'Strindberg Shore' will be going into an exhibition highlighting UK contemporary quilts  at the National Quilt Museum, Paducah, USA next year! Appropriate as it was made for QGBI  'In the Spotlight' exhibition on behalf of Region 1 (London) at Festival of Quilts 2007.

 A turning point in many ways (it was made during the time I was moving house!) it was  my first large scale foray into painting with acrylics on quilted fabric. Working with African fabrics brought the challenge of how to mark for stitching (I used  more than one spool of 1/8 inch masking tape ) and then after months of stitching the sharp intake of breath knowing there was no going back once I applied the first brush stroke....

 You might find it difficult to believe that these  fabrics lie underneath the paint ( sample above and below,  before and after) but they make all the difference to the texture and vibrancy.

Working Through Ideas II

Another productive day - I posted off 'Gythion Glow' for the Contemporary Quilt 'Thin Blue Line' and entry forms for 2 quilts for the Festival of Quilts. One piece is near completion , the other is in the planning stages: I spent a happy morning printing photos and doing several sketches and watercolour studies. The idea or concept and planning what I'm going to do are always the most difficult and time consuming (but fun !) part, the execution is usually much quicker and straight forward. There was much chewing of pencil while filling in the entry form - first of all what category? I'd orginally received a form for 'Pictorial' but as it will probably end up quite abstract, I thought 'contemporary ' was more appropriate and printed off that form from the website. Then what size? I learnt my lesson from 'Strindberg Shore' which while it had impact took a long time to do. I've done several pieces 80-90cm square so settled for that - it's big enough to have a variety of scale of stitching but achievable.
The inspiration is the Town Beach at Paralio Astros - when we were collecting orange coloured stones for our 'World Beach Project' starfish, there had been a storm the day before and the patterns of seaweed , and the banks of sand and stones were fantastic - the next day they'd all gone (along with our artwork!)
I've added to my collection of 'Inktense' pencils - I particularly like the new ' brown madder' one , perfect for seaweed. My favourite mug has been relegated to pencil holder as it very soon developed a crack. It's a very large china one with the text " I am not awake yet, don't even think about talking to me". I'm not a morning person ( at least until I've had my coffee)

Thin Blue Line Experiments

' Strindberg Shore'

Finally got round to trying out some ideas for Contemporary Quilt 'Thin Blue Line' challenge, continuing the themes of 'Strindberg Shore' in 30 x 120 cm format. I wanted to look at different proportions of sea, sky and shore, with the horizon line between sea and sky being the blue line. Some of my inspiration (besides some more Strindberg paintings ) included photos and a drawing from Ireland and Greece, paintings by Terry Frost and monoprints by Trevor Sutton.I'm also trying out a different material - a cotton yukata fabric from Japan in blues and blacks. I quilted this with a twin needle to get slightly raised lines on what will be a 12 inch square when finished ( CQ Journal Quilt size- cunning eh!) I marked off 2 areas with masking tape to the same proportions as the Thin Blue Line and painted with acrylics, varying the horizon line.

With the masking tape removed, I quite like the contrast with the unpainted fabric. Not sure which horizon line/ proportions I prefer ( if any) - I'm afraid I 'fiddled', always a danger when working on such a small scale and the painting is not as fresh and lively as it could be.

I'm not that happy in particular with the 'sea' part or the definition of the horizon line. I'm confident mixing blues in watercolour but am struggling in acrylics ( got round that in 'Strindberg Shore' by using indigo dyed fabric after a few abortive attempts). Maybe it needs a line of blue fabric introduced or a left unpainted? More experiments needed!

Painting Experiments

While waiting for Sofa Workshop to deliver our new sofa, I had an hour away from working on latest book to set up a painting space in the 'conservatory' and apply some acrylics to some stitched samples. I still have ideas in my head for more pieces arising from the Strindberg piece I did last year - problems not resolved, techniques to push further. Most people are surprised how vibrant and patterned the underlying fabrics are. I made up some samples of a variety of different fabrics , not just African wax this time,( used Dream Cotton 'Select' wadding in the sandwich) and then machine and hand stitched in ripple patterns. I applied acrylics (Liquitex firm body) straight from tube with a palette knife but not to the whole piece so that a strip of the original fabric can be seen. It's a bit distracting to look at ( as you can see in the 'studio' shot below) so I've cropped the image in Photoshop and shown the 'before' stage separately.

Fabric 1: A heavy cotton canvas (pattern called 'Tipsy'!) I liked the pattern already printed on it but it was difficult to hand stitch and also to paint and the texture of the canvas showed through when painted.

Fabric 1 Before

Fabric 1 After

Fabric 2 : A vintage black/brown cotton sateen with abstract orange pattern. Easy to stitch and paint and like the result- only concern is the stretch and distortion of sateen when used on a larger scale

Fabric 2 Before

Fabric 2 After

Fabric 3 (top)and 4(bottom): An African damask shibori in orange and blue (still with starch in ) and Kaffe Fassett Roman Glass - an old favourite of mine. Both fabrics easy to stitch. The damask didn't take paint that well (probably because of the starch) and the pattern showing through was too dominant. Its also too gorgeous a fabric to hide under paint! ( which is why I was a bit mean in the size of sample)

The dots and circles of the Roman Glass were not as prominent as I thought they might be - definitely one for consideration

Fabrics 3&4 Before

Fabrics 3&4 After

Fabric 5: African wax fabric mainly of wild large pink and black leaves. These African wax prints really stitch well and are a good surface for painting on. I rather like the vibrant pink and black showing through but perhaps wouldn't want too much of it!

Fabric 5 Before

Fabric 5 After

Next step is to make up a larger trial sample using fabrics 2,4&5 to see how they work together.

What I also might try is using a different palette of acrylic colours (greens)- the shapes of the stitched ripples also suggest land forms .