Doh! Failed to take pictures.

So I spend two days working on a longarm sampler to take up to my local quilt shop, then I forget to take a picture to show you guys. How daft can I be? Never mind I remembered on the way to the shop and I had my phone with me. The phone has a camera on it. Do you think I remembered when I was there? Nope. Brain like a sieve today I think. I will try and get a picture on Saturday when I will be going to the Christmas Party there. If you are in the are you might want to come along and grab some extra supplies for the holidays.

I’ve been stunned by the response to ‘Nude with Rope 1′. The positive reception has really motivated me to get on with some more nudes. I’ve ordered the fabrics for the next one I need to make a pattern for and I have the fabrics for the next already sorted. Hopefully next week sometime I will be able to get on with ‘Nude with Rope 2′. First I have a corset to finish and a car cover to work on.

I’ve also been looking into other shows where I might be able to exhibit my nudes. I am trying to work out if I can enter one to the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. An artist friend of mine suggested it a while ago and I have been meaning to investigate. I don’t even know if I understand the categories. I guess this is where a traditional art education would come in really handy. If you are interested the information is here. I am guessing that when they say glazed they are talking about whether the frame has glass? Do I need to frame my work for it to be considered though? I do intend the ‘Nude with Rope 1′ to end up in a frame but not in time for the summer exhibition. Once it is framed it will be really hard to ship. On the other hand maybe I should frame one of them to enter here and at other more traditional venues and just keep the other for shows that understand soft art. I don’t know. I think I might have to try and find a way to contact the Royal Academy directly and see if they have any advice.

Read the entry form.

OK so as I child I was told to always read exam papers carefully because people, apparently, often fail because they don’t do what they are asked. So why did I entirely fail to read the instructions for the AQS Paducah show.

I was planning on entering ‘Nude with Rope 1′, but I can’t. It is too small to be large and too large to be small. In fact having read the instructions it seems I don’t make quilts at all All of my quilts fall into gaps in the sizes so can’t be entered. I might be able to find a bed quilt that I could enter but it wouldn’t be my best work. I could add more background to the nude, but I don’t want to. It’s shape is a deliberate part of the design and I don’t think I want to change that just to please a show. So I guess I now need to find an image that will work 60″ to 110″ wide and at least 40″ long. Oh and of course finish it by Christmas. Yeah right.

Equally none of the ‘small’ wall quilts I was thinking of entering are the right size either. They have to be 40″ to 60″ by at least 40″. Again not really a shape I want to work with but at the same time I really want to enter this show. I am very disappointed that all my quilts are wrong. Or perhaps I am just sad they only allow such a small range of sizes. To think people have complained at how big I work, my work is too small.

Oh and knowing it is my fault for not reading the forms really doesn’t help.

Nude with Rope 1

Well this has been a productive weekend. I’ve managed to finish the top of my next quilt. This one is called ‘Nude with Rope 1′. Yes there will be at least a second, maybe more. I love this image. It is from a photograph taken by Alex Treacher, a friend of mine. He very kindly gave me permission to use some of his images, which has been invaluable as at them moment I don’t have anyone to model for me. The image is about lifesize, so it has been a bit of a squeeze. I have a large board I can put on my ironing board to get a bigger pressing surface, but it is only half the size of this quilt.

I was especially pleased with being able to make the image in two parts. This meant that I didn’t have to add any extra joins in the pieces. Even the biggest areas can be cut out of a 1m cut. All the fabrics in this quilt are Moda Marbles. I find this range works especially well for these quilts, so I went to the Moda site to see the whole range. There are 199 fabrics in it. It is amazing. Unfortunately there isn’t anyone locally who stocks them all. I think one of my goals is to have enough spare cash to get a couple of meters of each fabric in the range. I would love to have that kind of palette on hand.

While I was making this quilt I found it very hard to see the image. For some reason the rope looked like a spine to me, hopefully now it is finished it won’t have that effect on other people.

Just before I made it I showed the source image to a friend. She felt it was a bit too racy. What do you guys think, is it too provocative? I would like to be able to enter it in quilt shows, but I don’t want to upset too many people. I know that the female form will always upset some people, ‘Miss Baltimore’ was considered very shocking by a significant number of people who saw it at Sandown last year, but I thought this was quite tasteful.

Yay pictures

Yay at last blogger and my net connection have let me put up some pictures. I am sure that shouldn’t be this exciting but after this long it really is.

First up is ‘…and fly away’. This is my entry for the SAQA transformations competition. Having looked at the curators work, I don’t think this will be to her taste, but at least I put one in. I was going to make two other quilts but the deadline was just too tight. The other ideas were mathematical transformations and a butterfly emerging. I think both may get made in the future.

