More art quilts and MORE snow!!!

Another long gap but I have been busy and not had the time nor the light to do the photography. However, I now have something to blog about. I did the photography today and took some more images of yet MORE snow!! I suspected that our share of snow wasn't over but I was hoping to be wrong.

As I often create composite digital images, I take and compile files of images that will be useful so I took the opportunity, today, of taking some more snow images. We have a block set drive and it didn't take long for the snow to begin to melt and create patterns-

It has cleared completely now - let's hope it stays away!!

Now for some creative textile pieces. Some time ago I took a photograph of a rubber molding mat, opened it in Photoshop and played around with it. I created three images which I liked.

I used these three images to create three art quilts. I made patterns for each one and using a light box traced the designs onto the fabrics. I used a white crayon on the dark green fabric. The two dark green designs were then painted with metallic paints. Once the painting was complete I made up the quilt sandwiches and free machined the designs. After the turquoise quilt was stitched, I sponged the surface with a black granite metallic paint. The three were edged and hung as a triptych.

Last summer - seems a long time ago now - my OH and I went for a photo shoot at an old derelict railway yard which is now a kind of restoration museum. Growing amongst all the rusty bits and pieces and old wagons were beautiful tall foxgloves. They grow in places like that but will not grow in my garden!!.

I took photos of them and these became the subject of my next art quilt.

I opened them in Photoshop and as usual played with all the settings, filters etc and then I began to create a composite from the different images and selections from those images. I always intended to make one of these images into an art quilt but it was after buying Charlotte Zeibarth's book that I decided to combine both of them into the one piece. I recommend her book and also her web site.

This was the original composite which I had every intention of keeping to, but as the piece progressed I changed my mind.

Each of the images - the long image on the right, the three horizontal images on the left, the two selected flower heads, the four mini horizontal images and the ten selected bolts - were all printed on white cotton. I use an A3 inkjet printer with pigment inks. There is no need to treat the cotton when using pigment inks. It is at this stage that I made the first error which contributed to my change of mind on the final composition. I forgot to flip the centre horizontal image. Once printed, I highlighted the flowers with metallic paints.

All the printed and painted pieces were then made up into quilt sandwiches and I proceeded to free machine them using a mixture of rayon and polyester cotton threads. When they were all stitched, I laid them out on the studio table and began to create the composite. It was then that I realised that I had forgotten to flip two of the images - grrrr! However, when I laid all the small images over the top of the large ones I began to realise that a lot of the very detailed and intricate free machining was going to disappear under these patches. Me being me, I could not come to terms with this so I began to redesign the composition. I came up with an alternative design and stitched all the main body pieces together first, then those patches which I did want over the top - ie the bolts and finally I joined the remaining small pieces.

The whole piece was edged with a zig zag machine stitch which enclosed a six stranded embroidery thread. I was not disappointed at all with the final piece and it adds to my list of successfully rescued pieces. It is about 60 x 70cm. I gave it a coat of acrylic gloss medium which enhances the colours and protects the surface. It does, however, change the feel of the surface but if it is to be hung then it is beneficial.

and a close up of some of the detail.

I am now on with the next piece - another art quilt but very different to this one. I will post about it when it is finished.

Until then - cheers everyone.