Virginia Greaves
textile paintings
The Dark Angel
112 years ago
If you’ll remember, back in December I made a 5″x7″ piece for my art group holiday exchange entitled Dark Angel.
I loved it so much that I decided to use it as a study for a larger piece. It also coincides nicely with a show for which it is appropriate (although we’ll have to wait and see on that.)
I had my original image — and the image that I had manipulated in Photoshop and resized to 5″x7″. Interestingly, when I took the original image — which was larger — and tried to recreate the effect, I couldn’t. I need to take better notes as I work. So I was forced to upsize the small file. This has to be done carefully or the image quality will suffer greatly.
In Photoshop, I increased the size in 15% increments using bicubic resampling and then using the unsharp mask tool. I think it came out well.
I printed these out onto Jacquard cotton inkjet fabric sheets. (I considered sending it out to a commercial printer, but they all wanted minimum order sizes and I couldn’t justify the expense.) After printing them out, I sprayed them lightly with Scotch-Gard and let them dry.
I knew that sewing this piece together would be tricky. I had used PosteRazor to print them out and didn’t specify a border — and wouldn’t you know, my top border came out shorter than 1/4 inch.
I could have reprinted them, but given the expense of the sheets and the printer ink, I decided to make do with what I had. I used a lightbox to align pieces before sewing them together. I made sure that I couldn’t see a shadow of the one underneath — and then I glued them together. Yes — I glued them. I’ve been using the trick of ironing clear Elmer’s glue instead of pins when applying binding and it works so well I thought I would use it here as well. I used as little as possible though.
I used my open toe foot and sewed just inside the printed image so I wouldn’t see any of the white border on the front.
This shows the three rows sewn together. I did, by the way, iron the seam allowances to one side to add some durability to the seams that were cheated a little in fabric and also to help the rows sew together straighter (sewing a left and a right opposing seam together is more likely to give you a perfect match in the middle).
This is the final piece — well, before quilting and finishing. I will spray it again with Scotch-Gard one last time before I start quilting.
2013 Goals
112 years ago
by Virginia Greaves
in Goals
Now that the new year has begun, it is time to start looking forward. This year, I’m planning more than I have in the past. Maybe by sharing goals on my blog, I’ll feel more accountable.
I went back and forth on some of these. The truth of the matter is that as much as I would like gallery representation, I know from my mom, a very talented impressionist painter, that the galleries in Atlanta typically demand 20 of your newest pieces with a regular rotation. My current mode of working requires a month or two to complete one piece. Last year, I completed only six pieces. So it comes down to the desire to enter exhibitions versus gallery representation (even if I could produce enough work to satisfy the inventory demands of a gallery). I could put both on my goals list, but I know that realistically, only one will work. I chose exhibitions.
I am, however, considering starting a different series of smaller pieces that I could complete more quickly and that I could then list on some online galleries. I’m going to experiment with that. You’ll notice I put it at the bottom of the list with asterisks as caveats. I’m uncertain about these goals for several reasons — we’ll see how it goes.
I’m also planning to start writing more on my Facebook Page and my blog — and I’ll be visiting my local galleries, getting to know them, and then I’ll share all of that local flavor with you. There are a LOT more galleries than I thought in my town — but I think that it’s important to get to know your local art scene as intimately as possible. I’ve been cooped up in my studio a bit too much. Time to get out and shake things up a bit. EVENTUALLY I hope to add some galleries in downtown Atlanta — but for now, I’m starting small.
- Have at least 2 years of my blog printed into hardback books (plan to use Blog2Print.com).
- Design & print new business cards.
- Take a photography class (probably lynda.com).
- Develop a workshop on Choosing Fabrics Creatively.
- Finish a piece to enter Sacred Threads 2013.
- Develop new method for designing quilt labels on the Apple platform so that I can finally pitch my PC.
- Complete the first draft of a book about Textile Portraits.
- Join Southeast Fiber Arts Alliance.
- Increase blog posts to once a week.
- Create at least six portraits.
- Create an Art Contact email and snail mail list.
- Double the number of Facebook Page fans.
- Enter at least 6 different exhibitions.
- Update Facebook banner with newer work.
- Post to Facebook Page 3x per week.
