Friday, March 15, 2024

Recycle piece done and thinking about next year

I finished “Cold Dark Orb.” It’s been stretched over a canvas and just needs a label. It’s 18 in by 18 inches and mainly constructed of my husbands recycled jeans. The moon and stars are cut from painted used dryer sheets. They were in my stash and already painted. My supply is low for these dryer sheets since we quilt using them a long while ago. I use wool dryer balls now. Dryer sheets are not really environmentally friendly. 

Here’s the finished piece. I’ve decided to try to sell it at the recycle show in April for $195. The area I live in doesn’t really bring huge prices for art work. I hope it sells.

Description: The pack is on the move.  Are they hunting for prey? Is their rival pack nearby, and threatening? Or, are they merely socializing in the magical ways that wolves do? You decide. My husband’s old jeans became the dreamlike denim forest. Recycled used dryer sheets were used to create the Moon and the stars. Machine stitched. 

The theme for next year is Outer Limits. I’ve started to think about what to do. I probably will use plastic bags as I have in the past. I just have to figure out the design. I’m thinking something deep space using my astronomy background might be good. We started watching the TV show from the 60’s called Outer Limits to see if that gives me any ideas. Of course outer limits can apply to other things. I just need to get thinking.

Thanks for reading.
Chris

Friday, March 8, 2024

“Cold dark orb”

I am nearing the end of my recycle piece. Had I known what I know now I would have done things differently. But isn’t hindsight always great? 

I would have dyed the light jeans darker instead of painting them. Painting them was very difficult. 

I would have avoided overlaps of the denim. You can see where all the overlaps are since the denim is thicker than quilting cotton.

I would have done buildings instead of a forest had I known my original idea of the forest with the ghosts would have been abandoned along the way. 

I would not have quilted between the denim trees, but once I started that I had to continue. It was a pain to rip out and with painted fabric when you rip things out you can still see the stitching even with pressing and repainting. 

At any rate I can’t say that I did not learn anything!



The moon (the cold dark orb) and the stars are painted used dryer sheets from my stash. They were all previously painted so I only had to cut out the moon and the stars. The stars are different colors because in fact they are different colors. The color has to do with their temperature. The hottest stars are blue and the coolest stars  are red. Medium temperature stars like our Sun are yellowish. Can you tell that I taught astronomy?

What do I have left to do? I have to glue down the stars and do some hand stitching. Then I will be done.

I’m not sure how this turned out, but I think it does represent this years theme of dreamworld. The wolf pack was my husband’s idea. I guess you have to have some creatures in the night! The wolves are walking beneath the stars.

Thanks for reading.
Chris

Friday, February 23, 2024

What a week

I have yet to figure out why I make this process so hard for myself. I decided that my idea for my recycle piece was not working. The ghostly figures just looked weird and it was kinda copying from the exhibit where I took the photo. So I’ve abandoned that idea. 

So now what??? I’ve decided to do a forest at night with some moonlight coming in and add stars floating in the forest. I don’t think I will add any ghostly figures, but I can always decide that later.

I did get trees sewn down. This whole process would have been easier if the jeans I had from my husband were different values. Unfortunately they are basically stone washed jeans and all pretty light in value. 


I did try painting pieces of jean fabric this week with what I thought was going to be my color scheme. I’ve now decided that since the jeans are basically a blue gray I should stick with a blue gray palette instead of a royal blue palette. I was going to make the moonlight on the left hand side, but seeing how light the jeans are on the right side it might make more sense to do that on the right side.

Painted denim

Gray blue color palette

I really went off the rails this week which usually happens when I’m struggling. I was even going to do a snow scene and add our different cats to it. Yikes! This is the image drawn on my iPad. One good thing is this inspired me to do blue gray instead of royal blue. 


So today I will try some samples of painting denim with blue gray shades and then hopefully get brave enough to paint the actual piece. This would have been easier if my husband had had some dark jeans!

Plus had I known I was going to abandon my original idea I would have made a cityscape instead of a forest scene. Oh well too late now!

Thanks for reading.

Chris


Friday, February 16, 2024

Let the struggles begin

I’m done with the tree foliage and now need to move on to creating the foliage texture in the foreground. As you can see from the inspiration photo there is lots of green stuff in this forest.


 So I’ve auditioned a few ideas, but don’t know which way to go.

I’ve tried cutting fern like stuff. It’s both tedious as well as it has me worrying how they will,be able to be stitched down with all those sharp points. So far I’ve only cut a few. I would need at least 100.


Then I thought about small blobs to create the texture. Again I’ve only cut a few. This is easier for sure and will be easier to stitch in place.


Then I tied a combo. I don’t think I like that. It makes the blobs look like rocks.


Of course this whole thing has to be painted dark blue and a lot of the shapes will disappear and just be texture. I painted this out on my iPad so you could see what I have in mind.


Any thoughts? 
Thanks for reading.
Chris