textile paintings
Virginia Greaves
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Home page: http://www.virginiagreaves.com
Posts by Virginia Greaves
Deep Thoughts
013 years ago
by Virginia Greaves
in Inspiration
I have just finished my latest piece, Arminta Patterson.
She is a straight forward portrait. I’m now looking for something not so straight forward. At this point, I know that I can make a realistic looking portrayal of a person in fabric. What more can I do? What makes a portrait of someone more than just a portrait — what elevates it to art? We all need to spend time growing.
I usually advocate just working on something — keep moving. Now I feel that I need to spend a little time in reflection — deciding what it is I want to say.
I just sold Bull Dawg (yay!) but I think it was because it was a market-able piece. I’m more likely to sell a piece that isn’t so personal. You can argue that you make art for it’s own sake but if you only make art for yourself, you’ll soon run out of storage — unless you start deconstructing — but I don’t do much of that in my current series.
And yet I have to be inspired. I want to be inspired. I’m waiting for the Muse to come over and start moving things along.
Quilting the Third Dimension
013 years ago
by Virginia Greaves
in Design
Most people presume that quilts are two dimensional objects. It is flat like a painting. But in actuality, the quilting that we add to a piece can add another layer of realism to surprise the people that view the piece from an arms length distance.
I’m always surprised by how much a piece changes from the end of the applique stage to the end of the quilting stage.
This is a picture of Arminta after applique but before quilting.
And for those of you curious about the back (and for some reason a lot of quilters are), this is what the back looks like before the excess stabilizer is removed. It’s interesting on its own — in a different way from the realistic perspective.
I used to get a creative block whenever it came time to quilt a piece, but I’ve found over the years that if I take my drafted pattern and draw on it with a pencil, I can create a quilting plan for how to approach this piece. The best part about it is that if I don’t like what is happening, I can erase it — which is much easier than un-sewing on the actual piece.
This is her face once it is quilted. I quilt about 1/4″ apart so I have to quilt from the middle out. Because the quilting is so close together, I can easily have the piece stretch as I quilt — and sometimes I have to move pins out as I go to accommodate the wave of fabric I’m pushing over — hopefully to the edge. I had this issue when I made Amelia Earhart.
So I tend to start with the face as it’s the focus in most portraits & the central design element. I start with the nose as it’s the center of the face. Its line affects the eyes, the forehead, the cheeks. I usually do the forehead second, but on this piece, I knew from my plan that the lines from the nose would extend & end at the cheek lines — so I made those second.
I usually have a few independent lines from which the rest branch out. Why do I quilt the face the way that I do? I’m trying to give an impression of the bones and muscles under the face — and this is how I see that coming out for this person.
After the face I do the shirt. Notice that I used all one color thread to quilt the face and all one color thread to quilt the shirt. I used to worry a lot about thread — but then I made I Am the Vine, You Are the Branches. When I made the tree, I used the opposite thread on the color wheel from the fabric — and I found it astonishing how almost completely unnoticeable this fact is in the final piece. It isn’t unless you get within inches of the piece that it is noticeable at all.
So now I choose a midrange color from the color family I’m in. A taupe for the face (although I will use a dark brown around the irises) and a medium green for the coat.
Her last part is her hair. I purposefully left a couple of the guidelines for you to see. I draw 3 or 4 of them and the remaining ones are based on those structures.
Of course, at this point, I have to start thinking about the background. I always spend some time puzzling over this part. I spend some time at Leah Day’s website or leaf through the book on backgrounds I have by Dijanne Cevaal — and in the end, I spend a little time sketching in my sketch book. Pencil is so much easier to erase than thread.
Continuing On
113 years ago
by Virginia Greaves
in Design
Arminta — what to wear . . . what to wear. In the original photograph, she has on a fitted jacket with a lace collar — very intricate. I had to be more simple. I decided to go with emerald green — I’ve been working with a lot of blue lately and wanted a change.
This is the first value.
When you see the second value and compare this picture to the one above it, you can see I made a mistake in my cutting. Given my limited supply of this fabric, I laid some additional pieces underneath. These seams will require some extra stitching to cover them but because I will match the thread to the fabric, they won’t be noticeable in the final piece.
The third value shows the curve of the collar.
And the fourth value fills in the rest of the shape except for the deepest shadows.
