textile paintings
Posts tagged textile art
Working with Paper Backed Fusible
010 years ago
by Virginia Greaves
in Fusing
Last week, I drove up to Blairsville, GA to talk to the Misty Mountain Quilter’s Guild just before Thanksgiving. It was a wonderful group, and even though my wireless connection from the iPad to the projector decided not to work, we made do with the quilts that I had brought and still had a memorable time. I love telling stories about my work and inspiring other quilters to push themselves — to see the possibilities of what they can do with determination in their hearts.
I am always surprised at how many people ask me about how I use fusible in my work. It would be tough to do what I do without fusible. Deidre Scherer free-hand cuts all of her pieces, pins them down, and then machine embroiders them to completion. I marvel at her ability to do this. I typically have everything drawn out in advance, and if adjustments have to be made to the paper copy, I use a pencil to make sure I get it right before I ink it.
For those of you familiar with paper backed fusible, this short tutorial will not be interesting — but for those that are curious or just want to see how I work, I made a couple of small pieces to demonstrate the most basic principles.
First I start with a drawing. For this piece, I drew a square with my ruler and then two conjoining circles with the top of my spray starch can. The circles are considered primary to the square in this pattern — which means that the circles are intended to sit above the square in comparative space.
Each shape is numbered 1,2,3 — these are my value numbers. 1 is always the lightest.
This is the 1st version and the easiest to do because the square is on the bottom and the darker circles are on top. I <almost> always work from light to dark. If you work from dark to light, you run the risk of the darker fabrics showing through the edges of the lighter fabrics.
The first thing you do is trace out your shapes onto paper backed fusible. I use Wonder Under. Trace the shape onto the smooth paper side and then roughly cut out around the shape — just outside the drawn line.
You should always use the reverse of your pattern as the template for your fusible templates. I forgot to do this — but in this particular instance, it won’t matter (It does in the 2nd version — so you may notice that I just left both of the final fused pieces in reverse.)
And by the way, reversing a pattern is easy; simply trace over the shapes with an ultra fine point Sharpie. All of the marks will transfer to the back of the paper. Then you use the back of the pattern for tracing your Wonder Under shapes.
Fuse your templates onto the BACK of your fabric with the iron on a cotton setting. (This is a batik so the back is the same as the front.) Roughly cut out around the shape.
Cut directly on the line you have drawn.
Score the back of the paper with something sharp like a pin.
Then you can rip the paper off the back of the fabric. The fusible should stay on the back of the fabric. If it sticks to the paper, re-iron the paper back down with a hotter iron and when cool, re-score and rip the paper off.
Prepare a backing fabric to fuse to. You could fuse directly to an appliqué pressing sheet. This is a special plastic sheet to which you can fuse and then later peel off and use as a large appliqué later. I do this sometimes, especially with large and complex pieces.
Fuse down the lightest value first. For this template, it’s the square in the middle. Use your iron on the setting BELOW cotton, the one for polyester. If you leave the iron on the cotton setting, you will eventually bake the fused fabric to the point that it will not stick.
Fusibles are temporary. They need to hold long enough for you to stitch over them to hold them more permanently. In complex designs, you will find that things start to move as you scrunch everything around and under the needle, but re-ironing will re-stick them where you want them to stay — for a while. Over-ironing with an iron that is too hot, however, can burn the fusible away and there will be a lot more movement. So although it is difficult to iron the fusible onto the fabric with the cotton and then bring the heat down to fuse the shapes onto the final appliqué, it is worthwhile to remember if at all possible.
Then fuse the next darker circle — and then the next darker circle.
And it’s finished.
This is the 2nd version which is more difficult because the darkest fabric is in the middle with the lighter fabrics in the two corner circles. Remember that we want to keep the circles primary even though they will be fused before the square.
The two circles are traced onto fusible — but the area that will overlap with the square now has an extra lip added so that it will slip under the square. If this extra wasn’t added, then the background fabric might show in the space between the circles and square. That happens at times and is easily covered with thread, but it should be the exception, not the rule, or you’ll be spending a lot of time covering things that are much more easily handled at this point in the process.
Also note that the square is now no longer a square. If we fuse the 3rd value down last, if we cut out an entire square, then the circles would no longer be on top (which is our goal — for them to be primary).
