My quilted portrait started with a watercolor I painted as part of an online workshop in intuitive portrait painting offered by Melanie Rivers:
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| A quick and easy portrait from a workshop. |
Melanie has you use only 3 colors (the perfect example of value doing the work), and I really liked the effect of the pink and yellow face with green hair.
I thought it would be fun to translate into fabric, and used applique, thread sketching, and textile paints to create it.
As I was stitching the flowing hair, it reminded me of Botticelli's Primavera, and the reverse with its warm color palette reminded me of summer -- which, in Italian, is Estate, which I never knew before!
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| Uffizi Gallery, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons |
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| Spring/Primavera |
For the lines of hair, the heavy metallic thread I was using needed to be put in the bobbin, and worked from the back. I liked the appearance of that face too, and made sure that side had good hair too. :)
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| Summer/Estate |
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| A detail of the thread work on the back. |
Of course there are things that I would change or do differently if I were to do this again, but I loved working on this. It was like having a good friend with me in the sewing room. :)
I really love the fabric line that I used to make the facings around the portrait -- it is called Fresh as a Daisy by Laura Muir, from Moda. I would love to make another version of this portrait using those fabrics!
If you would like to read more about how I made this piece, you can visit this post at my home blog, TextileRanger.com.
Such an interesting technique Gwen, I can't decide which I like better - the back or the front!
ReplyDeleteThanks! I can hang her up either way depending on whether my sewing room needs warming up or cooling off. :)
DeleteIt is really interesting to see the quilt from both the front and the back - it's almost reversible. I've not done much thread painting, and haven't used metallic thread in my machine. I enjoy reading about how it's done, and how easy it looks.
ReplyDeleteI do have trouble with metallic thread breaking when it goes through the needle, but with hair like this, it doesn't show. :) Putting it in the bobbin works better, and even with heavy thread (12 weight) the bobbin holds a surprising amount. So it is worth a try!
DeleteI love both front and back. When I saw the back I thought it was a different quilt. The hair is fantastic. The colors beautiful.
ReplyDeleteThank you, I had a lot of fun with this one. :)
DeleteWonderful! Great job. Beautiful, both front and back. I don’t know why I sometimes come up as “Anonymous” when I leave a comment. Barbara at Cat Patches
ReplyDeleteI have that problem with Blogger too, Barbara, I can never figure out why it doesn't know who I am when I just published something as Textile Ranger yesterday! But thanks for the nice words!
DeleteI am finding that problem when I use Safari. If I use Chrome, it seems to be okay. If you scroll right up to the very top of your screen to where it says Sign In at the top right, are you able to sign in or is it behaving oddly?
DeleteI love the front and back of this quilt. It must have been quite exciting to turn it over after sewing the hair and see the front :)
ReplyDeleteThis is wonderful! I particularly love the leafy hair, that really captured my attention, and the fact that you get lovely - and very different - two-for-ones!
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