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!

FMQ Video and Mucho Randomness!

First, let me get this video out of the way because I cannot think of an eloquent way to share it!!  :)  I don't have an entire post based around it, it is just a video.  :)  After a seriously intense week of quilty work I needed to be freely creative.  So I started a little quilt - because I like little quilts the way I like little paintings.  A couple of you asked me to video just me sewing...so that's what it is!

This is all on the Juki.  I quilt on the long arm yes - and for some reason when I go to the Juki people start to wonder if I don't like my long arm or if I cannot do on my longarm what I do on my Juki.  Well, the truth of the matter is I am on my feet all day and I just like to sit down and quilt!  Also I don't have room or funds for two long arms, so the Juki is a way for me to have a personal project going and client projects going at the same time without me having to put one of the two away.  I'll work on a clients project during the day and mine at night and/or the weekends.

Here are a few shots of what I was working on...

Sometimes I'll try out a design on a smaller project on the Juki first and work out how I'm going to go about execution of that particular element.  Keeping in mind that the way I quilt it on the long arm is different than the sewing machine.  So these are winding curling feathers that I'm planning to incoporate on a larger quilt I'm working on.  This is Glide thread and Hobbs 80/20 batt.

Here's a shot of my current quilty project - crummy lighting from a 2am Instragram picture I took on Easter morning...I want to incoporate the above winding curly feathers and possibly some painting on this quilt.  I am realizing that quilts are much more organic for me if I build them as I go versus planning the entire thing out ahead of time.  I actually planned this quilt with a completely different border structure.  It was all paper pieced and sort of had a peacock theme.  But I got bored - fast.  So I started to build the borders freely and it was so much more enjoyable!  Also - lots of space for quilting.  :)

I'm all about loud colors right now after working on my giant applique quilt - which was mostly white or off white.  I had made the quilt to show but I am just so sick of it I cannot finish it right now.  I have a stack of quilts like that at the moment!  :)

In other news I had attempted to make a second blog with art related content and soon after realized that I don't have time to keep up with two blogs!  LOL  I may or may not elaborate on it - who knows.  I have creative ADD and limited free time so the mood may strike me to get going on it or I may abandon it all together.  :)  In any case  my art work and quilts kind of mesh together... 

Painting and art journaling!  :)  More obsessions.  Also making Disney dresses and scrap booking Disney.  There is not enough time in the day for my many projects.  :)

So that is the randomness that is going on in my creative life right now!  Client quilt-wise, I'm working this week on marking and loading up Barbara's quilt.  It will be intensely quilted and it is HUGE so it will be on the frame a while.  Likely next post will be a few inprogress shots!  :)