design

Doing the Twist: Designing Ways

| ellenanneeddy

I’m always astonished at how much an image can change with positioning. One of the advantages of component quilting is that it can be moved endlessly to get the placement right. I went to embroidering large images some while back. But I’ve learned several other things component quilting allows me to do, and I use it constantly now.

Changing Processes

Three changes in my process made this work: component quilting, pin-ups, and daily process photos. I work with components rather than images stitched into the work. I do multiple pin-ups for placement, and daily process photos that let me track the changes.

These are all relatively new for me. But it wasn’t something I planned. I just happened to find these processes helpful, and now do them regularly just in my studio work.

Component Batch Quilting

Batching a number of elements at once allows freedom later on in the project. Instead of just doing the larger images, almost all of the embroidery is on a separate sandwich, ready to cut out and use.

  • I’m free to change my mind about each element. If I embroider a moth in the piece, that’s where it stays. Right or wrong, it’s not going anywhere. You live with your choice. If the moth is separate, I can move it indefinitely.
  • I can make images from the same color choices that are in the same range but unique.
  • I can always use whatever is left over. There are never enough fish, frogs, bugs or birds.

So now, almost all my embroideries are made as components that can be used at will. For more information on batch quilting, check out Streamline Quilting with Component Techniques.

Pin-Ups

The first pin-up is where I design my quilt. Once I put the quilt top on a sandwich, I put my main images in, see where they might fit, to rearrange things.

But the first pin-up is only a beginning. In this case, I did my pin up, added my elementals, and pinned it back up with those included. My original intent was to have the octopus learing over the top kind of like Cthulu. But it was flat.

So I gave it a twist. To make something move, put it on the angle. I angled the octopus, to put him into motion. Then I angled the other elements to echo that motion.

Picture This. by Molly Bang, is the best book about composition. It’s about how people process imagery. First, she illustrates Red Riding Hood with rectangles and triangles. And she made it work.

But she explains how we see things, what meaning we take from images.

If you are an artist, run out and buy this book. Then buy another 5 copies, because you’ll want to give it to every artist you know.

She has some very useful observations. Horizontal lines are stable. Vertical lines are stable. Angled lines look like they’re falling. If they’re falling, they’re in motion.

I angled the octopus to echo the left jellyfish.

Then I angled the nurse sharks to echo the octopus.

Daily photography

Having daily process shots gives me so much information about what is and isn’t working in a piece.

Including a black and white picture to evaluate values.

I’m always surprised at how much a little twist can do.

Step-by-Step Guide to Using Color Theory for Thread Art

| ellenanneeddy
Outline, dark base, shader, and the beginning of the blue range

The nice thing about color theory is that it works across all kinds of media. What changes isn’t the color theory, but the way the media is applied.

Color theory for thread is different only in the fact that you really don’t mix colors. Instead, you lie them next to each other, and your eye mixes them.

These nurse sharks are part of my octopus garden. I don’t have their octopus stitched yet, but they were compelling. I love the spiky shapes. They will have orange-yellow stripes. I’m not quite there yet. Right now, I want them round and shaded, with a clear indication of which side is up. I need smooth color for that.

Smooth color creates a color range.

The formula for it is

  • A dark base color
  • A dark complementary color as a shader
  • A range of colors in the base family
  • A bright color as a shocker
  • A lighter or brighter shade of the base color to finish.
  • If the subject is too large, I can zone the areas of the image and repeat the formula in a set of lighter or darker shades.
  • I usually work light to dark. The last color will be the most prevalent, so keep that in mind. Sometimes with fish or frog bellies, I color the dark to middle section, add the lightest color on the other edge, and work in my darker colors, so the tummies aren’t so blatant.
Green as a shocker

I chose green as my shocker color. Usually, I would have used either the blue or purple complement, but orange is so strident. I will use yellow for the stripes, but I think I’ll brown them out so they don’t scream at me.

It takes a fair amount of courage to add the shocker. The shader layer makes visual sense. The shocker layer screams at you. There’s a terrible urge to rip it out immediately. But it quiets down once you put the next layer of the base color. And the color is smooth without being bland. The shocker is an electric spark in a range of smooth, quiet color.

It’s time consuming, but I love the base colors. Between the shocker and the shader, the color has a splash of excitement, but creates a flow color base.

What will they look like with yellow-orange stripes? I expect they’ll be quite jazzed up. I’ll show you next week.

Angling for Fish: The Short and Long of It

| ellenanneeddy

Last week has been spent in fish production. I can’t really put in the octopuses until I have the fish to create the path around them.

Usually, fish have scales, and the scales divide the space..You progress from scale to scale, picking lighter colors as you get to the underbelly. You fill in the scales darker on top and progressing through lighter colors around the belly. It’s pretty. It gives depth.

What if you don’t divide the space? You can stitch row after row of color next to each other. It looks stripy. There’s a place for that, but it’s not very natural.

It doesn’t work for clown fish.They blend from one color through another without separation.