It is at this point I realize that I have to complete her collar before I can add the final dark green — which you see here — values of white into gray.
And here you see the final green. (This is the first picture taken vertically. All of the previous pictures were taken horizontally and suffer from some distortion.)
With the collar done, it was time to start thinking about the background. I spent a lot of time on this part — which sounds strange given how simple it is. I tried to create a halo effect similar to the one in the original photograph — and it just didn’t look right — no matter what color range I was using. My husband finally told me that it was distracting from Arminta — it made the eye want to look elsewhere.
I don’t ever want the background to be an after-thought — something added that doesn’t add to the final piece — but I’ve decided that for many portraits, the purpose of the background is to not distract. Although the Amelia Earhart piece has a plane in the background, it is not always advantageous to start adding extraneous information into the background of a portrait for the portrait to be successful.
The jacket at this point bothered me. I realized that she needed the definition of her sleeves so I sketched up a quick change on my pattern.
Butterscotch
014 years ago
by Virginia Greaves
in Design
Butterscotch makes me think of fall — warm apple cider, crisp cold air, leaves in all shades of brown and orange. Since we’ve have a chill in the air here, I’ve welcomed fall’s return — and I’ve tried to beckon its haste with the scent of homemade soups brewing in my kitchen.
And that is probably why I started with butterscotch as the beginning for Arminta’s hair. Just like with the face, I challenged myself to do seven values. I knew that I could begin with yellow highlights & work myself back to brown. I had several fabrics in my stash but ended up going fabric shopping for the set. Luckily, I was able to find a great range.
I don’t talk about fabric very much but I should. It is really the most important thing as far as I’m concerned — it is all about color and value. If your values don’t work — your piece won’t work — the illusion won’t work. Color is second IMHO to value. I don’t shop for colors — I pick a color family and then I look for values. I rarely buy a fabric just because I like it — I buy it because I need it. If I LOVE an individual fabric — then I need to make something with it like a cellphone case or Kindle cover that I’ll look at a lot. I don’t need to love the fabrics in my portraits because they work together — and they shouldn’t stand out individually.
This is what I came up with.
I always look at the fabrics in black & white to make sure that the values work. Pattern can really affect value — the checkerboard here for instance.
So I switched the checkerboard with the next darker value.
But you can see in black & white that it doesn’t work here. It needs to be back where it was. If you look at it in Photoshop & minimize it way down — there isn’t a lot of definition between the checkerboard & the brown next to it — so it’s a risk. But I decided that the checkerboard is a great bridging fabric between the yellow and the brown — it brings the continuum together.
And so I started with her hair. Using the yellow on top, you think that she may end up looking blonde — but these are merely the highlights.
The next color is still yellow but moving into butterscotch.
And then the next fabric is the wonderful checkerboard that moves us into the browns.
The fourth value is the first of the browns and the primary color of her hair — although we’re still at this point only working on the very top of her hair.
The next value begins to show us the how it will begin to pull together.
And the last two values complete the look.
I think she’s a very handsome woman. The highlight on her ear looks a little stark — hopefully, once I add the background, it will make more sense.
Circa 1900
214 years ago
by Virginia Greaves
in Design
I finished Caution the other day — the Rwandan child peeking around the arm of an adult. He was difficult to photograph — it was hard to keep some of the browns in his face from having a greenish tint.
Then I started on Arminta. I have a very old family photo album with pictures taken between 1890 & 1910. There is a wonderful picture of a woman in it named Arminta Patterson. We haven’t been able to place her in the family tree but suspect she was a cousin of my great grand-mother. She had such wonderful curves in her face that I wanted to see what I could do with her.
The original is a sepia print so I have license to color — which is freeing but also a little terrifying. Let’s start with the face.
I have seven — yes seven — values in her face. That is a big number to find values for. In fact, halfway in, I added another fabric for a smoother transition between two values. Even better, I managed to do it within my current stash.
This is the first & second value — her face is still a mystery.
With the third value, you begin to see the outline of her face. I know — that green print is a strange choice — but it works.
The fourth value is darker and you begin to feel the depth of her face. You can see her nose, where her eyes will be, and the curve of her cheek and chin.
The fifth value gives us personality. She has a very distinctive look about her.
The sixth value shows us the determination in her expression.
The sixth and final value completes her ear, her nose, and her mouth.
With the eyes added, she all but leaps off the fabric at you.
