art statement

She Sells Sea Shells: A Study in Contrast

| ellenanneeddy

I haven’t made a lot of shells before. Starfish, yes. Jellyfish, inevitable. I find shells daunting. They’re not easy to draw, and they can’t be made to look like they’re moving. So this was an experiment.

Designg for contrast

One way to look at design is how to separate the field from the ground. You need to create differences that help the eye sort out what it’s looking at. The shells should be immediately different from the octopus and the sea.

This quilt required a shell for the octopus, And a tangible difference between them to be visually clear. The way to make things pop is to create a visual difference between differnt design elements of color, texture and size.

The color palate makes a clear separationg. The octopus is strongly orange, contrasted by the complemetary blue sea, and the off white and browns of the shells.

But we can make that contrast even stronger through the texture. Texture is made by stitching patterns, thread content, and thread size. Those design decisions clarify the design.

Shells are deeply textured with a smooth inside. I didn’t show the shiny insides of these shells. So the outsides needed to be crunchy and rough.

So the octopus is garnet stitch in polyester thread. The shells are out of both wound and flecked metallic threads. The threads contrast strongly. Metallic thread is much rougher than the smooth polyester. Both threads are 40 weight.

I also used a zigzagged scallop pattern for the shells. I stitched the rows irregularly with ribbed veins, so they’d seem more natural.

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The water is stiched with an 8 weight metallic to separate it from the shells and the octopus.

Thread choices help the eye separate the shells, the octopus, and the water, ‘It helps your viewer unnderstand what is happening in your piece in a glance.

This piece is ready to back and bind. I’m just waiting for a cool enough day.

A Great Frame up: Centering a Design with a Frame

| ellenanneeddy

One of the things that’s hard about a circular image is that it doesn’t move very easily. As a design. Circles lie like a lump unless you put them in a row or on a path.

I love this octopus in a shell, but it was static. There are several ways to create motion in a piece. Creating a visual path with rocks or shells would have worked. But I wanted something showier.

The best piece of fabric I had was a half-yard of blue hand-dye. But the shell didn’t fill it up. I could cut it to fit the shell. But a square wouldn’t work

So I decided to make a frame. But a rectangle was no better. There’s nothing square about an octopus. They flow with the ocean tide. They exude curves.

So if I wasn’t going to put the octopus in a rectangle or a square of some kind.

I needed to apply a different aesthetic. When you need design help, go look at great art. They knew what they were doing.

I’m a huge fan of Art Nouveau.

“Art Nouveau is …known for its flowing, organic shapes, curved lines, and reliance on natural motifs like flowers and plants. The movement aimed to unify all artistic disciplines, creating a holistic design experience.” Wikipedia

Art Nouveau has always made my heart beat faster. Natural organic forms that flow in movement, are based on the oriental concept of the visual path and movement make perfect sense to me.

I hadn’t seen an Art Nouveau octopus before. Japanese art is full of them. But tentacles would make a marvelous frame.

One thing about octopuses is that you don’t always see all of them. They hide, they move, they twist in the water. They don’t stay in one place while you take their picture. So I made three tentacles of another octopus, encircling the one in the shell.

Besides, the tentacles interact with the rest of the water and the jellyfish.

This is all pinned up and ready to stitch. I hope none of it splashes into the studio.

Not every frame is a box. A frame centers your design, accentuates it, and interacts with it. It is there to put the subject in the center of attention. Who says you have to be square?

Wisteria Blossoms

| ellenanneeddy

Sometimes hand-dye designs your quilt for you.

I had embroidered a radiated spoonbill landing, and I needed a background for her. This purply brown piece seemed nicely swampy and I loved the range of purple running in an arc through it. It looked like a bower of wisteria, so that’s what I went through.

I’ve done wisteria before. I sometimes feel I can smell them in the studio as I stitch on them

I wanted particularly soft glowing wisteria for this very dark swamp. These were done mostly from hand-painted lace, stitched with poly neon.

And small bright birds sitting in them.

On thing leads to another. The bird leads to the swamp background. The swamp leads to a wisteria bower. And the wisteria need bright little birds.

Wisteria, like roses, sunflowers, and hollyhocks, are part of the garden of my dreams. I can’t help but slip them in wherever their fragrance and illumination are needed.

The next step is to fit everything in together with a pond at the bottom, birds, and small fish.