So how do you fill in a larger space? One way is the short and long stitch.

You need to understand that none of this is a stitch on your machine. It’s all zigzag stitching. The change is the angle in which your fabric goes through the machine.

The long and short stitch is done from side to side. The difference that it spreads from both sides and fills in unevenly, shading the area softly and without stripes. The top and bottom of the image has a solid line to outline.

That kind of shading allows us to put in darker contrast colors to shade that blend right in. These fish are shaded with a dark and then a lighter purple. Since the colors are mostly covered with orange thread, your eye blends them into a shaded solid orange.

All of this is for the octopus’s garden. This is my second pin-up. I think it needs one pillar rock and some water, but it’s ready to back, and stitch.

For more information about the long short stitch, check out The Long and Short of It Blending Stitches with the Long Stitch

Less Is Less: Color Choices for Smaller Images

| ellenanneeddy
machine embroidered. not outlined yet.

I’ve whined a bit about larger work this month, mostly because I had 6 full sized pieces to finish. Not fun. But all but one is done.

So in response to that, and in giving myself a break, I decided to do something smaller. These Japanese cranes have been on my mind for a wile. Originally they were on a textile.

People talk about making a smaller version of something and then blowing it up. I’ve never found that works. The size changes what you can do with your stitchery.

When I work large, my thread color choices have to fill in a space. It’s a larger space. I do have a formula for that. And a basic color strategy.

  • I work dark to light.
  • The color of my background is the light within the piece. So that color has to be part of the choices.
  • Everything is accentuated. I choose my colors to be more intense than the overall effect I want
  • Your eye will mix the colors. Even if they don’t seem to go together. Don’t be afraid.

I choose

  • A dark tone of my desired color.
  • A shader, usually either purple, brown, dark green or blue.Often I’ll use a complement from my desired color
  • Several shades of th chosen color.. They can differ in tone and clarity, but they need to be lined up dark to light.
  • A shocker. Usually the complement in a bright form
  • A light color that is the color of the piece.
  • The lightest color. Usually lighter than you want the piece to be as a highlight.

That fills in a lot of space.. It needs to. It allows for some intense coloration.

Smaller work is smaller space. No help for it. The stitching isn’t as intense and you end up with a much small space to fill in. So your choices pull in.

For your thread choices you’ll want.

  • The darkest tone of your color
  • A toner, complement, brown, blue, or purple
  • A mid color
  • Maybe a shocker
  • A light color
  • May be a highlight color

It’s the same theory, but it’s stepped down for smaller spaces. I don’t like to work that way because it makes wild choices feel more intense. It abstracts very quickly

So I worked on these cranes this week. They’re white, but I worked up to that with a lot of soft toned pastels and greys. I was completely worn out on them until I slipped in a bit of turquoise.

I’m not wildly unhappy with this, but I feel limited by it

.The joke is that the ended up fitting into a yard of hand dye, the size I most often use for large quilts.

I don’t often do this, but I have a pervasive urge to redraw the image bigger, and go wild with the colors, just to see what I get.

It’s always good to change things in your work. Any change is a challenge. Chainge the size, change your pallet, change your subject, and certainly at the right moment, change your undies. Change is good.

Work Flow: What Do I Do First?

| ellenanneeddy

My work contains a lot of different processes. It can seem a bit overwhelming when you’re looking at the inished piece. But there is a flow to it.How do I start? What makes sense out of what comes first? And next. And why?

I’m using the cat head fountain as my example here because it’s what I’m currently working on. This is a repeat of a quilt that never worked out.( see Try, Try, Again). Every piece has its own challenges and processes, some of which are unique to that piece. This one isn’t reallly typical. I’ve been trying to fix my problem with man made structures for some while. The fountain itself was a separate process I’ll skip over for right now.

I’d like to say none of this is written in stone. This is generally how I approach a piece of art.

Which comes first, the background or the subject?

It can go either way. It’s a chicken and egg problem. I need both. It doesn’t matter which comes first.

Background

The background answers many question. Sometimes there’s a piece of hand dye has really strong opinions and tells you exactly what to put on your quilt. It’s worth listening. So I put the background up on the wall and let it tell me the story. Is it a swamp? A meadow? A river? The background often tells me exactly where I am. What time it is? This background was a piece of oil paint stick rubbing on gray hand dyed that made perfect old stone.

Sometimes there’s a piece that’s perfect but it’s just too small. I may strip piece it to stretch it. I did piece a border to this, to get it to the right side.

Subject

The background does all of that xcept when it doesn’t. Then I go looking for images. I do use books for reference. I’m a poor enough artist that once I’ve drawn it, it’s pretty much unrecognizable. But I do like to get the numbers correct on how many toes my creature should have.

I draw on Totally Stable, an inron on, removable stabilizer. The stabilizer stays witin the piece. It’s drawn backwards because I’m stitching from the back.