I am uncertain how to do her hair. It was dark — but like I said, I have license to color. The final choice will contribute quite a bit to the mood of the piece and will be the color choice upon which most of the other colors are chosen.
Peering Through
014 years ago
by Virginia Greaves
in Design
When the excitement of summer dies down and the children return to school, I always find it difficult to focus myself again. I try to envision where I want to be — and then begin setting goals for myself. Like many people, things are hazy for me right now. Peering into the looking glass, the reflection isn’t clear, and want and need have become mixed up with different pathways, different decisions.
I know that I’m not alone in this. I think the reason I chose the image of the young child peering around the hip of an adult was that recognition of being lost yet determined. I shared an in-process picture a few weeks ago. I had a short time in the summer that I was able to start him — and I finished his eyes today.
I did want to mention working with difficult angles. I typically trace my pattern onto fusible, cut it close to (but not on) the drawn edge, press onto fabric, and then cut on the drawn line. But there are some difficult angles for which this won’t work. In this example, if you cut out the middle part & fused it down, the final piece would be skewed. So, in these situations, I leave the fusible in place but I don’t iron the middle part down. I carefully iron only on the parts I’m going to keep.
Then I can go back & cut out the middle. This way the bottom section isn’t at a really strange angle from the top. I will then re-press the edges to make everything secure before I cut it out.
I know I should have taken pictures from the beginning, but I think I was distracted that day. These are the child’s first three layers.
This is the next layer. You can really start to see his face coming together now.
Another layer . . .
And this is the picture I shared a few weeks ago. He looks fairly good but he needs eyes. I need to concentrate to do eyes so I put it off until I knew I would have quiet studio time to concentrate.
This is fairly representative of the photograph — but the little piece of white in the bottom corner of his right eye is distracting. This is a good example of not following the original photograph.
This is better I think.
You would think I would have a better idea of what I was going to do with him, but the truth is that I sometimes make a person before building their backgrounds around them.
Technical Treachery
014 years ago
by Virginia Greaves
in WordPress
For those of you visiting the blog and notice that it looks strange — it does. WordPress isn’t playing nice. I have a different WordPress version on my blog than I have on the rest of the site — so I have had to abandon my theme until I can resolve the issue. I am stuck with one of WordPress’s overused but dependable themes. I hope to have the old look & feel back within a couple of days.
For those of you curious as to what I have been doing, I have this small project on my work table:
No eyes yet but I’ll get there when I have more time next week.
Quilt Photography
114 years ago
by Virginia Greaves
in Photography
Taking photographs of quilt can be very challenging. I used to photograph quilts in front of my garage door — outside. I had a board covered with black felt — but if the wind kicked up, the whole thing could fly away. The sun might be too bright and I would pray for a cloudy day. It might be raining. It was a difficult system to rely on.
And then someone on QuiltArt pointed me in the direction of Holly Knott’s webpage Shoot That Quilt! After that, I made a few purchases & set up everything inside. I ordered the special bulbs — a few photography stands — reflector lamps at Wal-Mart — and I found a tripod somewhere in a closet.
I still have the same basic setup. The tripod could stand to be replaced. It skews slightly to the left — but I haven’t worried about it much because I always make corrections in Photoshop.
My backdrop is usually black but I almost always have a black binding on my art quilts and occasionally someone will ask for a white backdrop so they can see the entire outline of the quilt.
For the proposal I’m working on today, I can’t make any adjustments in Photoshop. The camera has to do all of the heavy lifting and the original picture has to be as perfect as I can make it. (To adjust for the tripod, I had to hang the pieces slightly sideways which felt strange but I used the viewfinder to put it where it needed to be for the picture to be straight in the camera.)
I slowed my ISO to 80, set my exposure for daylight fluorescent lighting (otherwise I get a bluish cast that becomes most apparent in closeups), turned off my flash, upped the megapixels to 12.1, and set a 10 second timer. I lined up the quilt perfectly within the top & bottom of the camera field (with the tilt of the camera at 45 degrees), adjusted the lamps so that one hit the top area & one hit the bottom area, and took the picture. For closeups, I set the macro option on my camera and moved the lighting in closer.
I’ve outgrown my camera. This is painful for me to say. I’ve really enjoyed the point and shoot for several years — but I’ve reached the limit of what I can do with its manual settings. I’m currently reading Chasing the Light, and it only highlights what I all ready know — it’s time for a DSLR.
