I spent a couple of weeks in Florida just chilling out by the villa pool and in the hot tub. As always I took some work with me. I took my Inktense pencils to paint over some printed silk (I will explain why later in this post) and some blackwork and gold work.
We were only home for 7 days before flying off to Venice. This was a return visit.
It was very, very hot and very, very busy. Not the best conditions to walk and walk and walk taking lots of photographs with a very heavy camera. It was certainly more of an endurance than a holiday. I am so glad we were there two years ago when it wasn't quite so hot nor so busy. The two visits have given me a huge design source now that all the images have been processed. I created a few pieces after the last visit but now I have begun to develop a project based on my visits to Venice.
I did post one of my art quilts last year which was created from images of the Basilica.
This was the image I used. I played with it in Photoshop and applied a special effect with this result.
I added a colour for the sky.
Then I duplicated the image, inverted etc.etc to create this final design.
I painted a piece of silk using the colours for the background sky although a lot paler than the design shows. I then printed the domes design onto another piece of silk, reinforced it with iron on Vilene and cut it out. I made a quilt sandwich with the sky background and free machined the domes onto this using a pale copper metallic thread. I made some changes to the design as I progressed. I still need to make a decision about an edge for the quilt but this is it so far.
The next piece or pair of pieces were based on two images I took of two masks hanging outside a small shop in a side street in Venice. They caught my eye because they were more subtle than most of the other elaborate masks in the Venice shops.
I isolated the masks, printed them onto transfer paper for dark fabrics, cut them out and ironed them onto black cotton. I used gold twinkling H2O to paint over the gold scrolls. Next I quilted around the edges of the masks and eyes then quilted the background. I covered the masks and sprayed the background with gossamer gold moondust. Finally I free machined over the music and used French knots for the notes.
The next piece was created from an image of the Grand canal.
It was rather a dullish day that day so the image was also a bit dull so I put it into Photoshop and applied a filter called cartoon. It produced a nice stylised effect which I printed onto silk.
Unfortunately one of the inks banded during the printout so I took it away with me and used the Inktense pencils to paint over the printed silk to cover the banding. Once home I made up the quilt sandwich and free machine the design with a fine black thread. I edged it with a dark blue satin. Another rescued piece.
The next piece is a favorite. It turned out better than I expected.
It was inspired by the Palazzo Contarini del Bolovo. It was very difficult to find down some very narrow passageways.
I used a close up of one level of the spiral stairway.
I put this into Photoshop and applied a number of special effects. I created six different effects and printed them onto cotton. Then I selected the wall area of the image and created vertical and horizontal spacers and printed them onto cotton. They were all made up into small individual quilts. I free machine them all using a fine black thread. They were edged with satin stitch and joined together. I had to take care to keep the sizes correct throughout the stitching so that they would fit together in the final construction. Love it.
I have completed the hand embroidery on a number of iPod pouches which are now waiting to be lined and made up into pouches, hopefully for the next post.
I have some time at home now before the next trip, so I can get on with more pieces which are in various stages of progress. So back to it.
Cheers for now everyone.
