The secret project revealed

Well my friend's birthday is today and I gave her the gifts I've been working on since the beginning of the year. 

First she loves Christmas. So I went with that as my theme. Second she is obsessed with Outlander. So how about some Outlander ornaments? 

I made a primitive Santa.

 

I made Claire and Jamie ornaments to hang on her tree. They are about 6 inches tall. My husband carved the dirk out of a skewer. The pin on Jamie's shoulder is an earring. I've made a lot of ornaments over the past 30 years, but found these to be a real challenge. The hair was the hardest part since they both have curly hair I had to make curly yarn. Jamie was by far the hardest due to all the clothing he has on from the kilt, to the shirt, to the vest, to the belts, to the boots. The buttons on the vest and jacket are seed beads. The belt buckles are buttons. Claire's shawl is made from an old knit hat. Like I said this was definitely a challenge.

By the way she love all of the gifts.

Thanks for reading. Now to clean up the disaster in my sewing room and finish working on 2 more primitive Santas and then the Halloween quilt.

Linking to Nina-Marie http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/

Chris

Still thinking

I'm nearing the end of my secret project. Soon I will have to resolve the Halloween quilt.

I read Idaho beauty's comment on my last blog. She said the house needs a fancier fence than what I sketched in my last blog. She even sent me some links to curved fences. One was an especially fancy wrought iron fence.

I'm now thinking of something like this.

 I am seriously thinking of getting rid of the cement fence posts to eliminate the confusion about the perspective. Why not make my life easier? Also I'm thinking of eliminating the gate because I do not think it's really needed and again contributes to the perspective confusion. The gate was pretty fancy so I'm thinking maybe a fancier fence is called for.

Any thoughts?

Linking to http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/

Another opinion

Natalya’s sketch

I asked another artist that I know about the fence. Here's what she said. 

Hi Chris,

I took a look at your blog. To my eye the fence needs more movement as does the path. The perspective on the fence needs to be more extreme to add excitement in that portion of the quilt. It's too static.That's why I also think the fence needs a bit of a curve to it. And speaking of curves, the path has these wonderful curves as it gets closer to the castle, but closer to the viewer it's kinda just limp. I think if you add movement to the path and the fence, your quilt will look more dynamic and exciting.

Do you see how your castle has these lovely fluid shapes to it? That's what the fence and the path need as well.

I took a screen shot and added some lines to illustrate what I mean. Those lines would need to be smoothed and refined, but I think you get the idea.

Hope that helps!

Natalya 

https://www.artbynatalya.com

One of the things I have been pondering for a while is the disconnect between the loose casual look of the house and the rigid architectural look of the fence. It's like they belong in two different quilts. While I'm not sure of the extreme path and fence as drawn by Natalya I tried doing something more fluid with more movement as she suggested. Here's my first try at drawing something more free and irregular. 

My sketch

I'm still working on my secret projects so this is still on the back burner. Eventually I have to resolve this and finish the quilt. 

Any thoughts?

Thanks for reading.

Chris

Where is the eye level in this quilt?

I have never thought about perspective so much in my entire life!

I consulted with an artist at a local art alliance that I belong to. This is what she said:

Hi Chris,

I looked at your blog.  The tops of your fence posts are not in correct perspective, so take another look and use your perspective knowledge to rethink them.  The design composition is very good.  I think you are using the fence to sort of break up the large empty black space that stretches from the castle to the foreground, which works.  But if you want to move the fence, think about breaking that area up with subtly different tones of smaller shapes.  I like the fence in its current location.

Nice blog :-)

So it's the top of the posts that could be the problem. That's pretty funny. You might ask why that's so funny. My original sketch/full sized pattern had the tops of the posts drawn differently. My original thought was that we were viewing them from above. Then I looked at plenty of photos of fences and posts, got confused, and changed them. Maybe I should have gone with my first instincts. 

The real issue is to figure out where the eye level is located. That determines how to draw everything else in perspective.

At one point back in December I tried to work out the perspective and vanishing points and eye level. This is what I came up with. If this is correct then the posts would be seen from the top and would be more like my original sketch.  So here's more things to think about. I certainly want to be certain of things before I make any changes to the quilt.

Any thoughts?

Thanks for following  me through all of this. Linking to Nina-Marie.

Chris