Autumn Day on Victoria Street

I just love Ozquilt Networks “personalised promos” for Art Quilt Australia 2019 …. these are prepared for each of the art quilts included in the exhibition - here is the one for Autumn Day ……

Thought I’d take this opportunity to tell you a little more about the work ….

The inspiration for this piece came from the amazing color of the autumn leaves on my persimmon tree in the late afternoon sun . I used the photo as the background for the label attached to the back of the quilt.

The collage background uses hand dyed cottons and silks and some natural (eco) prints from my stash. I often find that I need some additional colors or tones …. and this time I created some digital fabric prints to fill the gaps. I used a design based on an earlier art quilt design and modified in Photoshop Elements. This allows me to change the hue and saturation to fit the color combination I’m working with and has proved very useful technique.

With the background collage sorted, it was secured with a layer of stitching and then the overlay of grevillea leaves in batik were added. The applique leaf design is fused in place and a second layer of stitching follows, this time just at the edge of the applique. This helps to secure the applique and ensures the density of stitching is equally distributed across the work so it will hang flat against the wall. The final step is to add an acrylic finish to ensure the work is secure and protected.

Art Quilt Australia 2019 opens on 6 September at the National Wool Museum in Geelong and runs until 15 December. There are many amazing art works included in this exhibition …. if you are unable to see the 37 works that make up this exhibition in person you will be able to see a gallery of all the works at https://www.ozquiltnetwork.org.au/exhibitions/art-quilt-australia/ after the exhibition opening.

Thank you for reading and for your interest in my work CC

Art Quilt Australia 2019

I’m sorry to have been absent from my blog for so long … life has been tough the last few months with the loss of my much loved husband and soulmate earlier in the year. The support of family and friends has been amazing and I’m picking up the pieces and getting back to my art practice….

I had some good news recently, my work, “Autumn Day on Victoria Street” has been selected as part of Art Quilt Australia 2019 and will be on show at the National Wool Museum in Geelong, Victoria (go the Cats!) from 6 September to 15 December 2019 ….

'Autumn Day on Victoria Street'

'Autumn Day on Victoria Street' Detail

I also have a couple of new projects underway …..

The first is the outcome of a wonderful online workshop with Lisa Call …. “Finessing the 4th Dimension” . The workshop and the project both explore incorporating time in an artwork. This project is definitely pushing the boundaries for me in terms of the concept and the development of technique. The starting point was to photograph the changing patterns and colors of autumn in my garden as the season progressed. Here are some of the images I am working with ….

The second project involves developing my knowledge and experience with direct contact botanical prints (eco prints) with a specific focus on eucalyptus trees … I’m calling it the ‘BlueGum Project’ and I have had some pleasing results ….

There will be more to come shortly on both of these new projects.

Thanks for your patience and for your interest in my work ….CC

Stiched Shibori ... Freeform

I've ventured down the Shibori path before ... I tried some Arashi Shibori (pole wrapping) a while back, loved the resulting fabric but found it very hard to incorporate into my work!

Recently I have been looking for ways to build different textures and variations into my surface design, especially when using natural dyes ...so I've been looking again at Shibori techniques and in particular stitched shibori.  I was delighted to find Jane Callender's book "Stitched Shibori - Techniques, Innovation,Pattern, Design" ... which provides a comprehensive reference to stitched shibori.  Jane describes stitched shibori in the following terms  ....

"Pulling up the threads of hand-sewn rows worked with small stitches creates tiny folds,  and as a row of stitching can follow a drawn line, specific shapes, motifs, patterns and designs can be composed."  

I've experimented with a range of traditional stitched shibori designs ...

and tried out a stitching technique on a wool scarf - for fun   .....  here are the stages in the stitched shibori process...

but it's the flexibility to stitch freeform designs that is exciting ....  I've been stitching my own designs using an oversewing technique called 'guntai shibori'  which creates a lovely effect.  

I can see lots of possibilities ...... Thanks for reading and for your interest in my work ...CC

Looking Back at 2017 ...

With the New Year at hand, I've been thinking about what I've achieved in 2017 ... and sometimes it feels like not so much!

After reading Lisa Call's blog post  'The Power of The New Year'

I was wondering how many accomplishments I could list for 2017.  When I went back to look at the artworks I had made I was quite surprised to find 18 pieces of finished work and these were mostly of a larger size than in previous years.

There were a number of experiments and some works that did not fly,  as well as one piece that was reworked into a 4 smaller works .... I haven't included these...

I decided it would be fun to see all of 2017's works in a gallery format ..... they are pretty much in the order they were made and you can see the focus has been on the Grevillea Series ....  

Now for 2018 !   

Wishing you a fun and creative year ....

Thank you for reading   CC

New Grevillea Pieces .....

Returning to my series work has resulted in three new pieces  that are moving my series forward in many ways ......

The first piece Grevillea  'Pink'  while still representational,  incorporates some imagery from my Grevillea drawings,  in addition to the leaf printed organza I have used on other pieces ....

'Grevillea Pink'

'Grevillea Pink' (detail)

Exploring the imagery from the drawings led to a more abstract approach ...  a deconstructed grevillea ....

'Grevillea Deconstructed'

'Grevillea Deconstructed' (Detail)

The third piece 'Golden Gem'  pursued this idea of deconstruction and incorporated some my recent experiments with natural dyed silks.   The result is a more neutral color palette ....

'Grevillea Golden Gem'

'Grevillea Golden Gem (Detail)

This piece has also incorporates some stitched shibori and hand stitching to add tone and texture ... opening a whole new world of possibilities!  I just need more hours in the day ....  I'll tell you more about the stitched shibori and hand stitching in future  posts. 

Thanks for reading ...CC

Back to Series Work .....

What I love most about working in a series is seeing the work develop with each piece I make ... I discovered this 'magic' when taking Lisa Call's  'Working in a Series' class a couple of years back....

There are lots of reasons for working in a series .... here is a link to a post by Katherine Tyrrell which gives an excellent review of the reasons why artists choose this approach ...

https://makingamark.blogspot.com.au/2008/09/what-are-your-reasons-for-working-in.html

With the Grevillea Series that I started last year, I have worked on a number of smaller pieces developing design ideas and techniques  ......

and then a couple of larger exhibition pieces, including the work for Art Quilt Australia 2017.

So now it is time to get down to the serious 'series work'!! 

I have defined a number of parameters for the series work to come,  in terms of size, techniques and materials and I'm making good progress with the first piece with the stitching is coming along nicely.  Here are some detail shots of the work in progress ....

I also have the next couple of pieces starting to take shape on the design wall .....  It feels really good to be back into the flow of series work!

If you work in a series .... why do you take this approach??

Thanks for reading .... CC

On The Design Wall - New Grevilleas

This week I've been trying a new grevillea design on the pieced backgrounds I developed about a month or so ago.  

Decided to try just the tip of a flower as the basis for the design and to applique the design. The earlier pieces on these background designs were stitched and colored.  At this stage they are just pinned to the design wall.

I started out with two backgrounds in a square format ....

Then in the process of editing the photos for this blog,  a couple of Photoshop Element's  "suggested crops" caught my eye ... so I've included the rectangular format for comparison and I think they are rather more interesting?  Any thoughts?

Now all I need to do is commit to the design and get the stitching done!!!  

Thanks for reading .... CC