First fuse the lightest value circle and then fuse the 2nd value. Make certain that the overlap flaps will fall under the “square” shape.
And then add the “square” shape in the darkest value. Since the circles are primary, the square is set behind them. Notice that the square shape covers the flaps that were created on the circle shapes.
These are the two designs. The one on the right is the first template. The one on the left is the second template. They are identical in final form, but by moving the values, we have changed the construction.
Hopefully this explains the process in its most basic forms. Understanding how values affect how you cut your shapes is essential to working with a paper backed fusible. I always start with my lightest values and work to my darkest values.
The exception to this are the teeth in faces. They never look right done this way. I always make them from dark to light — but the overall pieces are small enough and the pieces are light enough in value that color shadowing isn’t an issue.
Irish Eyes Are Smiling
010 years ago
This morning, I finished photographing my latest piece. As I was writing a web page for her, I decided to call her Irish Eyes. I kept thinking of the song “Irish Eyes Are Smiling” when I’d look at her. Those green eyes are really a giveaway. I don’t actually know if the model is Irish — but it doesn’t matter. Those green eyes and the touch of red in her hair with the pale skin scream Irish.
Now I’m on to putting the binding on #3 Abstract. I met with Leisa last week — and we do intend to give these abstract pieces more meaningful names. We laid out the gallery and a plan to fill it out. I’m feeling more confident about that now. I think that come October, it’s going to be a fabulous show!
Having a Good Hair Day
010 years ago
Before I left for Houston, I had made some good progress on the hair in this portrait. I always find it hard to leave in the middle of a project, but I had finished most of the hair.
In this pic, here is only one small part of the first value in the part — in the top at the middle. Then the next value is golden.
Although I really wanted to go with brown purples, I just didn’t have them in my stash and I couldn’t find them in the store nearby, so I ended up going from golden into an orange brown — which is really more of a realistic choice for this model’s actual hair.
The next value shows the brown. (I somehow managed to lose one of the highlights in her right eye — didn’t notice it until her hair was done.)
And this shows the darkest browns.
Then I laid in all the blacks, which included her shirt, and the little bit of gray.
I spent of lot time trying to find a perfect background. I had bought several greens, but in the end, they fell flat. A purple seemed like a striking choice, but I didn’t have anything that worked well. I had a blue that I liked, but I’ve used it as a background before, so I went to the store with the mission of finding one similar. This batik has some deeper shadows that I like. It sets her hair off nicely. I took this pic with my iPhone which makes her hair look more red than it is.
I also replaced the highlight in the right eye and put more gray in her right arm. I had it all brown which was just wrong and caused by blurred lines between her hair and her shirt.
This week, I added the background and started the appliqué. Her face is done and I’m about halfway done with her hair. I hope to start quilting her soon. The days are clicking by quickly and my deadline approaches.
Building Character in a Face
310 years ago
I have been busy cutting away here recently. This is my favorite part — cutting and fusing. It’s meditative and yet the puzzle is still challenging.
I do have to say, however, that my decision to choose different colors has resulted in an even greater sense of realism than I have had before. Because of this, presenting the face in layers feels more odd than ever before. By the time the face is fully shown at the end of this post, without hair, it feels like looking at a naked face. It’s a little unsettling.
I also confess that, after taking several pictures of my model, I chose not to go with one that you would choose to go on your mantle. I think this is a more playful picture that shows her personality better. She’s actually looking up a little at the viewer.
This is the first layer. I’ve learned the hard way not to go any lighter than this.
And this is the second value. I know that my model is screaming at me right now. I promised not to show any wrinkles. The truth is that because she is looking up into the camera, there are lines of personality here. They seem stark in this picture, but bear with me. In the end, especially once all of the hair is fused on, they will only add to her character and will not be seen as age lines.
Here is the third value. It’s always important to remember that eyes are set INTO our faces so even if the picture doesn’t give us darker values around the eyes, it’s best to put it there for our rendering to give a sense of depth.
Here is the fourth value. I was surprised that this stony gray worked so well in this gradation.
This is the sixth value. There isn’t much of it here.
This is the seventh value. It’s actually a deep navy blue.
