Blueberry Girl 16" X 18"

I learned my lesson about using a stabilizer on the last piece and even with the (tear-away) stabilizer, I still had a small bit of puckering. I had to wash the water soluble stabilizer out of the piece and I think that may have contributed a bit to the shrinkage. I am pretty pleased with her. I ended up going with the blueberries, keeping the "Maine" theme going. She has a gingko branch and a small clump of blueberries still on the branch tip behind her.
I am also including close-ups of the flora. I used colored pencils, pastels and charcoal as well as thread sketching on both of these.

 It is very obvious how much bolder and dimensional she became after additional layers of charcoal, pencil and pastels. The first picture before the additions is here.  At first I felt disappointed with her but she has certainly come alive for me.

                                                       The pine tassel is all stitching

The ginkgo also has colored pencils on the leaves and branch. I made all the fugitive media permanent with base extender.

Mr. Crow finished 16" X 18"

The biggest problem with this piece was the puckering I got from NOT using an appropriately heavy stabilizer. I started to do my usual horizontal row after row of stitching and it looked horrible. I sat down and ripped every stitch of quilting out and was left with a perforated piece of cloth. I dampened a wash cloth and gently stroked the holey fabric with the dampened cloth and watched those perforations melt away. I ironed it dry and returned with some horrible variegated rayon thread. It kept binding ad clogging and being a general nuisance however I persevered and filled the background with a meandering stitch and managed to "flatten" out the puffy areas. I like him very much. I also forgot to mention that the cloth was a clean up rag I used while dyeing. It was new cloth that was pre-soaked and used on purpose since clean-up clothes serve two purposes of cleaning then usually become fabulous art cloth. I really love his toes.

For the love of crows

If you at all familiar with my blog, you know how much I love crows and ravens. Here is few another attempt to capture the beauty and fun of my winged angels.

This beautiful fellow is all sketched in thread and colored with pastels, colored pencils and charcoal (YES!) I made them permanent with base extender from ProChemical and Dye   The pine tassel (my state flower) is stitched (still kicking myself for not using a better stabilizer) and the rocks are thread sketched and colored with pastels and colored pencils with base extender. He is done except for the background quilting in which I hope to flatten out the bumps around the pine tassel. He will be in my first solo show (more news about that later).

This playful girl has been sketched with some color added. I think I will highlight and do some extra darkening later and more base extender. As of yet no ground or the "object of her eye". It's a toss up between a red berry and some blueberries which are gaining in favor at the moment.

More later...

Old Work

Some , really old

 1965

 2009

 2012

1967

Penobscot Bay Sunrise

In process.

 sewn

 stitching

 last section to go

question for Judith...

Starting point

NEXT.....

Remember I mentioned I had 2 pieces at a gallery and one of them sold. This is a piece along the same lines. Same animal, same fabric, same techniques. The one that sold was a small crow with 3 feathers.

 

The new one is a larger crow with a tree.

I took this photo before I framed it. After framing there will be a glare on the glass.