"Hollyhocks" an original art quilt by Barbara Harms
The hollyhocks are are coming right along, Here’s my progress report for my time lapse quilt for 2/16/2014. I’ll give a few photos leading up to today’s progress., if anyone is just seeing this for the first time. It will make it a time lapse.
Start Date Jan 19 Fabric painted work beginsJan 27
Feb. 2 2014Feb 5Feb 9
Progress 2/16/2014
I have finished most of flowers and and added the shading to the stocks. A few side views of the flowers and buds and a little more details and then I’ll be ready to quilt it.
Febhollyhocks 2/16/2014
If you would like to follow this series from it’s start here are the links that cover it
As I promised, here’s a peek at the progress I have made so far on the new art quilt I’ve started. It was inspired by the photos I took with my new iPhone from the window of our moving car.I’m going to call it
60 MPH Out The Window.
The first stage is almost complete, the silk painting. I’m reasonably satisfied, it’s a good start. The next stages are the thread painting and the final quilting .
The thread painting and and quilting require thought. This can be especially true of a landscape quilt or any art quilt which requires a measure of realism. What look are you are going for?What style of art do you want? This all needs to be considered. How you plan to achieve this? It requires thought and planning. I usually need to kick this around in my mind for days to work it out.
Thread painting can add realism and detail, the texture of the bark on a tree for instance . It can create the illusion of dimension. An apple, for example, can appear spherical, not just a flat image laying there. It can come to life.
You also need to make a decision concerning the amount of detail you want. Weigh in your mind how much thread work and quilting you will need. That will definitely effect the flatness of the quilt. No one wants an uneven wavy piece of fiber art hanging on their wall. The amount thread work will effect this. It needs to be evenly spaced with similar density to lay flat. A few things to plan, but the fun starts as you see it develop.
a closer look
Well, there’s a peek at my latest, 60 MPH Out The Window. I’ll try to post a few updates as the project progresses.
Wonderland Revisited an art quilt , looking for Alice
Here’s the latest art quilt that I’ve been working on, like a busy little bee, these last few weeks, well maybe a month. In any case. It’s done, it’s done!
I made it with the intention of a companion piece that harmonized with my last quilt, “Down the Rabbit Hole“. This ones entitled “Wonderland Revisited”.
And, yes, it’s bright, it’s colorful and it’s bold., too much? Well that depends….my teenaged granddaughters, and as we all know, teens are not noted for their fondness for dark dismal color choices, many actually seem to love the most outlandish styles [ a disclaimer this is a general observation , not referring to my girls] when I asked these two normal teenagers if it needed a little more colored thread work in a certain spot, were slow and careful in their response,”Well……grandma, it IS pretty colorful already”. This said in a voice that told me everything, ” Be careful, we don’t want to hurt Grandma’s feelings. But clearly she has lost my mind”. One of my younger grandsons was watching me in my workroom. I said ” So what do you think?” referring to the quilt. He paused for a long time, thoughtfully looking at it, weighing his answer. Then he finally said,” What is it?”. I said sometimes things don’t have to look like something, he clearly did not agree, but he wasn’t going to argue the point with someone who obviously didn’t have a clue.
These little encounters with younger ones told me that it might be a little bright for some folks. My reaction is similar to contestants on American Idol, who have just received a particularly brutal review by the judges. When asked to comment usually say, ” Well I had fun”. So if it is a little too bright for some folks, and I ‘m sure it might be, ” Well I had fun”. And I did!*
Some of the strange fauna Alice encountered. Made with hand painted silk and applique,Thanks for the shared trip to Wonderland with us!
*With many thanks to the amazing quilt artist Ellen Anne Eddy. She has led the way for many of us color addicts to come out into the open and feel free to be as colorful as we want.Her new book is called “Thread Magic Garden”. If I were a book reviewer I would surely give this one at least a 9. She has beautiful pictures, oh la la,.She has so many wonderful colorful illustrations included in it, it will inspire you to to try color and have fun with your quilt t. But 1st and foremost she has created a book with such understandable, clear instructions, illustrating each step of the way with very clear and helpful photos. You will LOVE this book.
This is a Fiber art blog definitely an art quilting blog.
I think it is clear that I enjoy photography as well. In fact my photos aid in making my art quilts.Photography is an art form as well.
Art can be passed on through heredity, there were several commercial artists in my family, as well as some very talented amatures. Must be that left side/ right side brain thing. There it is, hate math, live art, that’s me.
We can agree that one art form can lead to others. So here’s an example of that point.
Since I have a captive audience, { well I suppose you can leave, but I hope not} I’d like to share a few photos I took in early spring, of some local ferns with their new fronds emerging
I have a little announcement/plug to make. As you may well know, I am soon opening my own art web site. Exciting and scary for me. I plan to keep
my etsy shop open as well, http://etsy.com/shop/BarbaraHarmsFiberArt/. I’ll carry many non art items such as table runners, bed spreads, baby quilts and a section for fine art photography, high resulation art prints. I hope you will be willing to support my new website, which I’ll give further details soon, as well as my etsy shop http://etsy.com/shop/AsianArtAndQuilts/
I promised that this week I’d share a new thread painting technique I recently learned. Well, I’m just under the wire on my promised timing, it still is “this week” even if it is Sunday.This little trick solves a common problem that can rear it’s ugly head if you are doing very heavy, thick coverage in one particular spot. Especially with lighter fabrics, as the silk I often use, it can be a BIG problem. Fabric tends to stretch out of shape in all manner of ways, none of which can be considered attractive. I switched to using a hoop, better, but still problems. Then I used fuzable web, better but.. inconsistent results. Finally I starting adding my layer of batting for stability. Now if you promise not to laugh, I’ll share an older dismal failure as an example of what can go wrong, that I saved as a reminder to myself to NEVER, NEVER make that mistake again.
Here you can see the fabric has stretched out, I stuffed the area with pillow stuffing, making a 3D doll head that popped out from the fabric Then I applied a patch to the hole I made on the back to stuff my”pillow” as shown below.
Now a good solution to the problem: Take your top fabric and put it face down after applying a layer of heavy fuzable web to the back. Then a layer of batting, then a layer of thick tear away stabilizer. Place pins to keep it all together.
Hoop the whole thing, do your thread painting and applique it on. It is stiff enough and stable enough to support fabric from stretching out. So that’s the little trick I learned, and I like it! Hope this helps you too.
I’m finally getting around to posting this. As you can see I’ve been into bright and bold lately.
Those colors are so good together.
I used my flower sketches to draw and paint the flowers. They were appliqued onto the back ground fabric, thread painted, and finally quilted. With the colors in that background I had to step up the quilting. I used different bold color to matching that background. I really enjoy quilting and did some really interesting feathers and swirls and dots over the entire art quilt. I like the result .
This is a bright, fun and colorful quilt that would add pizzazz to a modern neutral styled room, as well as a number of other styles. It is just the pop of excitement that brightens where ever you hang it, in your home or office.
It is still for sale at a reasonable price. Contact me for details.
Tangerine Sky- a original art quilt
Details in closer view
The triadic colors add excitement used together.
The silk painting adds depth,the thread painting adds defination.
If you would like to follow this series from it’s start here are the links that cover it
Barbara Harms Fiber Art & More 