Cause for Celebration
Two of my quilts were just juried into the World of Beauty exhibit at International Quilt Festival: Houston — Bukonyan Elder and Just Call Me Jack. I’m hoping someone takes a picture of them hanging in the show for me. Festival runs November 3 – 6, 2011 and features the largest display of art quilts in the world (although it shows an equally impressive display of traditional quilts). The entire show is the size of eleven football fields. Mind boggling, isn’t it?
Opening of Taking Flight
114 years ago
by Virginia Greaves
in Exhibition
We had the opening artist’s reception last night for Taking Flight at The Art Place Gallery in Marietta. I think my favorite part was when some traditional artist friends of Rebecca’s came and they got so excited by the work. They were truly inspired by what they saw as a new level of expression. I know that fiber art is growing, but there is still of lot of work to be done in the Southeast — to draw the art of the quilt beyond the bee’s of Southern grandmothers. I plan to enter more traditional art venues in the Southeast — beyond traditional quilt venues — and we’ll just have to see how it goes.
The Art Place Gallery is a small space, but it is more forward thinking than many other galleries in regards to fiber art. We are blessed that they give us the opportunity every year to show our work in their gallery.
For those of you that won’t make the trip to Atlanta in the next couple of weeks, I have prepared images of works in the show so that you may enjoy the exhibit.
Taking Flight From My Life by Julie Runyon Kokan
Statement: The first week of summer vacation, I went to Greece and Italy with my husband, leaving our four kids with my sister. It has been 7 years (and two kids) since we last left them. I had a stressful year at school last year, and I needed to get away. We went to Thessaloniki, Greece and Rome, Italy, both places visited by Saint Paul. Since my husband was attending a conference while we were in Greece, I was free to wander the streets of Thessaloniki by myself every morning. Since I could not speak the language, let alone read the language, I had a lot of time with just my thoughts, and thinking about Saint Paul, as my dad put those thoughts in my head just before I left. Then I went to Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome, where there is a statue of Saint Paul. It was a very spiritual experience for me. This piece is my impression of Saint Peter’s Basilica.
Dreams of Flying: Peter Pan by Denny Webster
Statement: Only once have I flown on a magic carpet–on my way to some unidentified dreamworld destination. Lately, when I wonder why I feel compelled to create, I think I may be living part of the life my uncle had planned. He died at 18 in a plane over Italy in 1944. He wanted to be a cartoonist.
Dreams of Flying: Spain by Denny Webster
Statement: As a child I was sick much of the time and I filled many of those home-bound hours listening to the Disney version of Peter Pan. I never wanted to grow up either and I longed to fly. In my dreams I could rise above the houses and yards and float unseen. Sometimes I still can.
Dreams of Flying: Spain by Denny Webster
Statement: In most of my flying dreams I am trying to get to Spain, although “why” remains a mystery. Usually I am racing to get a ticket for a commercial flight, but sometimes I fly a tiny, funny, wind-up plan. What a rush of freedom and adventure!
Exponential Butterflies by Julie Runyon Kokan
Statement: This piece features 31 ribbon butterflies displayed in an exponential growth pattern as you go down the piece. As a math teacher, I am always looking for ways to cross math and art because using different parts of the brain together creates better understanding. If you start with the one butterfly at the top, it doubles each time you go down the panel, ending with sixteen butterflies on the bottom part.
Up, Up and Away by Ben Hollingsworth
Statement: This balloon was made from extra (mistakes) from a paper-pieced piece that I made for the Olympic Quilt Project 2012.
Fall: With a Spring Kind of Attitude by Ben Hollingsworth
Statement: After a guild presentation on stamping on fabric my bee group (the WannaBees) decided to dedicate one of our meetings to stamping on fabric. I finished quilting the leaves and needed a background. The next day I attended a workshop with Nancy Prince on thread painting. I used her technique on the background trees.
Jet Stream by Hellenne Vermillion
Celestial Home by Virginia Greaves
Statement: I created this piece to convey a sense of expansiveness. The snowy mountain peak juts out above the cloud layer, and the eagle flies about in his own personal Elysium.
Nature's Helicopter by Ben Hollingsworth
Statement: One day while walking, I notice this incredible wonder and the idea for this piece was born.
