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!

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!

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!

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.

I also quilted it by hand using embroidery thread, which took about 10 hours…I was sooo nervous about using the machine on the silk! It may have been okay once I had basted the three layers together, but at that point, I figured I’d finish it by hand to be absolutely sure (because the silk is so stretchy on the bias!). It’s about 12 inches in diameter, so it was manageable in an embroidery hoop.

Just for fun, we also placed the lights behind the fabric for a photo, which really emphasized the “stained-glass” quality of the batik. (click the thumbnail for a larger version)

I’ve also –FINALLY!– learned how to bind the edges properly on quilts and such…so this one was my first attempt at a completely circular object. It turns out perfectly if you remember to cut the fabric on the bias!

This quilted painting is about 9×11 inches (including binding on edge) and matches another one that I previously posted about.

A few areas of the painting (including the curtain and the large silhouetted figures in the foreground) are stuffed with Fiberfil—in quilting the process is called “trapunto”. If you’re curious, this scene is inspired by a short story by Angela Carter. I really enjoy anything written by her, and have already started several other paintings based on her works of fiction.

When photographing these types of fabric works, I usually end up with shadows that are too harsh, obscuring parts of the painting and distracting from the overall image. Fortunately, my husband has been an immense help in this area, and we finally got some good photographs, including closer details of the stitching
(click all images to enlarge:)

In the meantime, here’s a peek at one of the first “quilted paintings” I did several weeks ago. It’s cropped to show the middle part of the painting, with another third on top and below this. And I haven’t given her a name yet… that’s always such a tough job!

…Yes, just like that.

This painting (so far) is Procion MX fabric dye on cotton…and I’ll soon be adding the smaller details with some free-motion quilting. It’s one of the first few paintings that I’ll be doing based on dreams, memories, and short-stories that I’ve read. In a few days when I finish quilting it, I’ll be back with another photo—and will give you the longer version of the story behind the image.

*phew* It sure feels good to finally be “coloring outside the lines!”

(Doesn’t it seem that way with every machine, no matter how shiny and new? There always seems to be a fickle, impudent little beast hiding inside it somewhere…I swear it’s not only me…)

These little watercolor-like sketches—about 8 inches square—are a small start to something big, I just know it! I’m envisioning these on a huge scale.

I’ve painted these with heat-settable fabric paint, treating the paints like I would watercolors. It’s a bit unpredictable, but a lot of fun I’ve also done trapunto in some areas, so photographic experimentation will be required to discover the best way to “capture” them. The flat-bed scanner doesn’t really cut it for me.