On the other side of the studio, we have 2 torn-up 930 Berninas. Don has been heroically deciding which will live and which will be a parts machine. I’m working on the only functional embroidery machine, an 807 Bernina from around 1970. It’s a tiny machine, originally for classroom. We’re waiting for the resurrection, which sometimes spreads more slowly than you would like. It means I’m not able to work the 2 large quilts I have laid out at the moment. So….

An ocean floor, several external tenacles lots of jellyfish, I think. On a much smaller piece of fabric.

Avoiding the Easter Bunny Look: Shading with Pastels

| ellenanneeddy

Anatomy of a Color Scheme

There’s no help for it. If you are shading a pink bird, you’ll need to use pastels at some point. I’m not a fan. But you don’t get to throw out a section on the color wheel. Eventually, you’ll need all the values: tones, jewels, and pastels. Tones and jewels. Yes! Pastels. not that much.

Let me break down the color scheme for you.

There are six color zones, in the feathers of this bird, and then a zone for the neck and thighs, the feet, the head and the bill.

There are two progressive color themes going on. The pink under body and feathers, and the green overstitching. Both progress from dark to light.

Where did it go wrong? I chose the wrong yellow.

White objects are rarely pure white, unless you want a posterized deco look. They’re made up of other colors pale enough to be perceived as white. The bird itself is pink. I pulled in bits of lavender and yellow to blend it and to create a shadowed projection. I chose the wrong yellow. If you look at the top feather, you can see a strip of yellow that’s pretty loud.

You know that kind of Easterbunny pastel. Yellow, pink, blue, purple, and maybe green. It’s only appealing if you’re under the age of five. It missed here. I stitched some cream and natural white thread all over it.

Then I added the overstitching. The overstitching takes center stage, and the yellower bits back off. I think I’ve saved it. It also browns out the pinks a bit. They’re all there, but quieter for the green.

What should I have done? I should have lined up that yellow in a row with the other colors and taken a black and white picture of it. I would have known right there. But I’m happy with it now.

I’m ready for the next step, which is the background. And I think it needs yellow fish and birds.

Deciding Rather than Designing: Starting from Scratch

| ellenanneeddy

I wish I were someone who could take a design and execute it. I can try. It’s a case of man proposing, and God laughing. Instead, a series of decisions are to be made at each point. Each decision points to the next.

One of the most useful things I do in a class is to start a piece from scratch. It’s not like there is a direct list of what you do next. But there are some decisions to be made. It helps to have a plan.

Here is the list of things I need to decide for each piece.

  • Background-The hand dye creates the light and the atmosphere for the piece. It usually is the first choice. Does it have a sunspot? A pool? A field of flowers within it? It dictates almost everything, especially the lighting in a piece.
  • Major Images-These are the main focus. I draw them in Totally Stable, backwards. They iron on to the back of the piece and remain inside the piece as a pattern.
  • Atmospherics-Water, light, smoke clouds, and sometimes leaves and flowers are atmospherics. They are usually made of commercial sheers, handpainted lace, and dyed cheesecloth. They make a translucent presence in the piece.
  • Details/pathway-These are smaller embroideries, or stones, or leaves that can be used to create a visual pathway through the surface.
  • Texturizing the surface/stippling- after all that embroidery, the rest of the piece needs to be integrated. The stippling over the surface can pulls the piece together.

There are no right or wrong answers. There are simply decisions. Each defines the piece. What I choose not to do also shapes the definition. I’m OK with that. I’ve learned that each decision I reject can be featured in the next piece. Or the one after that. I’m not making one perfect piece of art. I’m creating a body of art that explores the limits and range of my techniques and my skills.

This piece, like most of them, started with a piece of fabric and the idea of herons. I dye a number of pieces of fabric as cenotes, wells of color. Some times the cenotes make a light source, but this piece made a wonderful pond.

The birds started as whistling herons. But at a certain point, they were indistinguishable from the Louisiana Blues. So I did them as blue herons. It’s important to finish the major embroideries first because they shrink. You don’t know how they’ll fit in until they’re embroidered and cut out.

The atmospherics for this piece are water and grass. The grass is an oil paint stick rubbing of a ceiling tile. The water is accentuated with c-shapes of hand painted and commercial lace. Then I put in rocks to anchor the pond and direct the eye.

I decided on damsel flies and grasshoppers, as pathway elements. They did not work the way I had hoped. The damsel flies fit in, but I’m not sure of the grasshoppers. I’ll have to finish them to be sure.