Highway to Hell I by Deb Lacativa
Mirage by Deb Lacativa
Highway to Hell II by Deb Lacativa
Amelia Earhart by Virginia Greaves
Statement: “The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is mere tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.” — Amelia Earhart
Supersedure by Rebecca Reasons Edwards
Supersedure by Rebecca Reasons Edwards
3 to 5 for Moprey by Deb Lacativa
Field of Gold by Sharon Serrano Ahmed
Statement: This piece was actually inspired by a container flower garden. Sitting amidst several other plant-filled containers sat an amazing combination of various flowers and textures. At first it was just the smaller stitched mixed media piece but as I tried to decide the best way to display the piece, I kept remember my initial impression of this one unique container.
Phoenix by Hellenne Vermillion
*SOLD*
Stars Over Elijay by Sharon Serrano Ahmed
Statement: Last year, I purchased a cabin in the North Georgia Mountains. The region inspires me a hundred times a day. It has brought back to me the capacity to see with “new” eyes. Sitting on the deck at night and viewing the clear sky away from the bright lights of Atlanta has become one of my favorite pastimes! When I made the decision to focus on one design theme to create a series of work, it was the clear choice for a subject. The aim was not to create a single large piece, but instead to generate variation on a theme with an emphasis on design creation. It has been an incredible progression as I started with the obvious symmetrical designs and slowly moved to designs that obscuring the star until it isn’t always apparent what the source of the design was.
Elation by Virginia Greaves
Statement: The quiet grace of hot air balloons allows a view of the world altogether missed through the speed of other air travel.
I only got a couple of pictures of the artists. This is Sharon Serrano Ahmed & Julie Runyon Kokan.
And this is me sitting between them.
I have 3 proposals waiting for my consideration so it’s time for me to look forward. Most of the exhibition opportunities that I consider come at this time of year, and this is turning out to be a busy year.
Laboring in the Georgia Heat
014 years ago
by Virginia Greaves
in Exhibition
I don’t produce as much work in the summer because I have school aged children that are home in the summer, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not busy with other projects.
Rebecca Reasons Edwards and I have co-curated Nine Strands: Taking Flight held at The Art Place Gallery in Marietta, GA. The artist’s reception is 7pm this Thursday July 15th and the exhibit runs through July 29th. Participating artists include Sharon Serrano Ahmed, Rebecca Reasons Edwards, Ben Hollingsworth, Julie Runyon Kokan, Deb Lacativa, Hellenne Vermillion, Denny Webster, and myself. If you are in town, we would love to see you and share our work with you.
Rebecca, Ben, Julie, & I hung the show yesterday (and they were WONDERFUL) — and of course I forgot my camera — but Ben sent me these pictures that he took. This is just a teaser — I’ll take individual shots in a few days that I’ll post.
This is me in the tie dyed shirt. I found it at a lacrosse tournament in the spring, and the colors were so vibrant, I had to have it.
This is a shot of the hot air balloons — we hung them from the ceiling. I think they give a whimsical touch to the show. I think that doing the unexpected can sometimes draw more interest. They are made from fabric, Timtex, and some hardware & chain — but they can be squashed flat (crumpled anyway) or pressed out into their balloon shapes.
Did I mention that this was hard to do? I couldn’t have done it without Becca, Julie, & Ben. It took almost four hours — but I was happy with the final result. We always worry about filling the space — but everything we had fit in neatly. The group that usually does the show only contributed a couple of members so we filled the show with invitational artists, but it is a really good mix and I think everything is cohesive and works together well. I hope it’s an indication that fiber arts is growing in Atlanta.
Speaking of which, I forgot to post a pic of my work Bukonyan Elder that hung at The Abernathy Arts Center in Sandy Springs, GA in May & June for the Georgia Artists exhibit. Mine was the only piece of fiber in the show — although there was a piece made with paper with yarn woven through it.
The pieces were hung a little high — and I’m a little short — but this was my best try without a ladder.
This is me with the piece. (The piece is square on the wall although it doesn’t look like it. It’s a good example of how easily camera distortion occurs.)
I think it showed well with the other art. From experience, I know it is hard to place fiber in a gallery with photographs & paintings. The color in the fiber is more saturated — and most other forms of art reflect the light more — so you have to be careful what you place next to a fiber piece. My piece was in the mixed media category — which I admit was a stretch — but it was a stretch that the curator & judges were willing to make — thankfully.