Featured Post

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Gallery Shots, Postcard, Painting on Fabric, Weaving, Show & Tell

I call this Three Pregnant Ladies.  My two daughters were pregnant with children and I was pregnant with grief.  It was made from my hand dyed then painted fabrics, the center was drawn then painted on muslin, the chair and animal appeared in the picture so I painted them in.  The brown is a commercial fabric just the right color that I found a few years later, and was then able to complete the quilt.



This quilt was made in answer to a call for quilts that included birds or other wild life John James Audubon drew and painted.  The celebration was the 200 anniversary of his landing in Kentucky.  The piece was on display for three months in a gallery there.

Original print by John James Audubon.


This quilt was made from my hand dyed fabrics, scraps, reverse applique method on the hand and arm, beaded nose, eyes and bracelet, painted nails, sheer fabric over the background and hand and painted leaves echoing the leaves in the original print.  it is also my second overall machine quilt.


Great Grandmother Willie Cratic Finch and E. Finch Morris   


Postcard Swap, Great Grandmother Willie (born before the end of Slavery) & Great Aunt Eunice her daughter walking on Market Street in Philadelphia. This photo was taken before 1945. The building was Tuskegee Institute, now University where three of the youngest, of my great-grandmother's nine children attended school.  Eunice or E. Finch Morris, as she like to be called was one who attended.



My Dear Professor Haymaker.  He encouraged me to enlarge my work from 8 1/2" x 11" to 8x10 feet.  The weaving behind us is one of three I made during our time together.  I often start small but end up five to ten times larger.

 

Bad hair day, not anymore.  I created the square behind the face, of paper, thread, crystals, glue and fabric.  Later this mask required a backing and the cream fabric square felt just right.  As I completed the appliquéd of face, hair, then necklace I realized it needed to be larger so I added the boarders.  The quilting is the first overall machine quilting I completed after I got over the fear of machine quilting.  Oh yes, I was nervous about it for years, finally taking the plunge after a session with Juanita Yeager.  So it doesn't matter if you can draw, sew, paint, or fussy cut. There are things that have us stumped...until we gird up our loins and punch through or pop the bubble.


Show Tell partner.  I use this piece to demonstrate the way some quilters show their work.  After the demonstration we all laugh at ourselves and having gotten the point do a much better job at introducing ourselves and sharing one of our art works with our audiences.



Journal Quilt Project, hand dyed fabrics, the plants were drawn into the surrounding pink area mocking the printed fabric and drawing the eye out from the central figure in three directions.

Journal Quilt Project, detail of hair and hand/

This was embroidered using a simply zigzag stitch, straight stitching, on a commercial fabric that I reworked with fabric paints then digitally enhanced so that the colors matched a PowerPoint presentation theme.


These are some of the faces I create out of scraps. This project was part of a round robin.  Below is the fourth of five rounds.  It is now being hand quilted by the luck owner.



 

One of the faces on  my 2011 Self Portraiture. Acrylic and oil sticks were used to enhance the faces after the whole cloth had been soy waxed, dyed, and stitched.


This is an old fashion bush comb from Ghana.  My parents purchased it during a trip.  I wanted that comb but Mother still has it on display at her home.  So I did the next best thing, I sketched it and painted it on fabric, then enhanced it with stitching.

This is the wrong side of the 2011 self portrait some of the other faces showing some of the trapunto and stitching process.

Thanks for stopping by, Ms. V




Monday, March 26, 2012

Painting, Applique, Piecing, QuinobeQuin Quilters Quilt Show!

This picture was taken at a gallery where I had five items in the exhibit. There two were an acrylic painting and a collage using 1" x 2" magazine clippings.  Lots of fun getting the colors to work but it really gave me a chance to explore.

There are a more than a thousand bits of paper clippings used in the picture on the right.  And I probably went through forty magazines.  It makes the work I do in fabric seem easy by comparison.  I have been using my painting and collage work to develop back drops for landscapes and the bird quilts I have been producing.  Two of the bird quilts made for the 2010 Audubon Quilt Show held in Kentucky were on display at the Quinobequin Quilt Show this past year!   


.....
Here is a peek at a detail of the youngster.  The background was painted using fabric paints, a wee bit of glitter, and then free motion quilted.