Seascape Sample - Final

I must have played around with the placement of these two for, all told, an hour. No position was wrong but with such a small background the balance had to feel right. This is a personal thing.

As this was a small piece I gave it a traditional binding.
I enjoyed the FM work. It had been a while since I tried something like these two fellows.

Summer Afternoon - Day 6 - Final

I didn't miss a day, I just didn't find the time to post.

This piece changed directions a few times and I believe that's because I put it aside for other things.
I intend to use this for a sample or teaching purposes so there are a number of techniques included.

I decided yesterday it was a little dull but I thought adding fully finished birds might be to heavy.
Instead I took a page from a sketch book and only partial finished 3 birds. The parts finished, the heads are unmistakable.
Leaving them unfinished keeps the view light and still encourages looking deeper into the foliage.

The birds were added using the same method as the maple leaves, stitching over an outline on paper.
The black heads were added, then some light grey outlining of feathers. The last addition was some of the white, just enough to exclaim 'Chickadees'.
Maple leaves were added here and there to finish the quilting and to balance the amount of stitching.
Hummmmmmmmmmm.......I may add more..................

Such a Busy Time of Year

Has it really been almost 2 weeks?
After such a long dark winter I guess it was natural to move out into the Spring sunlight and not want to come back into my basement studio.
Some spring gardening chores can't wait so when Nature gives the sign, it's a race again the clock to get things done so that you're not interfering with or damaging the beds. I have very full perennial beds in both sun and shade so there is a lot of baby sitting to do in May.

We also made a couple of forays out into the local woodland trails to catch Spring with my new camera and I did manage to get some wonderful photos without trying. Some of the material will reappear in my art.

Such a show of Trillium this spring.

A few years ago I picked a handful of 'forget me not' s from an abandoned civic area and now I just toss the spring remains into the empty corners knowing they will brighten the day next year.

I thought the tulip bed would be gone in a flash but a spell of cool weather has given them a long show.

 These lovely dwarf iris have a lovely but brief show each year. They only last a day or so.

But the blowsy and cheerful Bleeding Hearts will be around for quite a while. I'll spend part of the summer reining them in again and banishing all their children from various corners of the other beds.

And of course one of the main joys in the garden are the birds. The first of May I put out my feeder and the 3rd of May I received a visit.

I have four feeders but they still squabble all day.
And my year round crowd change their dress for the season .

But with all the feeders I maintain all year I have some other visitors as well. Just a tad messy they are, but still part of the scene.

There are a lot of others but I don't always have my camera within reach. I'll capture them sometime.

Finishing a Piece............. a Year Later- Cardinal Pair

I started the Cardinal pair a year ago last March. Even though I bound it and showed it, I was not happy with the balance. So I sat on it.

I had added leaves, cut them off and then left it for a year.
It wasn't until I went walking with hubby in the park I finally realized how to finish this piece.

The missing item were the feathery flowers on the maples.

So this piece evolved, from awkward buds and leaves

to  nearly naked branches

and finally to Spring 2018, lots of content and better weight.

Three single strands of embroidery floss, different shade of green, were threaded through the tiny bud. Each is about 2+ inches long so they fall, float and flutter the way they should. 

NOW this pieces is finished.

A year is not to long to wait..to get it right.

Tying up Loose Ends

Now that my initial panic re "the SHOW' has passed I can get back to what still needs to be done.

I'm still hoping to work the seascape in the next few days, but before that I wanted to finish the cardinal pair.

I trimmed most of the bulk of the green buds away, I went with a formal finish.
After micro quilting the entire piece ( that only took a day ) I decided to give it a formal finish, ie a "white mat and black frame" finish. It's the only piece in this current collection finished this way.

Different edge finishes are okay. You chose them according to what you think the piece needs. The white bands highlights the pastel nature of the cloth and the softness of the bird colour. Yes the red is RED, but the female colours mute the whole.
So this guy is ready to go.

I'll have to spend a day inspecting all as I realized I haven't signed most of them.
Or applied labels........

Cardinals - Final

This piece will be hard mounted on a frame.
If I don't have to ship them......they can have the royal treatment.
One day to paint them and one day to finish them. I wish everything I did was so straight forward.

Birdie, Birdie in a Tree

I decided last night to tackle some of the birds and get them off my to-do list.
The Cardinals are the only ones in a pair.

After trimming them carefully, I auditioned them on a few backgrounds. In the end, I knew I wanted them against the sky, but not a plain blue sky, and not a cheater sky with clouds. Two minutes of staring at my shelf of hand dyed/painted FQ, one caught my eye.

(It hasn't been there that long but it was the devil to iron all the creases out. Perhaps the paint increases the sharpness of the fold?)

After making a "branch" from twisted wool, I auditioned several positions for these two. As silly as it seems the concept of dominance crept into my head. Is the position on the branch purposeful? or chance? ( Too much time reading about political correctness.)

Male Cardinal's head is obscured

Too much space between them

Too crowded

JUST RIGHT!

In the end I'm going with the one I like..... this last one!

1:30 pm

Couching the branch was quick. I straighten it a bit as the "corkscrew hazel" look was too unnatural looking.

I decided to go with a Spring theme, the buds just bursting. It took me a while to decide how to add that touch of red that most trees show when they are first coming alive. A little piece of maroon cheesecloth did the trick.

Small triangles of green fabric rolled and tucked into the stem gave me bursting buds.

A small piece of batting behind each bird, rounds their bellies a bit. Stitching them down will be the last thing I do today.

Quicky Little Chick a dee

One of the bonuses from purging is the possibility of usable FABRIC. (Remember, once I made a whole quilt from hubby's shirts......after he retired or course!)

This time, there was a pair of worn, very soft jeans that started out black but faded to a really nice colour and texture.
So I thread "sketched" on a piece about 9x12. Very fast and very effective.

Cardinal - Courting Pair

These two complete the group I wanted to do for now.
Again a slightly different method. This time I coloured the cartoons with a water soluble pencil. Paint in a pencil form. I do like these.

Papa came first. In retrospect he was harder to do than the female in spite of her "interesting " colour. Just what shade of red IS he. It all depends on where and when you see them or in my case which photo I chose to work from. There is a surprising amount or orange red in this guy.

My first impression of the female was that her colour was predominately olive green, but again light paid a great role here.

So here is the courting pair.
I can almost believe Spring is here.

Moonlight - Revised Final

One thing hubby often says to me when I ask him to critique my work is "It should tell a story"
and while the moonlight was wonderful, in my soul, it remained empty, hollow.

I hadn't intended to turn this into a moody piece. It may feel that to some.
To me, now it's complete, it has life.

Revisiting the Moonlight

I always felt that a piece is not finished until I'm ready to let if go. In this case while I loved a lot of things about Moonlight, on some level it left me flat.
Then I rediscovered a picture I had saved in Pinterest.
And that was the missing piece.
A Crow

This is a straight forward item for thread painting.
First the cartoon on interfacing and then colour it. I used water soluble pencils and with a little encouragement, they smudged nicely.

First the black

Then purple for the glisten

I restitched with embroidery thread in black. Its thinner and cut the overwhelming purple solid.

The legs on this guy are incomplete while I decide where and how to place him.
I may need another branch.

I also need some time to live with the purple on the blue.
I can always redo him in just black and grey.