One of those Eureka Moments

I spent quite a while last evening talking to hubby ( well out loud anyway...such a patient soul. )
Though I was happy with how the material was eventually utilized, the finish was still a question.
We started talking "storm" as suggested by the sky. A series of straight diagonal lines was his idea; I leaned towards curves in sympathy with the assumed curves of the roof.  Though I know there were black windows in the original picture he suggested a solitary light..........in a barn? Milking the cows at dawn?
Monkey minds, both of us!

This morning, I received an email from my son in law. My daughter is participating in the current Toronto Artist Project. Both are wonderful artists, she, with acrylics and oil and he, as a wood turner. We are always exchanging pics we think might inspire us.

The message was about Tracey Lawson. She is in The Artist Project this year. She has had work shown in several Canadian events and venues and magazine features. She's offering for sale the piece I saw 3 yrs ago. For me, it was a heart stopper and a game changer.
When I saw that piece again I knew it was the perfect way, the only way to finish my piece.
Thread Painting
Even then it took me an hour before I could begin. This is a big piece.

The right hand section beside the barn took 2 hrs.
This will take a little while! (I wish I hadn't sewn on the barns)

Barn Raising.....in the Studio

Early this morning, after dithering for a VERY long time, I picked up my rotary cutter and slashed my B&W cloth.
And then put it all back together.
When I was satisfied I'd arranged it to the best of it's limitations, I anchored most of it with a glue stick, massaged the barn into place... and stitched it down.

I gave the eaves some depth by couching on several strands of black yarn. The buildings need a little more definition, but that's not urgent.

Cutting and cropping this has reduced the metre cloth about 2/5th. Now it goes on the batting and the sky/ground definition begins.
Tomorrow.

Barns

I decided to give the moon a rest while I decided on the quilting.

Today's "fun" is the barn.

I think what attracted me to this is the fluid nature of both the snow and the lines of the barn. Very few straight edges. I can't help but think OLD when I look at this.

After drawing it out to the size I want, I cut it out and auditioned in on the raw fabric.

Now I'm thinking I will have to abandon this fabric for this piece. There are too many distracting lines. These were caused by the permanent wrinkles in the plastic sheet I put over my work table.. I won't throw the cloth out as there will be a use for it, but I either have to repaint this background or change the background all together.

Sigh!
More decisions.

2:30 PM - NEVER GIVE UP! NEVER SURRENDER!  ( from my favourite movie EVER!)

I went back and flipped the background fabric, then cut out the barn cartoon from the intended fabric.
THIS I can work with!

I love the implied roofs!
Sigh!

Answering Questions

I've had a couple of inquiries re HOW I painted this last piece.
As always, I use the Pebeo Seta Colour Transparent paint ( Fr.)
I use a very wet slurry and the the moment I'm finished I sprinkle ordinary table salt and hang the piece sideways to dry.
Sounds straight forward.
The salt moves the pigments in the paint and the gravity determines the direction. If this piece lay flat it would develop a totally different pattern.

Winter Moon

As usual, the closer I get to starting something new, the poorer my sleep is. I spend the waking hours going over technique, fibres and finishes......ad nauseum.

Today I dove into the the simplest of the three, the most straightforward.

My only question with this one last evening, was the composition of the moon. I wanted something other than the Pearlized white cotton. I considered doing another patchwork, similar to what I assembled last year ........

but I thought it might appear a little too busy, seeing as this moon is at least 4x the size of the other. And I had no more silver. I tried an abstract approach, but discarded it quickly.

In a lot of "fibre art" moonscapes the craters and irregularities are features, either painted in or highlighted with quilting. In the back of my mind I was still admiring the results of the Poseidon's Eye I had used in the seascape. To give some crater qualities to plan white cloth I added some roving I purchased a short time ago, rabbit fur/lambs wool blends. It was actually white! Used with some of the darker greys and then anchored under organza, it stitched beautifully.

One of the issues with organza is it can, and in this case did pull. But the surface of the moon was up for a little irregularity.
Adding this to the night fabric called for applique, but with a piece this large I prefered to use reverse applique. There was a lot of material at the edge of the moon, cloth, organza and batting and I didn't think it would lie smoothly in a perfect circle. With the reverse applique the edge is fixed before sewing.

I like to cut my "hole" a 1/4 inch smaller than required. Using a full size circle for a guide the further the edge is cut about every 1/2 inch and with gentle pressure the edge can be ironed into that perfect circle.

Normally I would glue and then invert the two pieces and stitch along the inside fold, but the moon material was still too bulky, so I blind stitched the two pieces together.