When Is It Time To Switch From Sketching To Fabric?

     When you use a sketchbook to plan your art quilts, how do you know you are ready to to get out the fabric? I've been working on a series of sketches to prepare for a quilt about wildflowers using my niece as one of the focal points. In it, she represents a force in the Universe. In the series, she is always manipulating an ammonite fossil. This time she is spreading seeds with the fossil. In previous posts, I've shown some sketches. Here is how I've painted them in succession trying to see how I could interpret the image in my head into fabrics.

The Seed Bearer 1

In this one and the others, I was influenced by my trip to Croatia and used the image of a ruined window and aging walls and walkways. I like aspects of this one, but it definitely has a way to go.

Seed Bearer 2

In this one, I used shapes that I would cut out of various fabrics. I like it better, but it is out of balance. It made me notice that the first one didn't have enough of value contrast.

Seed Bearer 3

     In this version, I taped extra paper to the bottom of my sketch page. That's why there is a line there. I like this one the best, but there are changes that are still needed. I took this photo and put it into the Art Studio App and played with the hue of the blue green shape and made it more of an olive green. That seems to work better. Also I made the rust shape longer at the bottom. And I made the yellow orange shapes thinner. 

     Getting back to the original question, I think I need to paint up some fabrics and get to it. The textures and patterns on the fabrics will determine what is needed at this point. The requirement for the exhibit is that it is exactly 20 inches wide and at least 30 inches long. So after Christmas, I'll get out my Gelli plate and paints and see what I come up with. But the sketch has given me a good starting point. 

     Speaking of Christmas, I showed you the Christmas art quilt I planned to have printed into cards here. I'm very pleased with how they came out. I used a card template that came with my Mac. I put the image of my quilt on the first page. I put separate text boxes for each word and bordered them with dashes (so that it looks like stitches) on the third page and I put "Art by reginabdunn.com" on the fourth page. I put that on a flash drive and gave it to my local printing company. Here is the result:

Front Page

(the watermark is not on the card... I only put it on this photo for the blog)

Third page

Fourth Page

I hope you all have a Very Merry Christmas. Thank you so much for reading my blog. It means so much to me. When I look at my statistics and see followers from so many different countries, it makes me so very happy that I can reach you.  Peace, Everyone.

I'm linking this to Off The Wall Friday where you can find other art quilt blogs. Please make comments on their posts to let the artists know you stopped by. Thanks for visiting.

Christmas Cards Already?

     Well, my shoulder is healed enough now that I can do some sewing. The thing that is painful is rotary cutting, so I have to do only a little of that a time. I have three large art quilts sketched out and am excited about them and ready to start on the first of those, but I thought I'd start (and finish) small sewing items first. At one of my art meetings this summer, we did gelatin monoprinting and I took a small gelatin plate (about 6 x 7). I decided make prints that I could use for Christmas cards this year.
     I originally wanted to print a nativity scene, but that was too complicated for the time I had and the number of prints I wanted to make. So then I thought I could use small fern fronds to look like evergreen trees and I would use string to look like trails of falling snow. I used regular acrylic paints mixed with Gac 900 fabric medium about 50/50.  I tore up an old sheet into small rectangles about 6 x7 inches. Here are the steps I did:
1.) I mixed up the paints on a plastic plate to get a light blue. I mixed the GAC900 into the paint.
2.) I brayered the blue paint mixture onto the gelatin plate.
3.) I put the fern fronds on top of the paint on the gelatin in an arrangement I liked.
4.) I put string on top of the paint and ferns in a curvy line on the gelatin plate.
5.) I laid the sheet rectangle on top and pressed in down with my hand and lifted it off after I was sure the paint had made good contact.
6.) I cleaned off the gelatin plate with a cotton wipe rag and a squirt bottle of water.

I repeated steps 2-6 until I had printed 30 rectangles.

After the paint was dry, I stamped some circles onto each rectangle with gold Lumiere paint from Jacquard and I stamped some snowflakes on each with some Sargent Art Acrylic Glitter Glaze mixed with white acrylic paint.  Here's a photo of several of the rectangles after they were printed and stamped.

in-process

Then I cut some cardstock and printed a phrase on it. I trimmed each rectangle to fit on the cardstock the way I wanted it to fit above the phrase. I applied a little glue stick the long edges of the fabric and stuck it on the cardstock and then I machine stitched it using a shimmery thread (I don't know the brand or type because its label fell off long ago.)

The finished card

So the card doesn't look like evergreen trees as intended. But since I live in Florida, I guess it's OK for me to use ferns (with snow?) It did snow here once for about 2 minutes on our driveway. Each card is different and maybe by next year, I can think up a nativity design I can monoprint.  I'll send 30 of my artistically inclined friends and relatives these cards and the rest will get the standard cards. Only because I didn't have the energy to make more of the prints that day. 

I'm linking this to   Off The Wall Friday   where you can see other art quilt blogs. Please make comments on their posts to let them know you visited.