- Visit at least 12 art galleries in Roswell and write a review of at least one exhibition per gallery.
- Increase web traffic 20% from last year.
- Make spreadsheet with goals and dates to monitor progress.
- *** Make two small pieces per month.
- *** List small work on artfire.com or artfulhome.com.
2012 Accomplishments
012 years ago
One of my art friends on Facebook, Kimberly Baxter Packwood, asked yesterday what was our top accomplishment for the year. Lisa Call and Dale Anne Potter chimed in — and I began to realize that making a list of what I accomplished in 2012 was definitely something I needed to do. My first list was less than twenty, but after reading Lisa’s list (she lists 100 every year), I realized I wasn’t giving myself enough credit. So I’ve been working on it.
At first I also had a list of disappointments, but I decided that those were actually risks that I took that should be counted as accomplishments. Without risk, we’d never travel anywhere new.
Lincoln
– Accepted into Fulton County Artist’s Registry in Atlanta, GA.
– Accepted into the La Conner Quilt Festival in La Conner, WA (Bukonyan Elder).
– Won 1st place at the La Conner Quilt Festival (Bukonyan Elder).
– Accepted into the Georgia Artists Show at the Abernathy Arts Center in Sandy Springs, GA (Amelia Earhart, Beach Guardians).
– Won 3rd place at the Georgia Artists Show (Amelia Earhart).
– Accepted into International Quilt Festival/Houston: World of Beauty in Houston, TX (Beach Guardians, A Walk In Twilight).
– Included in the invitational show International Quilt Festival/Houston: Pets in Houston, TX (Unconditional).
– Included in a IQF exhibit review by Sophie Rubin on Youtube (Unconditional).
– Accepted into the book Art Quilt Portfolio: People & Portraits being published by Lark Crafts in April 2013 (Celtic Woman).
– Included in the invitational show Fiber Art Fusion: Artifact at The Art Place in Marietta, GA (Arminta Patterson, The Ties That Bind Us).
– Spoke about my work at the Gwinnett Quilter’s Guild & taught my workshop on Pet Portraits.
– Gave a seminar on Textile Photography at Fiber Art Fusion in Marietta, GA.
Laura Margaret
– Created five portrait pieces, two of them with two figures.
– Made a portrait almost exclusively with ties from my stash and local thrift stores (The Ties That Bind Us).
– Updated my website for each of my new pieces.
– Reconstructed and updated my art resume.
– Updated my LinkedIn resume, adding my exhibition achievements.
– Wrote 22 blog posts (23 with this one) — averaging almost twice a month.
– Submitted work to Art Book Archive: Atlanta for inclusion (haven’t heard on e-book publication yet).
– Created a Page on Facebook for my art & syndicated my blog posts to it.
The Ties That Bind Us
– Lost 11 pounds and dropped two clothes sizes.
– Developed a way to create figures in large sections so that I could construct them in manageable pieces on a temporary surface and then build a more complicated piece on the background.
– Went zip-lining in Honduras.
– Went cave tubing in Belize (after hiking over river rocks and breaking my toe).
– Went snuba diving in Mexico.
– Took thousands of sports photos and learned to share them through DropBox.
– Photographed the Fiber Art Fusion Artifact annual exhibit and holiday exchange.
– Indoor trained a new puppy.
A Walk In Twilight
– Converted hundreds of printed family pics to digital.
– Finally found the names of my paternal grandfather’s parents and was then able to take that part of my tree back to 466 AD with the birth of King Clovis I.
– Served as a Unit Leader and Troop Treasurer for my daughter’s American Heritage Girls troop.
– Created a 5”x7” piece for the Fiber Art Fusion holiday exchange that I’m using as a model for a larger piece.
– Visited Mary Jo’s Cloth Store in Gastonia, NC.
– Learned about head concussions and other soccer injuries from my daughter.
– Spent a week in Ponte Vedra, FL for Spring Break taking lots of beach pictures and exploring Saint Augustine.
– Helped Rebecca Reasons-Edwards curate Fiber Art Fusion: Artifact exhibit.
– Played roles of volleyball mom, lacrosse mom, soccer mom, and choir mom.
Beach Guardians
– Saw MacBeth downtown at Shakespeare’s Tavern.
– Applied for a part time job at local children’s hospital (not accepted).