Either road, I never prep the back until I’ve embroidered the subject. The embroideries shrink. And not in an even way. The shrinkage comes from the width of the zigzag stitch you’re using. Usually it’s around 11 percent, it’s not consistant, or predicable.

Stabilize the Background

Once the subject is embroidered, I stablize the back with felt and Decor Bond.

Elementals

Elementals are things that are see through fire, water, air,clouds, flower petals. If it’s a flat applique, I back it wit Steam a Seam 2, iron it down, and stitch it in a loose zigzag with monofilament clear thread.

First Pin Up

Once I have the elements in place, I pin up my subject into the background and assess what I need to make a pathway

Components

These can be any smaller images that direct the eye through the piece: bugs, fish, birds, or stones. In this case it’s leaves, roses and small yellow birds

Second Pin Up

I add in the components to create a visual path. This it that last moment to adjust for everything The smallest angle of a leaf or bird can change it dramatically.(see Turn of the Head) After it’s stitched down, I’m committed. This is where I currently am with this quilt. The next part is to leave it on the wall for several days to be sure everything is where it should be.

Stitch Down

At this point I stitch the elements into the background

Stipple

Most pieces do not lie flat unless they’re stitched all over. Some kind of stipple will accomplish that.

Back, Quilt, and Bind

Finally I back the piece, quilt it, and cord bind it. Check out Way over the Edge for instructions on cord binding.

This is not always the path. But these are all things that need to be accomplished.

I regularly walk you through my projects step by step. But I don’t often show it in a more macro form. For more information on work flow check Deciding Rather than Designing.

Too Large: Managing Big Quilts

| ellenanneeddy

I love big quilts. I know my definition of big is not large for those doing bed quilts. I consider a 45″ x 36″ piece large. This is a big larger than that, probably around 45″ square.

I also am terrified of them. A large quilt is a commitment. It’s at least 2 weeks- 2 months of time and energy. If it works, that’s fine. If it isn’t, that time, energy and material is lost. It’s not exactly wasted. It’s education, and education has its costs. But it is demoralizing.

There are also a lot of components in this piece: the spoonbill, fish, birds, wisteria, and iris fronds. They can all look great if they’re place precisely. Placing them precisely is not simple. You have to look at it up on a wall.The view on a quilt on a flat surface is distorted. You can’t see the design well enough.

So a larger piece is a bit scary. They’re harder to design, because it’s harder to see what you’re doing. So I took my time on this piece. The bird is great. Getting her into her pond is a bit harder.

I’ve pinned this piece up 3 times. Partially because needed to use the wall for something else. Partially because I wasn’t sure. In the end I ended up tilting the legs and the iris leaves to emphasize the visual path on this.

This is where a black and white picture comes in. Seeing things in black and white makes a lot of things more clear. I get distracted in the color, and the black and white shows what really is and isn’t popping.

Hopefully she’s in her proper place. She’s mostly stitched down, so it’s what it is.

Sheen!

| ellenanneeddy

We talk alot about contrast. Contrast creates all the excitiment in our work. We think about contrast in color, in dark and light, and in shapes. All of those play a big part in how we view a piece of art.

But there is a more subtle form of contrast: sheen. The first thing your eye sees is not the color or the form. It sees how shiny things are. The sheen separates everything from anything that isn’t shiny. It helps the eye comprehend what it’s seeing, what is important.

The easiest way to think about this might be the hardware paint department. You can get paint that is matt, paint that is eggshell, and paint that is high gloss.

Unlike the paint, there are a lot more subtle differences. Thread and fabric have large variations in shine.

In this piece I used several shades of iridescent organza. This is pure fairy dust. Cut in short lengths it makes Angelina Fiber.

Angelina fiber is more blingy. The organza is one step down on the blingometer. It’s a bit hard to work with in terms of color. It acts like any other organza for applique. I fuse it on with Steam A Seam 2, and stitch it with a soft monofilament edge.

The trick is that it picks up the colors around it. It’s not at all the color you see on your cutting table. And it shines like a neon star. These are the atmospheric appliques that form the water reflection. The moon is white. The ripples are a light blue. And the dark is a deep cobalt. It’s not what you’d expect. But I love it.

You do need to tone it down a bit so that isn’t the only thing people see. How to do that? If you can’t beat them, join them.

The fish applique are metallic thread and have a different sheen. But for the background, i covered it with Sliver stippling. Sliver is lurex as a thread. It looks like Christmas tinsel. It acts like an anaconda in heat. But if you put it in the bobbin and stitch from the back it is easy to work with

The result is that it’s all so shiny it fits in. Which is where I added leaves that are matt, just for contrast.

How do I know if I did it right? I take a black and white photo. If it’s all visible and it balances, I’m there. I almost always take a black and white photo of a piec when I pin everything up, because that’s when I can make my corrections most easily.

You can see the bubbles gleaming out, but the stipple with Sliver makes it a more even treatment, and the fish show up better.

For more information on working with Sliver, you might want to look at Skimming the Surface: Bobbin Work with Silver.

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.