Twisted Textiles

This is a detail of a particular Quilted Painting that I’m dropping off today at the Lexington Art League — their annual Member’s Open show starts with a “4th Friday” celebration on July 24th! Each member of the Art League submits a piece to this show, which equals about 120 artworks in the exhibit.

My Quilted Paintings series is largely inspired by dreams, sketches, and mental images that come from reading novels and works of fiction. It’s all fair game…I’m attempting to express in two-dimensions anything that I can squeeze out of my mind-grapes and put into more concrete visual terms.

This particular work was the very first in the entire series, and has a partner piece (entitled Inspired by Fiction, Scene 2) which was purchased in early 2008. I was sad to see these two particular works part ways with one another, but ultimately each image can certainly stand alone, with the ability to be interpreted and valued as a separate entity from the original pair.

These Quilted Paintings have been a fairly regular exercise for me, and definitely a welcome change from more traditional painting techniques. It’s been a little over a year since I started these, and I have many in progess that I’m anxious to finish!

I’m having a wonderful week in my Watercolor Workshop!

Yep…I bet you didn’t know it, but I’m learning how to “pour” watercolor paintings, taught right here in Scott County by Stefanie Vallee. Stefanie is not only a superb artist whose work is widely known and shown, but a wonderful and delightful person as well! She is one of those people that is so full of joy and wisdom that you can’t help but be inspired…I’m so glad to have the opportunity to learn from her. And being around the other dozen-or-so artists in the workshop has been a welcome change as well! She’s also doing a demo and talk on Saturday.

I’m really enjoying the spontaneity…in the new art technique/approach, and also in our class conversations and miscellaneous group adventures around town! I know that I’ll be able to apply this technique to my fabric art in the future.

The image above is a closeup of one of my paintings so far, which was “painted” by pouring color onto the wet paper, no brushes were used so far (except to apply the masking fluid to keep the white parts of the paper from absorbing color). When I remove the masking fluid, we’ll see how I feel about it. I’ve got some pencil marks in there that will have to be removed also (…oops). Maybe I’ll just leave it be, and not use any brush-work at all!

Here’s the other little quilted painting that I finished…oh, about…3 months ago. (Things are very busy around here, but I’m VERY much looking forward to makin’ stuff out of all the new petfood bags I’ve received lately!)

This lil’ one here is about 3.5 by 7 inches. Hand painted; both hand and machine stitched. Honestly, I just got into the groove of painting one day and randomly painted this on a scrap of cotton. I liked where it was going, and just ran with it.

I can’t wait to get it framed! These would be perfect for those boring spaces where nothing else will fit…perhaps bathrooms, definitely hallways. Anywho, hopefully I’ll have some super cool photos to share next time I post. You never know.

This “mini-sized” quilted painting is just right for a One-Day project…it can honestly be done in a few hours. It’s only 5 inches by 3.5 inches, and made it in the same manner as my larger quilted paintings. Both hand and machine sewn, only completed much, much faster! I have a second one completed this week already, too. So satisfying!

I painted the little horses using previous sketches that I had as a reference. I’m also starting to get the hang of the binding on these things…I usually don’t like to bind my full-size quilts, but it makes such a nice little frame around these smaller items.

And today I took some awesome photos of the ice outside…
You know, sometimes being snowed-in has its benefits. Perhaps I’ll get some MORE done today!

This quilted painting was inspired by a dream I had. I blogged about it previously, before I even did any quilting, but the color in the photo turned out too yellow. Now I’ve got a photo that I’m satisfied with!

I couldn’t really paint exactly what I saw while I was sleeping, but this is very close to what it felt like. I also kept the color palette very minimal to make it more dream-like.

Here’s the description from my journal:

I’m wiping down the outside of some windows that frame a front door of an old farmhouse, glass is very high, some areas are like stained-glass. Somehow I know that there is nobody living here, but it is still occupied in some way? I’m supposed to be going around the side of the house to meet people (a gathering? near the storm-cellar perhaps?) but I stop to sponge off the dirt from the glass to the left of the door.

I move on to the window to the right, and as I near the bottom of the glass with my sponge, a reflection of a face shows in the glass—it appears that a small child is inside looking out, but it’s face is very dis-figured. I am shocked to see it and exclaim, perhaps even jump back in surprise?

As I look to my right on the other side of the porch column, I see a child standing there, ready to lead me to the gathering place. She must have been the image that I saw reflected, but her face is very normal, round; actually neither boy nor girl (no remembrance of hairstyle). The texture of the glass in the window must have made her reflection look grotesque but I have a feeling that she manipulated the vision deliberately, calmly, just to frighten me.

She smiles still, and is very stoic as she beckons me to follow her.

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