What began several weeks ago as painting a group of fabrics in connected yellow hues, then screen printing limb patterns over all of them, has progressed this week in my studio.
I shared in that post that my vision was to have these bright colors serve as a background, with stenciled positive and negative tree shapes in the foreground layers.
The background colors will peek through the foreground layers.
The background colors will also affect the foreground layers.
In both ways, the layering gives new voice to the background colors.
I created a mockup in PhotoShop as a rough guide of where I wanted to go with the composition. (The background is a photo of the actual fabrics, stitched together into 3 panels and already quilted. All the trees and foreground rectangles I have created in PhotoShop, as a way to envision where I’m headed.)
The computer work was worth doing. But it is only a rough guide. Everything else along the way has been experimental. (That means I am learning as I go!)
I learned I needed to cut some new stencils to fit the scale of this quilt.
I taped together some pieces of card stock, then coated both sides with gel medium before cutting. VERY glad I did that. Plain cardstock would not have held up in this process.
I learned about working a piece in sections, seeing the composition develop as I go.
Above, I am masking out rectangular shapes with masking tape to crate the shapes to paint in The size of this piece exceeds my worktable, so referring back to that little mockup helped figure out what I was doing.
I learned about the chaotic nature of painting with stencils.
Below, I have a section masked out an stencils held roughly in place ready to work a section.
After adding my first section of color, it begins to take shape.
I learned the magic of transparency.
In the Styrofoam palette I used to mix this color, you can see a section of the paint at full strength. You can also see the same color mixed with a good dollop of matte medium, to make it transparent. This method is allowing all the limb energy in the background to show through.
Finally, I am learning to delight in little unexpected places of magic.
Here’s one I love.
The screen printed limb pattern, in a pale green that I had created with some white mixed in, now functions in this section in three ways: they show up faintly through the transparent overpaint, they show as a pattern inside the stenciled tree shape, they extend beyond my overpainted rectangle into the border, creating an interesting connection.
I’ll work on this a bit more tomorrow, then I have to put it aside. This week I need to assemble and prepare the 21 works I will be delivering to the Museum of Art DeLand for my upcoming show. I am thrilled at this opportunity, so I’m just going to happily plug it again, and send with this a sincere invitation for folks in Central Florida to attend. I am very proud of the body of work I am showing.
For all of us: focus each day
on the good that needs to be done in the world.
Be part of doing it.
Thank you for reading.
I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi
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