One More in Progress and Thoughts on Working in Series

Thank you so much to those who had such positive encouraging comments on my last post.  Because I'm treading what are new waters for me, it is really great to get such positive feedback.

Being the thinker I am I have had many long conversations over the past few days and spent much time contemplating my interests and direction with my current quilt and future quilts.  For such a long time I've wanted to explore painting on quilts - but from a different perspective than how I normally look at quilts.  I absolutely adore the entire quilting process, but now I think I want to spend some time focusing on creating compositions.  A quilting friend brought up something that I've thought about over the years but never really understood - working in a series.  I never planned to sell my work and I had kind of seen creating quilts or paintings in a series as a marketing ploy - and a boring one at that!  I cannot tell you how many times my Dad and I have said - "but I don't want to make more than one!"  Mostly because we want to be inspired and not become bored.  But now - I have to say - I'm changing my tune a bit.  I can see how working in a series can benefit an artist in more ways than just attempting to sell or show in a gallery setting.  I can also see the potential to take an idea and expound on it.  Improve it and grow with it...in turn improving skill.  I see now how it can really help to organize your work when sharing it with others as well.  So what am I getting at?  LOL  I think you've guessed it - I'm going to make an attempt to create a series and see how that goes for a while.

Right now I'm enjoying these sort of cartoonish modern folk art style paintings.  I'm excited to add texture and interest as I go along.  Here are some close ups of the shading I've added in the water.

I am really itching to get to the quilting on this.  There is'n't much left to do at this point as I'm waiting for my Angelina Film to arrive in the mail and my Shiva Paintstiks.  I haven't decided if I want to add paint before or after quilting...but I'm kind of leaning towards after.  I'm pretty sure I want this to be quilted with a lofty layered batt - I want almost a sculpted clay or engraved look to the quilting.  We'll see how that goes!

The only part I'm not too keen on at the moment is the dragonfly.  It's not symmetrical to the point that it bothers me - and the colors just aren't right.  I thought about repainting but I don't want to build up so much paint that the quilt becomes difficult to stitch through.  So, I suppose I'm hoping that my Angelina Film will work wonders for me!  Maybe layering Angelina Film with tulle or something else and fusing them together to create wings.  We'll see - I'm pretty confident it's going to be loads of fun!