Upon a Midnight Dreary is done

I’ve concluded that the recycle piece is done. I’ve decided not to stitch the raven’s head. 

So here’s the final photo.

“Upon a Midnight Dreary” made from plastic bags and thread

As always I’ve learned a lot while working on this piece. The main one is to get the plastics to behave better. Most of them in this piece are from shipments that I have received. They were pretty thick plastics with creases in them. It was hard to get them to lay flat. I suppose that just may be the nature of the beast. 

Next year the theme is Once Upon a Time. I have to start thinking about what to do for that. Any ideas? All I know is that it will be done in color instead of grayscale.

Linking to Nina Marie. https://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/

Thanks for reading.

Chris

The end is near

 I did some hand stitching on the breast of the raven. I’m debating about whether to do the head. I’m leaning toward not doing any stitching on the head.  I used a really dark DMC embroidery floss for the hand stitching. It’s weird how it photographs. Some places you can’t see it at all and other places it looks lighter than it really is. It’s hard to photograph plastic due to reflections. I have not put the piece of glass in yet. That make it even harder to photograph. 

My daughter wants the title, “Upon a Midnight Dreary.” It’s 14 by 14 inches.

“Upon a Midnight Dreary”

Thanks for reading.

Chris

I hope it’s dark enough now!

I ripped out and replaced the stitches on the tail and the wing directly above the tail. I used a light gray micron pen to darken the mid level wing threads. I have a dark gray micron pen, but wasn’t sure if I should go that dark. 

I think I will do some hand stitching on the head and breast as in the sketch below. I will use a darker thread than the light gray in the sketch. I want the thread to add texture and not be super obvious . I have to pick up the embroidery thread from Michael’s on Friday. 

So are the machine stitches dark enough now? I sure hope so!

Thanks for reading.

Chris

Outer limits….which way to go.

I am that crazy person that thinks about making something way ahead of time. I like to take my time thinking about what to do and how to do it long before I start. I have a feeling that it fits with my background in math and physics. 

“Cold Dark Orb.” 2024 recycle piece. 18 by 18. Made from recycled jeans and used dryer sheets.

I turned in my 2024 recycle piece for the show that opens on April 4 and am already thinking about next years theme which is Outer Limits. With my astronomy background my first thought is to go with a distant galaxy. In my mind I thought about a spiral galaxy with the silhouette of a telescope. I used AI to create an image.

I am familiar with creating images of distant things in the universe. I’ve created several paintings of gas clouds that are in our galaxy. I’ve done the Trifid nebula, Horsehead nebula, Eagle nebula. I’ve given a lot of them away. The one I still have is the first one I did of the Trifid nebula. My daughter has it.

So an astronomy theme would be right up my alley. I’ve also thought about buildings and constellations as a way to approach the theme. AI did a so so job with this. I would have to pick constellations and incorporate them into the image rather than random star arrangements.

My other thought for the theme is to create a picture of how plastic pollution is part of the problem that is putting the environment on the outer limits in terms of its health. I created this image with AI. I added plastics and tires that people dispose of and you see littered everywhere. Of course AI adds too many tires!

So to go for something beautiful like a galaxy or doom  and gloom like plastic pollution. That’s the question. Either way I will be using plastic to create the piece. I won’t even start this piece until next January so I have a long time to debate it. Or maybe there’s a third idea to throw into the mix!

Thanks for reading.

Chris

I won

I finally won something! 

I won honorable mention in the recycle art show at my local art alliance. That means I won $30 toward a class at the art alliance. I'll take it! I'm thrilled!

Abandoned Cement Works

Thanks for reading.

Chris

Abandoned Cement Works

"Abandoned Cement Works" 18 in by 18 in

 I finished the cement works and decided to frame it instead of gluing it to canvas. 

I just entered it into a local art show on recycled materials entitled Red Hot.

My inspiration statement:

Cement manufacturing is a big contributor to global warming. Rather than using paint or fabric to create the image of the cement works I used layers of translucent single use plastic bags that would otherwise contribute to litter pollution. The piece is enhanced with hand and machine stitching and ink.

So it is done and now I have to face the Halloween quilt!

Here it is from a different angle.

Crappy Boston Skyline 5 in by 7 in

 My cement works is a far cry from the plastic piece I did about 8 years ago. I threw it out it was so bad! 

What do you think about my cement works?

Thanks for reading.

Chris

Some hand stitching has begun

I started some hand stitching. Some of the spots where I stitched were to cover up areas that had accidental snips into the plastic. I still have a lot of French knots to do. I'm thinking of stitching some cirrus clouds in the sky to break up the blue.

Here I sketched cirrus clouds with my iPad to see how that might look.

Thanks for reading.

Linking to Nina-Marie. 

http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com

Chris

It's not a forgiving medium

I’ve been working away on my piece made from single use plastic bags. This is from an online class with Natalya Khorover that I took last week. It was a pretty complicated process to create the artwork. If you are familiar with reverse appliqué then you will have an idea of what I was up against. How about creating an entire piece with reverse appliqué?

Here’s an idea of the process. 

• Put down a piece of the Pellon stabilizer the size of your finished piece.
• Place a piece of white plastic on top of that. 
• Then place large pieces of other plastics of the appropriate colors where they fall in your image. So you have a hot mess of a bunch of plastic pieces. Almost looks like a collage of plastic. 
• Cover this entire mess with a large piece of plastic to keep the smaller pieces in place. 
• Pin your sketch that you have created on tracing paper on top of the plastic sandwich.

 

 Stitch along all the lines in your sketch. Then tear off the tracing paper.

Cut through the different plastic layers to reveal the color of plastic that you want for the different parts of the image.

 

The cement works in my original photo was an abandoned and worn out site. My plastic piece looked too new and cartoon like. So I aged it with brown Staz On ink and started really “quilting” the piece.

 Here’s where I am with this now. Still more machine stitching to do as well as hand stitching. 

So why is this unforgiving? 

• You cannot take out stitches. Once you make a hole in plastic it’s there forever. I’ve had plenty of times when quilting a quilt where I started quilting and did not like the thread color or how I was quilting it and ripped it out and started over. Couldn’t do that here.
• You cannot really mark where you want to stitch. I tied using blue painter’s tape to  mark with. When I took off the tape it also tore off the plastic. 
• It was too easy to cut through the wrong layer of plastic. 
  

Will I do this again? Not sure. There are so many mistakes in this piece it might be worth doing another piece on a different subject just to see if I can avoid them!!

Linking to Nina-Marie. 

http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com

Thanks for reading. 

Chris

New project or avoiding the Halloween quilt!

I am taking a class on creating art from single use plastics with Natalya Khorover. I've been saving the bags for years. 

This is what I am working on. It is from a photo we took of an abandoned cement works where we used to live in NJ.

Here are my sketches. We already had one zoom class yesterday. We have one today and tomorrow. I'm already behind. I work very slowly and deliberately. I think that's because of my over analysis. Eventually I will get there. 

 

Thanks for reading. Linking to Nina-Marie.

Chris