Finally, I wanted seedlings growing up through the water. I made big beautiful bold seedlings the size of God’s underpants. Again, not the best choice. I scaled that down and it was much more effective, although I might want bigger ones at the bottom.

This piece is pinned in position. I’ll be stitching soon. But most of the decisions are made, step by step, before it’s stitched down.

Backtracking: Going back to Old Tech

| ellenanneeddy

I’m always looking for a better way to do something. Easier. More visible. More user-friendly. Tech changes as we go along, partially because we get smarter about what we do, partially because we learn from others, and partially because the materials, thread, and stabilizers change and we change with them.

If change isn’t a four-letter word, it should be. It’s not easy or fun to develop new ways to do things. But if we are going forward on an artistic path, it’s inevitable.

Except when it’s not.

I developed using free-motion embroidered appliques as an anti-pucker technique. First I did it only with quite large objects. Over the last couple of years that has developed into what I call component quilting, where almost all of my images are done separately on a sandwich of hand-dye, felt and Stitch nTear, and then cut out. I apply them to the quilt surface only when they are completely embroidered.

What does that do technically?

  • It diminishes the puckering around heavy embroidery by cutting it away
  • It creates a strong visual image that pops off the quilt surface.
  • It creates a larger outline than you might want for a smaller image.
  • It allows you to use a zigzag stitch for quicker coloring.

What did I use to do? I stitched my images directly into the quilt sandwich. It was where I started as a quilter. First I used to stitch images into the quilting. Then I began to stitch with specialty thread so those images would show up better. It was at least 15 years before I began to stitch the images separately.

What does that do?

  • It requires either straight stitch or very narrow zigzag because of the puckering
  • It allowes the background to show throught the embroidery, so that it blends in more.
  • It can be seen on the back (which is really cool if you embroider directly into the quilt sandwich
  • It puckers up anyway, but less than it would with zigzag

I’ve pretty much stopped using direct image stitching. This time I went back to it strictly for the aesthetics. I wanted fish that did not stand out as much as the frog. Doing component embroidery on the frog and direct embroidery on the fish makes them different in appearance and creates a visual sort where your eye lets you know they are different. I wanted the frog half out of the water and the fish firmly in the water.The fish were outlined in a narrow black zigzag, and then stitched straight stitch from the back with metallic thread in the bobbin.

Did it work that way? I’m still figuring that out. The fish are quieter than the frog and seem part of the water. I’m not sure how I feel about the look.

I do know that I can’tafford to throw away technique. Some things just work differently. Having those options is holy.

Frog River is now available for sale at my Etsy Shop.

Etsy

Does it Have to be Yellow?

| ellenanneeddy

I started a new quilt this week. like most quilts, it started with an incredible piece of fabric.

It’s been a while since I’ve dyed, so I’m down to the most fabulous, I’m scared to use it wrong fabric, and the stuff I really don’t care about.

This piece took time to figure out because it’s only a half yard. Sometimes that’s plenty of space. Sometimes it’s not.

but it made such a good pond. All that yummy blue purple against yellow.

I wanted herons, and I found a sketch of herons I used for my information.

Unfortunately, when I looked up the specifics, it was a whistling heron.

In case that sounds unfamiliar to you, you’re not alone. A whistling heron is from eastern Asia.

Is it different especially from other herons? Not so much. Heron head, heron wings, heron feathers. But yellow. The body is yellow.

I think you can see my problem. A yellow heron is going to show up on this like a yetti in a snow storm.

OK. How real do I have to be? What do I want to accomplish with this piece? Am I copying life precisely? Am I playing with interesting shapes or colors? How tied am I to “The Real Thing.”

Henry James wrote a story called “The Real Thing.” It was about an artist who had a reduced gentleman and lady offer themselves as models to him. That had to be a pretty harsh come down in the world for them.

They said they were the real thing, but in truth, they were only that one real thing. He found the girl who could be a gypsy, madonna, dance, lady and probably was a lady of the night, a much better model because she could be anything with his imagination.

Modern art launched right around the beginnings of photography. There’s a reason for that. Up until then, the goal was to come closer and closer to real. Suddenly, you could have a completely real image at the click of a button. An artist can’t really compete with that. So different things have to happen.

So where do we go if we’re not more and more “real?” We start exploring, shape, light, color and texture. We start to think what if. We start to let the art define itself. We find it defines us in the process. That’s a whole lot more scary than real.

But worth it.

I decided these herons could just be herons. And little blue herons are the perfect color behind all that lovely lemon yellow.

