Playing with Paintstiks

Ok ok calm down.  I know some of you are going to go, "OH NO what did she do!"  Lol*  This is practice and it was practice for a reason - because I didn't want to fear experimenting.  I wanted to play with the paintstiks again and see if I could get a better result.  I'm pretty much sick of this so I probably won't do anything else...on to other things.  But I wanted to share some of what I've learned.

I used a finer brush this time with the burnt umber paintstik and I still think it was just too heavy handed.  This picture really makes it look much darker - it really isn't THAT dark.  But you can see the bottom feathers on the right I went much lighter...and it's so much more subtle.  Less like I just went and painted on my quilt.

I'm thinking the key to making the paintstiks work FOR the feathers instead of in place of the feathers is to number one, go light handed.  REALLY light handed.  Number two, stop trying to determine where shadow should be and just place shadow where it already is.  It looks SO much more natural, still makes the feathers pop without taking away from the actual quilting.

I think I will use the paintstiks again on a whole cloth project, but I'm going to reserve them for really accenting instead of actually painting.  In the end - I like quilts over paint.  :)  I want to maintain the look of a quilt!  ;)

Heirloom Quilting Practice

While waiting for my long arm I've been practicing my heirloom style quilting.  This is SO much fun!  I wanted to practice a few different designs...you can tell the offset cathedral windows could use some work.  Eep.  They are TOUGH at that tiny size.  I made a 1/4" diamond grid and I think next time I'll go 1/2" until I can gain a little more control.  The crosshatch turned out good though!  Especially since it's just marked on lines and freehanded....I'm hoping I'll get a more precise result with the long arm and a ruler.

Above is a picture in progress.  I pulled it out from under the machine just to get a quick picture before dinner.  The quilting looks so much better in that lighting...I used cotton batting scraps so there isn't much poof...need the right light to really see the beauty of the quilting.

Below isn't the most flattering picture but you can see what I did.  It's wet and squished from removing the marking pen.  Maybe I can get a better picture tomorrow.  I'd like to finish off the shadow quilting and then add some paint and beading.  I have about ten projects going right now (no joke!) so we'll see how long it takes me to get to it.  :)