The background of the quilt is quilted with the main fold lines of the origami crane. To give the impression of it just being one sheet I didn’t want to have a binding, so the quilt is birthed. I think it has given me the result I was looking for. Having made the background I added the cranes. The first one is two layers of cloth fused then stitched with the fold lines. From there each step is shown. I chose to leave the worst one each time to try and improve the quality of the finished cranes. Overall I am pretty pleased with it. All the cranes are just single sheets of fabric well pressed into shape. I have noticed from moving the quilt that it needs a little more stitching to hold the cranes in place. I start with the minimum I think might work and increase if I have to. This helps to keep the look of the cranes only just being part of the quilt. It is the same principle I used for ‘Golden Storm’.

For those of you who couldn’t remember what the quilts going to Road 2 CA look like, here they are.

Hmm, busy day and blogger not playing

So I am still trying to upload pictures but I am still haveing problems. In fact it has taken nearly an hour to get the create post to work. I do know that my net connection is having problems, but is this me or blogger?

I’ve spent the day working hard. I have been very lucky to have had the help of The Road Warrior for the day. It means that I have drafted and completed toiles for a skirt and a jacket. I’ve also redrawn a corset pattern and have the pieces cut ready to sew tomorrow. I might do some arty sewing tomorrow as well. I need to get a new nude ready for Paducah and I think that might be a fun break from this more serious work.

I am also thinking about turning one of my life drawings into a quilt. We went to a gallery this weekend where we saw some very similar drawings for sale. If they are good enough for someone else to sell as drawings, why shouldn’t I try it as a quilt? It is hard to know how well my drawing is doing and just maybe this is the way to do it. I even found the perfect fabric for it while I was working today. It is one of my hand dyes with some very pretty mottling effects. I think it would be perfect and it isn’t really going to take long to test the theory.

Where to start?

Blogger hasn’t liked me the last few days, it isn’t letting me upload photos at the moment. I have finished the origami quilt, it is called “…And Fly Away”. I will keep trying to put up the pictures, but I don’t know when blogger is going to start working again.

I have also been doing more drawing. It was recommended that I do life drawing so I have been giving that a go. I haven’t been thrilled with my results but I have finally got one that I am prepared to share. Of course I can’t upload that either at the moment. Rest assured that you will get to see it sometime. I have also been reading a new book on drawing, and specifically shading. It has an interesting exercise in it, to check that you can draw accurately. You are given a drawing in little squares out of order and have to redraw them in the right order. I loved this, but I had nearly finished and couldn’t see any kind of image. This was rather worrying so I asked the nearest friend if he could see what I was drawing. Yes he could, and it was funny. He did say there was a reason I couldn’t see it. Great, so I carried on, two squares from the end I got it, the image was upside down. Even worse I KNOW I couldn’t possibly draw that picture. Hmmm, I’ve been outwitted by a book. At least I think the book was written by a human so technically they outwitted me.

…and finally I have heard from Road 2 California. I think I mentioned that I had a rejection letter a few days ago, and I have been trying not to get my hopes up for the other two quilts. Well I needn’t have worried, I have two acceptance letters. I am amazed. I never expected to get one in let alone two. So all of you who have been asking to see my work in person, if you are in California, this is your chance. I have to wait for the hard copy letter to get here to have all the details but at least I know I need to start looking into ways to get them there on time. The two quilts going are ‘Wait’ and ‘Miss Baltimore’.

Regional day and Chrysler finds a new home

Yesterday was a regional meeting of the Quilters Guild. It was a winter themed sewing day with several demonstrations. A great chance to socialize with other quilters. It was great to get to talk to so many like minded people in one day. The meeting was help in Great Missenden, which wasn’t was far away as I thought. Also Great Missenden is the home of Rainbow Silks. It is either a great shop full of wonderful things that will be great for your art, or a terrible shop that will have a bad effect on your bank balance. On the other hand, I think it is probably both. I strongly suspect I will be going back there in the not to distant future. This time I was fairly restrained, I didn’t buy any rubber stamps or screen printing inks. I did however get some sort of yarn, and some more proto socks (sock wool). I also bought a small amount of friendly plastic to play with. I have been looking at it for a while but it was always far too expensive, Rainbow silks have it at what I considered to be a sensible price, so I got some to play with. I am not sure what I am going to do with it yet, but rest assured I will let you know when I do. I also managed to get some pretreated fabric for sun printing. I’ve been trying to get the chemicals to make my own for a while, so this was a real find. Now all I need is some sun.

In the afternoon, there was a speaker. Mary Mayne talking about her experience of having a book published. She went through the whole process, from the idea to the finished book. The talk was very entertaining, but also very informative. One of the things I really love about textile artists is how keen they are to share information. I don’t have enough experience to know if this os common to all artists, but I do hope it is. It is so different to other industries I have dealt with and I think far more productive. After all we are far more likely to move forward when everyone is sharing information.