The eighth value is black which is mostly in the neck. I’ll revisit that in a minute.
These are her lovely green eyes. You can begin to see her peeking out of the fabric.
And these are her teeth. They don’t make a lot of sense yet without her lips. These are the only pieces that I put on in reverse order — dark to light.
And here she is with her mouth. She looks a little stark without her hair — but I’m working on that now.
At this point, I step back and think about how this will work with what I have to do next. Her neck is too dark given that her shirt will be black, so I decide to pull the values back and re-do the neck.
Here they are re-done. You see a lot more of value six, which I prefer, but you still get the sense of the jawline and the recession of the neck.
Hopefully I’ll finish her hair before I leave for Houston next week.
Around the World
010 years ago
Last year in Houston at Quilt Festival, I had the pleasure of meeting Marilyn Wall. I had admired her work for some time and was excited to meet her. She was attending with an old friend of mine, Denny Webster, who had recently moved from Atlanta to North Carolina.
Marilyn asked me recently if I was interested in participating in the Around the World blog hop. I’ve never done one of these before, but it’s essentially a way for bloggers to promote each other. Marilyn nominated me and another blogger — and I’m supposed to nominate a couple of other bloggers. Hmmmm. Most of the bloggers I know have already participated in this blog hop — and quite frankly, life has been very full around here recently.
BUT — what I CAN do is introduce a few things about me that you might not know.
What quilting/sewing thing am I working on?
If you follow my blog at all, you see what I’m working on. Right now, in my studio, I’ve been cutting out a portrait — I’m working on the hair right now. I’ll blog post about the face later this week. It’s my intention to enter this one in the National Portrait Gallery competition and hope it at least makes it to the semi-finals. Hope springs eternal. And in a little over a week, I’m traveling to Quilt Festival in Houston to step out in the Winner’s Circle and find out what my prize will be. I’m starting to feel butterflies in my stomach.
How does my work differ from others of its genre?
This is an interesting question. I started making representative patterns because I enjoyed the process, and my first series of portraits were all monochromatic color studies. Once I moved to Georgia and no longer had a wet studio, I was forced to begin considering commercial prints in portraits, and in this, I was definitely influenced by Deidre Scherer. I studied how she used patterns to her advantage rather than seeing them as an obstacle. I also studied Charlotte Warr Andersen, although all of her faces were made with solids. In the end, I made what I wanted to make. The norm at the time in fabric portraiture was not detail but rather obscurity — the side of the face or the back of the head, a closed mouth, a limited value range. I challenged myself to do teeth, to suggest the gum line or the tongue, to add the intention of the ear. I also made surprising fabric choices, not shying away from patterns, and learned how to make them work for me.
Why do I write/create what I do?
I create what I do because it makes me happy. It’s challenging, and I enjoy a challenging puzzle. I remember taking a picture of my daughter and making it into a pattern — and I loved to see the light of her eyes shine out at me from the design wall. I loved taking the impossibility of a waving flag and successfully presenting it within the confines of my 2D fabrics and the sculpture of my quilting thread.
How does my writing/creating process work?
Now this is a really long thing for me to answer succinctly. I have a picture for inspiration (usually one that I’ve taken but sometimes one that I’ve asked permission to use) and from that, I make a value painting in Photoshop (which means that I draw all over it because pictures are only the beginning and will never give you everything that you need because they are not as good as the human eye). From that, I make a pattern. From that pattern, I create fabric templates that I collage together (cutting and fusing — this is secretly my most favorite part). I then stitch it all together through raw edge appliqué, and then I quilt it.
That’s my story. I’ve had my website since April 2005 because I have always enjoyed computers and it was a way for me to stay connected when I lived in a small town in Alabama (particularly when I became a stay-at-home mom), and I started the blog in September 2007. I had been a writer in my youth, and I have enjoyed adding writing as an expression of my creative intentions. I have enjoyed my journey — and I’ve enjoyed sharing it with anyone that has cared to read it and follow it here.
Breathing Soul
010 years ago
by Virginia Greaves
in Design
I have been considering my portrait for entry into the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) competition. It’s always a challenge, artistically, to reverse engineer something — but it also can create a better opportunity for success.
