Brown Bear in Autumn Woods

So brown bear isn't quite so dull when his colours are contrasted with the autumn leaves. I needed to add some darker highlights around his eyes to give a little more definition, but his almost camouflage
is complete.

 

This photoshop cropping has pretty well determined the size and shape. I haven't decided how I will bind this one so I'll leave it while I move on to the other bear, in the green woods.

 

And that's as far as I can get today. Much different creature.

Brown Bears

I decided to work on the light brown one first.
I put this one on a brown background as I suspected I might be putting on a more open background. This way I could trim it close and any brown bits really wouldn't show.

There were a lot of things I liked about the "doe". It was a much larger piece, but I wanted to incorporate a few of those things. I chose some cheater cloth, one I use sparingly anymore . This bear was going to be an open deciduous forest in the late fall. I wanted no evergreens in this scene.

 

The "trees" will be framed top and bottom by foliage, so only a narrow piece was necessary. As a first addition, micro bits in 3 shades of orange/brown were netted directly  onto the cloth background.

 

 

At this point I added batting, stabilizer and a foliage transition piece at the top. Larger "leaves" were added at the margin between the forest and the foliage. Netted again, a few fine branches were added.

Some dimensional stitching was added to the "tree trunks".

 

At this point the Bear was stitched into place and thread painted, to soften those hard transitions between the fabrics.

 

Time to change bears. I took a 180 degree twist on this one and thread painted it first. All of the filler is going to be overlaid so there was no reason to work the background first.

 

 

Black Bears and Brown Bears and Grizzlies

My sister asked me to revisit the bear pieces I had done and send her a few. Tourists ask about them and are fascinated with the idea of  Bears in the area. Now I'm not an expert on bears but I think the top photo is a grizzly and the bottom a black bear.

Since I have a template for a Brown bear I'll do that one first. I have bigger plans for the grizzly!

 

 

This is a very simple portrait and uses only 4 colours of brown plus black for the nose and eyes. But I thought I would do a few versions of this using different combinations of fabrics. The tedium is making the templates so I made 4 at once on fusible web.

 

 

I'm still playing with the upholstery fabric but I've also introduced some lighter weight polys. (I would really like to cut up some of hubby's clothing but I've been banned from his section of the closet. Forbidden fruit and all that.)

But this first guy turned out well. I'll be putting them all on green substrate this time. They will be in the forest or field, so visible edges will blend.

Detail and fur will be added with thread, after he's placed on his background. As yet that's undecided.
Here's a bear done in red/browns. Same bear, but very different.

Second Prize for my BFF - Sold

         Best Friends for Ever, No Matter What the Weather

I'm delighted these little girls were chosen by CQA and awarded second prize in their "April Showers" contest this month. They too will appear in the summer issue of their magazine.

(I wonder what the theme of the next contest will be?)

Christmas in July?

Well not really.
This quilt is meant as anniversary gift for the customer's son. Seven different colour for seven years of marriage. I wonder if she'll try to keep that up!!

But it is bright and cherry and definitely Christmassy. A nice? thought on the hottest day we've had so far? ( Remember, we swore in Feb. we would never think it was too hot ever!)

This quilt had so much going on I went with a simple meander.