Chrysler has headed off to a new home. It will be heading to America, and I hope it’s new owners will enjoy it. It was nice to have it back for a while, but I think selling it so soon after it returned was easier. I haven’t had a chance to get used to it being around. It’s funny how nerve wracking it is selling a piece even though the fact that someone wants to buy it should be reassuring I still worry that in some way it will disappoint. Is this something that all people feel when they sell their creations?

It’s been a busy weekend but I think I have a lot of new inspirations and I hope I now have time to work on some designs I have had waiting. I think another nude is demanding me to make it, and I want to make some smaller pictorial pieces too, maybe some car related works. I also have a new book of pictures of the cosmos, there are so many images that inspire me I can’t even see where to start, but as a reformed astrophysicist I guess at some point these will turn into quilts.

Oh one other thing, I don’t think I will have time to make the challenge quilt. Well with the deadline having passed and me not having had time to start, it isn’t looking good. I will hang on to the idea though, I love it and at some point I am sure it will come together.

National Gallery – again

Ok I admit it, I really like the National Gallery. It seems that each time I go I see new things, even in the same paintings I have studied before. This time I had a really good look at insects painted on flowers. I think I will have to take along someone who knows about them and can tell me how they scale and colours compare to the real thing. They are just amazing.

I managed to get a postcard of one of the paintings I really like. I am sure they didn’t have one before so I was thrilled to see it listed on the blurb with the picture this time. It is Orpheus by Roelandt Savery. I love all the animals and birds in it, the picture is just full of little details. The herons are a particular favorite of mine. I love the way he has painted their spotted necks. It is hanging with another of his paintings, darker but still full of fantastic animals. I get the feeling he really loved wildlife and enjoyed painting it.

I found a whole exhibition I had missed the last two visits, Cezanne in Britain. I do like seeing a large range of work by one artist at the same time. It is interesting to see how their work develops and changes. I was really taken by a simple drawing of a shed. My pet artist was with me and pointed out something very interesting about one of the paintings. It was a still life of apples, and not terribly exciting to me. However someone was sitting drawing it, using coloured pencils and taking great care over their drawing. The interesting thing is, the painting was going to be really hard to copy the way the student was doing it, but it would have been quite easy to do with marker pens! The paint had been applied in lines which did look very much line the result you get with marker pens. Who would have thought it. It’s definitely got me thinking about what tools might make my life easier when I am trying to copy something.

I am still really enjoying going and looking at art. There is so much out there, so many techniques, styles and ideas. It gives me so many ideas and things to think about.

I am still trying with the drawing but I am finding it increasingly frustrating. I want to see some improvement. It occurred to me today that the things I do I enjoy the process as well as the result, drawing is different. I am looking for the result, but I haven’t learned to enjoy the process. At least I hope I can learn to like it.

Thanks Folks

Thank you everyone for your comments they are appreciated. It’s interesting how different pieces appeal to different people. I have one friend who doesn’t really like the Jabberwock, but them he doesn’t like abstract, so it isn’t really surprising. On the other hand he loves some of my less popular quilts. I guess with art each piece finds it’s own friends, and that’s cool. I hope it is a good sign that I am now happy for some people to not like some of what I do.

I’ve get a head full of the next challenge quilt now. I can’t believe they picked a theme so perfect for my last quilt, but I will play along and make a new one. If it works it might lead on to me entering a wearable art competition, something I never thought I would do.

Now I am going to try and take a night off, any bets on me managing it. How do you stop your brain coming up with ideas anyway, and would you really want to?

Jabberwock – finally

Well I thought I would at least get this posted before the next challenge, it was my last target, and I missed it. On the other hand I would have made it if the challenge hadn’t come out early. This was a really difficult quilt to photograph and show the texture in it. It is really very scaly. It is also extremely three dimensional. Hopefully by taking pictures from many angles you can sort of see that. I thought the shadows in the first picture were really cool, and they do show how much the tail curves out from the wall.

You may remember I wanted to have the tail at an angle, as it now is. The solution was to put wooden slats in pockets at the top and bottom of the quilt. This holds the quilt firmly so it can support the wings and the tail at an angle. This is also a quilt the really needs a hanging sleeve to hang. The weight on it is very unbalanced so it needs to be supported along it’s whole width.

The idea behind this is the view you have as the Jabberwock attacks. When it is up close all you can really see is scales, claws and teeth, but the human brain is very good filling in details you can’t actually see, hence the wings and tail. I don;t normally do abstract at all so for me this was quite a stretch. I really enjoyed making it and I do love the finished quilt. It did bring up a lot of new problems for me to solve, cocktails sticks, balsa wood and invisible thread all played their part in making this work. I would love to hear what you think of it now it is done. I feel I missed the boat for the official challenge blog, so it will just be here.

It did occur to me I could enter this as the third challenge. After all it is an unusual shape, so it would fit. On the other hand that it cheating really and I do have something else I would like to have a go at. I do also have a lot of other work on right now, so no promises but I will see what I can do.

You can click on the photos to get a bigger image.