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!

Jaquard Lumiere Paints on My Quilts

My art quilting friend Nina-Marie Sayre asked me recently how and why I might want to paint on my quilts!  :)  I shared a few photographs on Facebook of this miniature quilt I'm working on as sort of a practice piece to work out some quilting I would like to do on a larger project I have in the works.

You can click on the photographs to see them larger if it helps - each plume has been lightly painted with an irridescent water based fabric paint to add a little shadow and dimension to the quilting.  I'll share a photo of what the feathers looked like before painting them:

There is a pretty dramatic difference between the two!  Of course I have added more quilting to the photos of the painted version, but there is still quite a difference when you stand back and look at the two.

Nina is an art quilter so I know she totally gets the need for creative experimentation...but I am more of a traditional quilter who fiddles around with art quilts.  So why might a traditional quilter want to paint her quilt?  Well I personally have a major love for whole cloth quilts.  When I began machine quilting I discovered that my ultimate joy comes from the quilting process.  But they totally stink to photograph!!!  I want to make whole cloth quilts where the quilting can be SEEN...and not just in good lighting.

I also really love whole cloth quilts made of bright colored hand dyes and tie dyed fabrics...but you often cannot see the quilting.  So that is why I started fiddling with paints to see what I could achieve.

I first heard about painting on quilts to highlight definition from Master Quilter Diane Gaudynski.  She uses Shiva Paintstiks - an oil based paint but in a stick form - and lightly paints her quilting to add defintion and shadow.  I LOVE the look - but when I played with the Shiva paints I had a really difficult time keeping it from looking grainy and controlling the amount of paint applied.  I tried applying it directly from the stick as well as with a paint brush. 

So after a few failed attempts with the Shiva paints I decided to try Lumiere paints by Jaquard.  I originally bought the paints to use with stencils - but the cool thing about these paints is they are water based...so you can water them down and just use a touch for a hint of color and definition.  Also they are sparkly....and I like just about all things sparkly.  :)

Once heat set the paints are safe to wash when used on fabric - though the kind of quilts I generally make that are painted are rarely if ever washed outside of a damp cloth.

I love these paints!!  I love the way it turned out so much I am even doing some painting on my big white applique quilt...eep!  Pictures to come!  :)

Linking up with Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday!  :)

Linking up with Nina-Marie for Off the Wall Friday!!  :)