– Applied for entry into Quilts=Art=Quilts for the first time (not juried in).
– As of 12/30/12, there were 12,680 views on my website for the year — which was down 23% from 2011. This was caused by a bubble in 2011 from a mention of my blog in Quilter’s Home Magazine, but although views dropped between 2011 and 2012, views increased 154% from 2010 to 2012 so I was able to keep a lot of my traffic after this unexpected marketing windfall.
– Created a Facebook banner highlighting my work.
– Learned how to make resin jewelry.
At this point, only half of the work is done. I’m still working on my goals and will share that in another post.
Quilting Lincoln
012 years ago
I spent a long time quilting this piece. I took about a week to quilt his figure — but then I needed to do something for the background. I found that incorporating two different ideas gave me something workable without being overwhelming.
Like many people quilting on a domestic machine — I found some angles to be very challenging. My first design was a parallel flowing line which wasn’t too hard — but then I added swirls in the open spaces. These had to be done all in the same direction — so the left hand side of the quilt became a bear to manage. I found that rolling up the right hand side and holding it with rubber bands at the top and bottom gave me something to hold on to.
From this angle, you can see the background quilting better. I am so glad I took the time to add this texture to the piece. I think it adds to the feeling of age in it — and it’s a nice contrast to the contour lines on the face.
I think I’m slowing getting better at quilting. Although I’m not a huge proponent of the quilt police guidelines that the stitch length has to be perfectly consistent — and I do not have the luxury of a stitch regulator on my machine — over time, that is what is happening. I did not mark my design and chose instead to keep the framework of wavy lines organic — but even those became more uniform the more time I spent making them.
After a week of background quilting, I finally completed Lincoln. When I sat down to write my artist’s statement, I found it entirely too political, so I decided to merely include some of Lincoln’s quotes instead.
It feels good to finish before the holidays. I already have ideas for my next piece.
Holiday Spirit
012 years ago
by Virginia Greaves
in Admin
Last night my Fiber Art Fusion art group had our holiday party and we exchanged 5″x7″ sized pieces.
I created this from a picture I took in a church in New Orleans. I’m so pleased with it that I think I will make a larger version for myself. I love the dark angel against all of the ironwork. My friend Hellene Vermillion took this home. She is an incredible silk painter — you can visit her on her website here.
We brought all of our pieces in a plain brown wrapper so no-one could cherry pick. A couple of women wanted to turn it into Dirty Santa and have stealing — but we decided that that might lead to hurt feelings so we kept what we opened.
I was lucky indeed to receive this piece entitled Here Comes the Sun from Martha Myers. The sun wraps around the back. I love the sashiko stitches in gold thread — and the colors are wonderfully vibrant.
Here Comes the Sun by Martha Myers
I have quite a collection of pieces from past parties. I almost didn’t go — everything is so crazy this time of year — but I set aside several hours yesterday to finish my piece so I could go. I’m glad I did.
I feel blessed to have such wonderful friends — and artists to boot!
Me and Abe
312 years ago
I am guilty of ignoring my blog. I took many pictures as I made his shirt, tie, coat, and finally his hair — but the progressions are not that interesting. The white doesn’t photograph well and the black — well I was overcome with black. Lincoln has a dour personage and although I didn’t intend this to be a dark piece, by nature of his hair and his clothing, there are a LOT of black prints in this piece.
This is how he looks on my black design wall. Not bad — but I thought he would look really good on a deep navy — something that would be lighter than his hair but still strong enough to evoke images of the Union flag. I even considered adding flag details in the background but decided that it would only distract from his piercing stare.
Clearly, I was wrong. It is hard to tell in the artificial lighting of most fabric stores how a value is really going to work. This one is much too dark. Sadly, I had been to a couple of local quilt stores, and this is the only one I felt had promise.
I found this sky fabric in my stash. It has a cool feel about it, almost as if Lincoln is standing on the battleground — but the white in the clouds is too distracting — another reason I finally declared that he needed a plainer background.
And then I found this green batik. It has a feeling of age to it. It has some texture in the print, but not much. It is exactly the right value. I wouldn’t have thought this would work — but there is some smoky blue in it that pulls out the color in his eyes — a faded gray that hopefully reflects weariness.
