Thursday, January 10, 2013

2013 Visual Diary

I've started a new sketchbook or visual diary for this year. It needed a cover, of course! I painted these flowers with Derwent Inkentense blocks. I've even made a title page.

My original photograph was not the best, too much shadow, but I love the flowers.





I applied the colour in three different ways. The red anthuriums were painted by directly applying the block to the fabric and then going over it with a wet paintbrush. It's a good way to get a intense colour on larger areas. For the pale blue background, I wanted more of a soft wash. I scraped a few little crumbs of the block into my paint palette and added a lot of water. I wanted more control and blending for the orange daylilies. For them I wet my brush and then picked up colour directly off the block. Sometimes I blended the colour on the fabric just by putting the two colours together and adding water. Other times I blended directly on the block or the paint palette. I've quilted around the anthruiums only in black thread.

This is the back, quilted in feathers. The macro function on my camera changes the colour considerably!


Now I just have to fill it with exciting ideas! I'm following Heather Thomas making art every day. She is challenging herself to produce a small piece of art every day. I think if I can put something into my sketchbook every day, that will be enough of a challenge for me. But I'm finding Heather's work very inspiring. One of my current projects that is just at the thinking stage is to produce a fabric book. I think some of Heather's techniques will make it into my book, via my sketchbook of course.

I'm off to Kerikeri  this weekend to see their quilt show and catch up with friends, hopefully meet some new friends. I'm stopping off at Waipu on the way up. I'm going to see the Waipu Grand Pageant, a performance telling the story of the migration of Scottish Highlanders to Waipu following the Highland clearances in the 19th century. I'm looking forward to it. It includes horses, carriages, bullocks and I'm sure I read somewhere that there is even a burning croft!

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