So these birds can be blue and shine in their yellow, not so realistic but perhaps symbolic, world. That there are pools of water, even in strict drought. That we find them even under extreme conditions and can thrive past the hardships. That we are not completely defined by other people’s real.

You’ll find a free copy of Henry James story, The Real Thing, here if you want to read it. It’s an interesting thing for artists to think about. Why are we painting, sewing, drawing, and create? What do we build in doing that? What reality do we create? Because as artists, that’s our job.

A River Runs Through it: Creating Stunning River background with Oil Paint Sticks

| ellenanneeddy

You know I go crazy over oil paint stick rubbing. My first tries with rubbings were not successful. But at this point, I use them regularly to texturize backgrounds. Mostly I use commercial rubbing plates. They’re pretty and flexible. But they’re not very big. The technique lends itself to smaller pieces. They’re fun. But covering a half yard of fabric with a 6″ square design takes forever

This was a leftover piece for it. I love it but it’s just too small. And I wanted a piece that would give me perspective on the river I wanted to build for my frog river.

I love this background. I found I had a leftover frog and dragonfly, and they suited each other quite well. But the fabric didn’t feel enough like a river. It needed water and rocks.

. Unfortunately, I haven’t found any rock rubbing plates.That just meant I wasn’t looking in the right place. Lowes has some rock backsplash tile I’d purchased. I love the texture.

Here’s the extra rock tiles I found. They are backsplash tiles from Lowes. They are on a thread mesh, but they are real rocks.

Rivers are often defined by the pebbles at the bottom. So I decided to build my river with some rock rubbings.

So I went back to Lowes. In the backsplash section, I found a collection of rock tiles in different sizes.

I also picked some rubbing plates that make good river foliage.

I drew some chalk lines to show me where to put the river. Then I began with the smallest rock tile

I went to the larger rocks landing at the bottom. Then I rubbed blue and purple ripples through the river area.

This is subtle. But I do like it. Here the frog and the dragonfly fit into the river and sky. I’m planning on minnows and cat tails along the edges.

I finished off the composition with water patterns over the rocks. Then I added a layer of blue and green sheers for that wet look. I can hear the water running

What’s the take away? I can build depth into my piece by making a path that starts near me and gets smaller as it retreats. I also can find stones and tiles that pass as rubbing stones at any good hardware store. And I can make a river out of a paint stick, a backsplash of rocks, and a water rubbing plate on top of them. That’s a lot to ask of a piece of fabric and some paint. But we all know that oil paint stick-rubbed fabric is a magic of its own.

Check out this earlier blog on working with oil paint sticks if you’d like a tutorial on using paint sticks.

THe Point to it All: Abstract Roses

| ellenanneeddy

I love roses. I no longer have them in my garden but they often fill my quilts. I was working on a batch of roses for a quilt that’s out of series of brambles over old walls. The backgrounds are oil paint stick rubbings with blackberries or roses growing over them. It;s based on a memory of a french fairy tale where there was an ornately carved wall with roses growing over it. The movie Ever After (a cinderella retelling) has a scene with a wall like that.

This time I’ve been working with a drawing of a red wing blackbird, but the black was just too boring. So we went blue instead. It worked with the rubbed background.

These roses are abstract. They’re made from spiral cuts of sheer fabrics, intertwined and stitched free motion. I’ve done them before. Abstraction is about taking one or several parts of an image and letting them represent the whole. But stitching the points felt so good. I tried to figure out why. It’s not exactly what a rose looks like, but it has the spiral form of the petals. The spiral reminds us of the structure of roses. Where do the points come in? Some roses have folded petals that look like points.

Abstract work is hard for me. I’m not an accurate person by nature, but it takes me a while to simplify something enough to abstract it. I’ve done it from time to time, but it’s not natural for me. But the point to the roses, was all the points.

I wanted white roses, but you can’t have just white. Without color there are no shadows. I went with a pallet of pale blues, lilac, aqua, cream, grey, and green. The white fabric spirals make the image white and the threads make the shading. As I was working stitching the roses, I noticed I really liked putting points on the edges. It made them much more rose like.

Then it occurred to me. The points were an echo of the thorns of the rose.

When I had my Porter garden, I came to love my roses not only for their scent or their loveliness. Roses are aggressive. They are, as a species, 30 million years old. They are lovely scented thorned privacy. And I thought my birds might need a little privacy.

These arr partially stitched down. I hope to finish them this week.

Here’s the rest of that series. I love the idea of walls covered with rose vines.