Today I’m pondering how to quilt him. I’ve been drawing on my picture of him. The lines of his face are so distinctive and different from what I’ve done before that I had to pull some new tricks out of my bag. The line under the left cheek for example had to be highlighted. The chin also sits in an awkward fashion and makes the joining of the cheek to the chin different from how I’ve approached it before.
Choosing Faces With Character
112 years ago
by Virginia Greaves
in Design
At some point, as a portrait artist, you begin to want to do something different. Most faces aren’t as distinctive as you would think and the thought of working on a face with a lot of character becomes appealing.
Couple that with the recent election and my need to study American history, and I came up with the idea of working on a piece portraying Abraham Lincoln — our 16th President.
This is the very beginning — the first two values that show a rough outline of his face and ear.
Adding the third value makes his face almost immediately begin to come to life. (I was obviously starting this late in the day when the natural light in my studio was failing.)
The fourth value begins to show us the deep wrinkles that Lincoln had in his later years.
The fifth value is very subtle but shows some distinction from the fourth one.
It is at about this time that I realized, given the size of my pressing sheet that I’m using (sometimes I’ll fuse directly to muslin but this time decided to use the Teflon sheet), I am going to have to wait to finish the darker values in his ear and neck. (My sheet is 18″x18″ — I have my eye on one that is 27″x30″.) Otherwise, I would be fusing fabrics onto my ironing board — and that would just make a mess.
This is the sixth value. I am really pushing the envelope having this many values but I think it will work in the end.
This is the seventh value with the gray blue of the irises added.
And the eighth value is black. It adds that finishing touch of contrast. It highlights his eyes, his nose, his mouth, and his chin. I have also added the spark of white in his eyes.
This shows him with a completed ear. (You might not be able to see it here, but I’ve moved the pressing sheet over so that it is directly under the ear.)
There is actually a piece of black from his hair that will flow into the darkest part of his ear. I decided to add it all as one piece — so you’ll see that final detail after his hair is attached.
And then I started on his neck. (Again, I moved the pressing sheet down into the neck area.) I thought about only showing it completed, but I think it is equally interesting to see its creation in layers. This is the first value (which is actually the 2nd value in his face.)
The second value gives a little more definition.
The third value shows us his Adam’s apple.
The fourth value accentuates that.
The fifth value begins to give us shadow.
The sixth value completes the shadow.
And the black again gives the contrast, showing the outline of his jaw and the separation of his neck from the face.
The previous pictures were all taken while the piece was lying flat on my ironing board so there is some perspective distortion. This is the completed face on my design wall.
I may change his eyes to make them darker — but all in all, I think he is looking fairly good.
My daughter asked me the other day if I was going to put his stovepipe top hat on him. Although his hat is iconic, I can’t say that that had occurred to me — so I may put off working on his hair while I consider the design of the overall piece. As usual, I have not decided what to do in the background yet either.
Not At Houston
012 years ago
by Virginia Greaves
in Exhibition
Years ago, I had the privilege is attending the AQS Quilt Show in Paducah. There were miles and miles of the most extraordinary quilts I had ever seen. Every time I came to the end of a row, there was another one, each quilt more breathtaking than the last. I marveled that anyone could jury awards and somehow discern the placement of one over another.
Although I don’t enter Paducah anymore because of their size restrictions — this is how I imagine the International Quilt Festival in Houston to be like — probably larger. I have had the honor of having many quilts there but have not been able to visit myself. At this time of year, the blog posts from friends attending makes me wish I could hop on a plane. I’ll get there one day.
I have one quilt in the invitational exhibit Pets — Unconditional. This is a piece I created several years ago and shows the unconditional love that my mother’s Brittany Spaniel has for her. Given the popularity of the animal pieces that I have done, I should really make more of them. They are much more marketable — portraits of people are much more personal to the subject — although I do not use marketability often in choosing a subject for a piece — no more than I use exhibit themes as guidelines for ideas. I like to create pieces that are inspirational to me — although I can appreciate that that is not always the most marketable decision.
I also have two pieces at the same show in the World of Beauty Exhibit — People, Places, & Figures category. I confess I don’t actually know if they hang the exhibit by category — although it makes sense that they would.
