Bridge in progress.
January 4, 2007I hadn’t realized but I don’t have a name for this piece yet. I had better get a wiggle on with thinking of something. Maybe it will let me it’s name tomorrow. I wasn’t sure how it was working, but having seen the photograph I think it might come together. This is a serious departure for me. I usually aim for ultra realistic. It drives my art teacher nuts. He keeps telling me I am not a camera and that I should get over the fact my drawings don’t look like photographs. So I’ve been brave with this I have got rough guide lines on the base fabric, but mostly I am making it up as I go along. I am hoping it will be the essence of a bridge over a stream in the spring. This part is just the trees in the background. I am assuming that even on something this blurry it will look better if I make it from the most distant objects to the further forward. I guess I will get to test the theory won’t I.
I am making this directly on the longarm. I have the three layers pinned to the frame, and all the pieces cut ready to use. You can probably see in the picture the pencil lines I have as guides. So I just fill in areas with an appropriate colour. Well that is the theory anyway. I haven’t marked the different greens on the cloth, those I just place according to my source image. I use a tiny amount of spray baste to make the base fabric a little tacky, then I lay out an area of colour. To hold everything in place I quilt it quite densely. For the trees and bushed I have been using an leafy pattern. I rather like it, and I finally seem to have got the hang of it. There are always a few pieces that try and leap out of the way of the foot, but I am getting better an spotting them and holding them down long enough to quilt over. I could have just covered it all with wash away stabilizer, but I don’t really want to get this quilt wet as some of the fabrics are batik and bound to run. I think I have done about a quarter of the quilt today, and I think it is going quicker as I do more, so it looks like I should be able to get it finished in time.
This looks really interesting – I wouldn’t mind a close up! It sounds as if you’re enjoying the experience of trying something different. It takes courage to do that sometimes doesn’t it? Best wishes for 2007.
I will try and take a close up tonight. I forgot last night. I did look to see if I could get the details from cropping one of the pictures but they weren’t really up to it. Sorry about that. I love doing things that haven’t or can’t be done. I really want to know how far I can push these things.
I could actually see the bridge in the small photo and was amazed when I clicked on it to see it enlarged. Looks really wonderful – can’t wait to see it finished! Am going to put a link on my blog now.
It’s looking good, very leafy.
Yay, I think I have just finished the background trees and leaves, so I am sitting here with a box of ground
Well path and base of bridge anyway. I am going to unwind it later to have a good look and get some more pictures.
That looks really cool. Is it just squares of colour or are you using different shapes?
So far all square (ish) except for 2 triangles, and I realised after that they could have been square too.