I’ve been studying the work from last year that reached the finals — and I know that whatever I do, my goal is not realism necessarily. There were certainly pieces in last year’s competition that were realistic — and some that were abstract but clearly representative of the human form. I think the greater question is — what can I do that sets my work apart? I can make a piece that looks like a painting from a distance of a couple of feet — but perhaps the better curatorial choice would be one that best represents the materials being used — which in my case is fabric.
So I spent a few days considering the painting of the man with the quilt pulled up to his chin — but in the end, I decided that that’s a poor place for me to start. I don’t make traditional quilts and I have no interest in calling to mind the traditional pieced quilts that grandmothers have created for years.
And then a friend of mine said something on Facebook that struck me. She said — not in regards to me but in general — she felt that representative work in contemporary art was soulless. Wow. And I went back and looked at the fabrics that I was considering for my next portrait (yes there are some value issues here I had not yet resolved) — and I realized that I was following the formula I knew for creating a realistic portrait — and that it was going to feel soulless and boring.
I have felt for a long time that the soul of a portrait is found in the eyes — or the hands — and that’s true — but it’s not enough — not nearly enough for the piece to stand out and grab the attention of the viewer.
And then I started thinking in terms of color. Color does not have to be as straight forward as I was making it. A strict gradation from beige into black was perfectly acceptable — but was it exciting?
I’ve been considering the work of Vincent van Gogh a lot recently — and his work is largely arresting because he used color theory so successfully. Forget what color the thing you’re representing really is — make it what it needs to be in the piece to make the piece successful.
So I started over. I started with beige again but then I went into blue, ending with a deep midnight blue. My fifth fabric, the blue and brown batik, is a step out — but it transitions the beige into the blue. The fourth fabric was difficult. I ended up finding this clay color in my brown bin. It’s a transitional neutral fabric and it’s the right value so it works.
I usually pick the first color family and then start cutting, but I knew that all of it is in relationship to each other — so I went on to pick the fabrics for the eyes. My model does have green eyes — and for this piece, I think that these two will stand out well.
My goal in the hair is to have purplish brown. This is my starting place. The middle one may be too red — but unfortunately, I can’t make it to the fabric store today. (Someone stole my credit card number yesterday and I am stuck waiting on a new one to be delivered.) I think my stash is not complete enough here and I plan to change a couple of these with new fabrics soon — but this gives you an idea of where I’m headed.
I have a beautiful mottled green I’ll probably use in the background.
My goal is to create an analogous color harmony — to use what I know about color to breathe soul into her — to make her come alive in cloth — for her spirit to become apparent in the image. Let’s hope that my bold choices in fabric will help me achieve that goal.
As to whether it will be enough to be juried into the NPG — who knows? But hopefully it will help move me further along in my artistic journey.
More Pics Please!
010 years ago
by Virginia Greaves
in Quilting
A friend told me that it was hard to see what I had done on the piece from my last blog post so I have posted some more detail pics. I hope this makes it easier to see the quilting.
Collaboration
011 years ago
Yesterday I met with Leisa. She still has plans for the small piece we did first so I didn’t get it back — but I took her the larger abstract piece that is second in the series — now that it’s quilted — and she liked it! I thought she would want to embellish it but she made an excellent point about restraint and knowing when to stop. We are both happy with it as it is — so I will add a binding and sleeve and consider it done.
I’m strangely drawn to the thought of an almost completely machine stitched binding. I’ve only done this one other time but it seems apropos to the piece — and has the plus of eliminating a large part of the hand sewing.
I have finished drafting a third piece — I picked out fabrics today — and Leisa and I talked about a fourth piece which will be a whole cloth that we will cut into strips and otherwise playfully manipulate. I have learned so much in this collaboration.
I really didn’t know how to work in groups until graduate school — and I was really forced to do it there. We each gave our best to create the best collective effort. Now it’s easy — with the right people that know how to do it too. People with control issues don’t work well in collaborations. It has to be a give and take. You don’t always get your way but you learn from the other person and respect their opinion. You don’t worry about getting your way — you work on finding a solution that works for both of you. It’s a beautiful theory — it’s a shame that governments don’t work this way.
