Sunday, October 5, 2014

Hopping Around the World

     I've been invited to The Around the World Blog Hop by fellow blogger Judy Warner. I met Judy on the web through a SAQA project and then started following her blog. She has met much success in showing her beautiful art quilts. You can see her post in the blog hop here. For the blog hop there are several questions I'm supposed to address. These questions have turned out to be a good thing for me because they have caused me to think about who I am as an artist and why I do what I do.

What am I working on?
I am an art quilter. Most of the works I make are in the range of about 30 inches on a side. Lately, however, I've been making small works in the range of 8-12 inches on a side. I've just been in the mood to play with the pieces of fabrics that are the leftovers I've cut off and put in a basket. They are too nice to throw away and good enough to use as backgrounds for small pieces of art. I'm getting ready to start another larger work... I've been saying that for awhile... but I think I mean it today. Maybe if I cut the batting to size and put it on the design wall that will mean business.

How does my work differ from others in my genre?
I start with white cotton muslin or other plain fabric. For one piece, I started with a thinned out old bed sheet. Then I use acrylic paint mixed with fabric medium and monoprint the fabric on a gelatin plate. I add more texture to it by adding rubbings using Shiva paintstiks.

montage of monoprinted fabrics
I then cut or tear the fabrics into rectangles and sew them together and put them onto batting to create my background for the art quilt. Sometimes I use sheer fabrics, too. I let the stitching show. I use a utility stitch that I like the look of.
a background waiting for foreground to be added
this one is about 12x12 inches

After that, I add elements in fabrics and fibers to create my foreground. My color palette has become mostly blues, grays, whites, with touches of rusts. I mix up my own grays. I like the various grays I can get from ultramarine blue, cadmium red light, a touch of cadmium yellow, and white. I also add stitching in black. I like the look of black lines.
Beach Walk
Rise

You can see other finished works on my website: here
Also, on my blog, I show works in-progress; even when they aren't working out well. I want my readers to learn the processes and that its about the creative journey not success or failure of the final piece.

Why do I create what I do?
I am greatly influenced by my travels and my local surroundings of Florida. That always causes me to want to celebrate the natural world and my connections to it and record my feelings visually.

How does my writing/creating process work?
Often it starts with a photograph I've taken on a trip, in my yard, or from a sketch I've done on a bicycle ride (I always stop on my bike rides halfway to do a quick sketch.) and then it leap frogs from that. I do a rough sketch of the composition that I think I want. I choose a color palette for the background and start monoprinting fabrics.
     From that point, once the fabrics are pinned to the design wall, it begins to drift away from the sketch of the composition I had. A conversation seems to take place back and forth between the fabrics and me as the process takes place and the piece progresses. One addition informs the next and so on. But it's a slow process for me. It's not agonizing, it just takes me a long time to decide on the next step. But I always know when it's not quite right so I don't go ahead until I feel good about it.

Linking to the next blogger in the hop:
The next blogger in the hop is the fabulous Lisa Chin. She is very talented in surface design and published in Quilting Arts Holiday and Quilting Arts Gifts and several other publications. Here's a link to her blog here and her post will appear next week.

Some past bloggers in the hop:
Judy Warner: http://judywarner.com/hopping-around-the-world/
Deborah Stanley: http://deborahstanleyinspirations.blogspot.com/2014/09/around-world-blog-hop-sharing-our.html
Chris Staver:   http://chrissquiltinguniverse.blogspot.com/2014/09/around-world-blog-hop-monday-september.html
Sheila Mahanke Barnes:  
http://idahobeautyquilts.blogspot.com/2014/09/around-world-blog-hop.html
Institches by Bonnie: 
 http://institcheswithbonnie.blogspot.com/2014/09/design-wall-monday-9-8-2014.html
Valerie Reynolds - Quilting Studio:  
 http://myplvl.blogspot.com/2014/07/around-world-blog-hop.html
Marianne Jeffrey: 
  http://adventurousquilter.blogspot.ca/2014/07/around-world-blog-hop.html
Judy - Quilt Paradigm:  
  http://quiltparadigm.blogspot.com/2014/07/around-world-blog-hop.html
Esther – I Patch and Quilt: 
  http://ipatchandquilt.wordpress.com/2014/08/25/around-the-world-blog-hop/
That's it. Thanks for visiting. And do visit Lisa Chin's post next week. 


2 comments:

  1. Fascinating post, Regina. I have always appreciated your unique backgrounds. It was fun to read how you create them!

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  2. Thanks, Judy. It started when I was working in the SAQA visioning project trying to find my voice.

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