The first is Beach Guardians, a piece I made last year based on my children when they were younger. I love the perspective of looking down on them from above.
The second piece in the same exhibit is called A Walk in Twilight created earlier this year. It is about friendship and the joy that we share in each other’s company. Sometimes we just need to remember to take our friends along to make the journey more enjoyable.
These were the first two pieces I made with multiple subjects — although you could argue that Amelia Earhart had two subjects — Amelia and her plane. I still struggle with backgrounds and deciding whether more complex is actually helpful to the piece or not. Sometimes I think something simple is best — you don’t want to detract from the main subject — but other times, a complex background adds to the story of the piece and still enhances the portrait.
I have also been privileged with winning a first place ribbon from the La Conner Quilt Festival in the Open: Fiber Art Quilted category for Bukonyan Elder. This is my first year to have entered this show and I was thrilled to place. Their Top Honors Exhibit will extend until the end of the year and will be available for viewing at the La Conner Quilt & Textile Museum in La Conner, WA.
Lastly, my piece Celtic Woman is being included in a book to be released this coming April. I have not been published in a book before so I can’t wait to receive my copy. I will give more details on this publication at a later date.
Finito
112 years ago
by Virginia Greaves
in Admin
I have finally finished my latest piece Laura Margaret. It is going immediately into a private collection. With any luck, it will be a complete surprise. I loved working on the eyes in this one. I put a lot more detail into them than I have in the past. I took some liberty over-highlighting the rim under the eyes — but I think it makes the piece more striking.
I’m not certain about what I’m going to do next. I am mulling over a few ideas and will hopefully decide soon. I don’t have a lot of time in November and December because of school holidays — but hopefully I can finish a small piece between now and the end of the year.
My piece Bukonyan Elder won first place in the Open: Fiber Art Quilted category at the La Connor Quilt Festival in October and will be held in their extended Top Honors exhibit until the end of the year. I also received exciting news that Celtic Woman will be highlighted in a book being published in April — more details to come later. Finally, my piece Unconditional was invited into a special exhibit called Pets at the International Quilt Show in Houston this November.
Working With Color
213 years ago
by Virginia Greaves
in Design
Working with color can be very confusing — almost as difficult as working with values.
Since my last blog post, my figure was complete, but she needed a space in which to inhabit. She is holding up an iris on the back of her hand — so in adding color to the piece, I have a wonderful deep purple to add to the green in her eyes.
I also decided to pull the green down into the sliver of her shirt that is just peeking out from the towel draped around her shoulders.
And then this is where things got interesting. At this point, I had not added color to her mouth. I was ignoring that for the time being and trying to decide on a good color for the stripes in her towel to alternate with white. The actual photograph was a pink — but that didn’t seem to add to the piece for me. It seemed too close in color to purple.
According to the color wheel, if you have purple and green — then you need orange — so I went headlong into orange for the towel. I also added color to her mouth in rusty orange tones. I tried pinks and reds in the mouth and they all ended up looking like lipstick — so I went with something closer to browns.
It’s not that the orange in the towel is wrong — but it is too much. You no longer look directly into her beautiful green eyes. I kept this on my design wall for a while. It just didn’t look right to me.
So I switched to this cooler color of blue. Now you see her eyes first and the piece is in greater harmony. I still have the orange in her mouth to go with the purple and green. I think this composition of color works much better.
I did make two other adjustments. The water is a smoky blue with hints of purple so the iris melted into it. All I had to do was add a small border of a lighter value around the iris where it touched the water fabric. Now it stands out.
I also darkened the light spot on her nose just a little. It was too bright before and didn’t look natural.
Why did I choose what I did for the water and sky? I didn’t want anything overly complicated to compete with the figure and her engaging gaze so I originally planned to have just one fabric in the background. I had nothing in my stash and the only thing that I found in the fabric stores was the smoky batik. I decided that the pattern gave the impression of reflections on water and would be great. In reality, it overwhelmed the piece. I used a sky piece that I had on hand for the top part.
Strictly speaking, I should have used the rule of thirds when deciding on the horizon line, but I broke that rule. I liked it much better when the horizon line brought the viewer’s eye across to the bottom of the figure’s eye.
Her eyes are what is important in this piece, and visual cues like color and line bring up the supporting cast in the overall design.