Making Friends with Abstract
111 years ago
by Virginia Greaves
in Design
For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been busy working on another piece inspired by a pic taken by Leisa Rich. I know — I haven’t finished the last one — but I wanted something to work on when I handed the other piece off to her. I don’t like to have more than one project open at a time — but in working collaboratively, it just happened.
This one is much bigger — it’s about 42″ wide by 36″ high.
I didn’t take a ton of in process pics. It just doesn’t make as much sense as it does when working in pictorial. I tried to take pics for each color group, but I ran into a problem with that. This piece was pinned on my drafting table with the ironing pad. I pinned it there so it wouldn’t shift around. I couldn’t construct this piece in sections — the entire piece had to fit together like a puzzle. However, it’s so large, if I stood on a chair and took a picture of the top, I couldn’t get the entire piece in the frame and everything would be skewed. Therefore, I took a lot of pics, many of which were terrible — and I got to be friends with the Delete All option on my camera. Unfortunately, in doing that, I inadvertently deleted an all yellow and all red pic that I had taken and planned to use. C’est la vie.
That yellow with the pink is really horrid. I think that this was the worst stage — with all the hot colors and none of the cool colors (there was a little bit of purple and green but not enough to balance the hot).
Then I started adding the blues. It made a world of difference. Adding the cold colors gave life to the hot colors. I also needed the intensity of a deeper value. That comes in the dark blue — and then ultimately in the black.
I took this picture while it was tilted on the table. For the previous picture, I had unpinned it from the table and set it vertically on the design wall for a good pic. Unfortunately, it shifted everything around in my puzzle — so I wasn’t going to do that again until the end.
And here is the final pic of the top — vertical on the design wall — with all of that deep black.
I am very fond of this piece. I am using the skills that I learned in making pictorials but applying them to abstract design. 
Crocked Dye in a Finished Piece
011 years ago
by Virginia Greaves
in Painting
What is crocking? It’s when you wash something and the dye particles that haven’t bonded completely with the fabric (usually cotton) float free and bond to something else. It is commonly seen when someone washes a new article of red clothing that then turns all of their other clothes pink after a trip through the washing machine.
How can you avoid this happening in a quilt? The easiest way is to prewash your fabrics. After you bring them home, wash them in synthrapol (a squirt of blue Dawn dishwashing detergent — as long as you have an older washer that can handle high sudsing detergents — works just as well) and a dye catcher sheet. This will hopefully take out all excess dye particles that were not rinsed before the fabric was sold.
That’s usually more than enough — but not always. I had a green commercial hand dye I bought once in Florida that would never stop running dye. I finally threw it away.
Reds are notorious for this. I have this problem with even commercially printed cottons. It’s especially heartbreaking when it happens in a finished piece. You don’t want to throw all of your hours of hard work into the garbage.
Fear not. It’s not worth the tears. If you can’t fix it with hot water, Shout, or any other stain remover (short of bleach of course) — they make something that works just as well. It’s called fabric paint.
Admittedly, this works better on some prints than others. There are some textures that cannot be replicated — but then you just need to reframe your expectations and accept it as it is. This is art and I can use fabric paint if I want to.
This is my latest piece.
I sighed when I pulled it out of the washer. (I typically run my pieces in water when they’re done to take out the water soluble glue I use to help me in the binding process — and to prepare the piece for blocking.) I sprayed it with Shout, turned the water to hot, and threw it back in.
No luck. There was still red all around the grapes on the plate. So I spun out the water and pinned it up to dry.
Once it was blocked and dry — I waited a few days. You have to be patient. You don’t want to have any anxiety when you do this.
I pulled out my palette and put a pinch of yellow on it — and by a pinch, I mean a very small amount. Then I added a large amount of white and mixed it together on my palette. I tried it out on a piece of my cream fabric — the same that I will paint on the quilt — and it was too white — so I added another very small amount of yellow and mixed it in. This was a closer match on my swatch. So I grabbed a paintbrush and painted it onto the affected areas of the quilt. I used a light hand — and added water to thin it out so it wouldn’t look gloppy — went to another section — went back after it had dried a little and added a little more paint. I ended up pulling out a smaller brush to get that very small section between grapes.
And voila’! Much better. I believe it now qualifies as show worthy. I’ll give it shot anyway.