SAQA - Final

Colours

 

It's done.
It's over.
(Sounds like movie I once knew by heart)

SAQA Colours - Final Layout

A LOT of angst went into this final layout.
Pining and repining.

NOW...... how to attach................
I love the clean look of pure colour on the fabric leaves but I don't think simply fusing them in place is going to cut it.
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You do realize that I will have to unbind the facings to do ANY machine work........

Progress

As the weather this morning totally altered my commitments I could find no more excuses.
There are leaves in the forest.

After ditching the branches, I fused 3 different fabrics to 3 different backings, stone washed fabric scraps (hubby's old shirt to be honest) and started tracing and cutting leaves.

I'm liking the view but the decisions are not over yet.
How to embellish?
How stitch?
How to attach?
How many!

Scrapping the cheesecloth was the right decision here.

I'll probably take them all off and rearrange them.....many, many times.

And Because Not All Leaves are Red

I painted another yard of cloth this morning.

While it looks too irregular to be of use, 'cookie cutters' show the potential. 

But there is one more issue...to branch or not to branch.....

A Hard Decision... Finally Made

I feel like I've been beating my head against a wall this whole summer.
First, to use leaves or not and then what materials.
I'd been blindly leaning towards the paint soaked cheescloth for months but I fianlly realized there  were two big issues.
The first one was physical.
How to fix the edges so there would be no fraying. I considered a glue line, fully fused to the surface and last a tedious but effective satin stitch around every piece.

The second road block was an artistic decision. Would the complexity of the cheescloth fabric compete with the woven background. In the end I decided it would and yesterday I abandoned the idea.

While I love this material I decided it wasn't for this piece. Reluctantly I've pit it aside.


There was nothing in my stash remotely intense enough for what I envisioned so this morning I got out the paints. I pinned a piece of blank material to a large frame and mixed and blended, red, blue, orange and yellow.

I have two art pieces in my folio that I loved and subsequently didn't offer for sale. Both had the leaf component made from my own painted cloth. They were the deciding factor in my completely turned around decision.

So here are several shots of this new material, approx 1 yd.
It's still wet and the colour is still moving but now I have the luscious red I wanted for the maple leaves.