Sunday, August 18, 2013

Stretched Canvas Finish Technique

"ROLLIN' IN THE DEEP"

This piece has a two-fold purpose for its being. First, it was created as a themed piece for my small art group, Fiber Explorations, here in Baton Rouge. We meet once a month and choose a theme for a small piece to show the next month. This project's theme was music. I chose Adele's song Rolling In The Deep to interpret and this is the result. 
I layered a National Geographic image that I had applied Citrisolve to, an old Atchafalaya Basin map, and my photo in Elements 10. I had previously scanned the citrisolve image and the basin map into my computer.
I quilted the resulting image and layered it onto a piece of paper fabric I made with bits of paper, parts of the basin map that I printed, just scraps and secured with gel medium. I painted it and coated it with gel medium, then I stamped it. I meant to stitch into it but forgot!
I stitched the quilt to the paper fabric and then stitched that to a piece of silk charmuse I found in my stash that I had colored with alcohol inks.
This brings us to the second reason for this piece. I have been experimenting with wrapping my work on a stretched canvas. You can see the first attempt in the previous blog. I really like the way they look. I'm hoping to sell these in the Sans Souci Gallery in Lafayette, La. (click on link under favorite links). I've just been juried in.
I'm very pleased with the look of the gallery wrap and the way the piece itself turned out.

Here's a detail shot---




  

Saturday, August 3, 2013

American Lotus II, Seed Pod

New Work


American Lotus ll, Seed Pod
12" x 12"

This image was photographed at a friend's pond. It is the seed pod that develops after it blooms; a really incredible plant with big blossoms and pads. I printed this image on an old Printed Treasures sheet and was disappointed that the color was way off; blue green instead of yellow green. I couldn't throw it away but reprinted the image with  EQ Printables and got a very good result. I finished the piece and then decided to use the rejected print anyway. The blue background was a leftover piece of hand dyed fabric from another project. It really complimented the photo. The darker area below the photo is part of a tree trunk that I made with strips of fabric and was part of the other project.

I stamped the quilt and quilted it before sewing it to the background. I also stamped the background with acrylic paint before I sewed the quilt to it.

I wrapped the batik background fabric around a gallery wrapped canvas, something I've never done before. I think I like the effect. I like this piece better than the one with the reprinted image, glad I didn't throw it away.