January 2109

Interesting date again: 19/1/19. It only comes once a year, so I feel the need to post. Fortunately, I have been working on something, so I have something to show.

I am working on a companion piece for the acorn work. This time, it is the grown tree. I took several photos at Warringal and have played with the filters in Photoshop to make the image a bit less real and give me some sort of abstract thing to work from. It is not very abstract but is enough to give me light and dark areas.

The trunk wasn't very noticeable. One of the elements of the current challenge, for the 3rd piece in a challenge of 4 pieces, was to have some 3D (or 2 1/2 D, whatever that is) in it. So I have made some little twisted pieces of fabric and then applied them to give some texture. Here's hoping that it will be enough. Not that we are very strict with our challenges and elements, it is just to make us think.

Time to stop now, let it sit overnight and have another look at it tomorrow. Still lots to do on the leaves.

A New Year

It is the first interesting date for the year (interesting for me): 9/1/19. Pity I can't write one of the nines the other way around and then it would be reversible. 9/1/1P. Sort of.

Anyway, Happy New Year. I haven't got off to a quick start but it is rather hard to do in summer, when you are recovering from Christmas too.

I have been working on a small machine embroiderey/fabric collage piece. It is based on a photo I took of an acorn sprouting.

I played around with it in Photoshop and then found a filter on the internet that put a Picasso filter onto the image.

I did my latest favourite technique and fabric collaged it without using any product, just the sewing machine, no glues, etc. As usual, the fabric shrank a little and there are some wrinkles but I think I will be able to deal with them.

I traced the image, laid out small pieces of fabric and sewed small areas at a time, just to attach them. Once it was all on, I then worked more heavily on specific areas. As with quilting, I started in the middle and worked on the acorn first. I used straight stitch for that.

I didn't like the dark pieces in the background, so went over them with some tulle and other small pieces of fabric. One of the great advantages of this technique is that you can cover up a lot of your mistakes.

One of my helpful critics said that she thought my stem should be greener, possibly the actual nut too. I returned to the original image and saw that she was correct. Now the final piece is greener.

It is sitting on the wall, waiting for me to decide if it is finished or not. That will take a few days. Then will come the mounting and finishing off, not my favourite part.
I allowed quite a bit of room for the shrinkage, so the ragged edges will be lost as I mount it on foam core and try to make it fit the size required by the current challenge from my group - 12" square.