Pages

  • Home
Facebook Instagram Twitter
Studio Kit

Well, she's sort of finished. :)  She is finished, in that she has a backing, a hanging sleeve, and a label, but as I looked at these pics that I've posted, I can see that there's some tweaking that needs to happen.


I'll explain as I go along, but let's enjoy it for what it is right now, m'kay?  :)

This new and improved sky, you 've already seen, I am in fact, really pleased with that sky. I think it looks like night, I like the highlighting on the edges of the cliff of the moonlight, and I really like the colours in the sky. 



And off to the left you see the waterfall - got a little 3D effect with the fluffy stuff  and I like that a lot - but I think I need a little work on it to give it some more dimension. And I like the quilting on the rocks - if you click on that pic to see it bigger, you'll see it. 



I like the water too - my twice quilted water - I first did wavy swoopy lines, and then decided it needed some more definition so I did some straight line quilting.  but I think the moon's reflection is a little too white - I think a wash is in order there - but I don't know whether to make it sort of gray, sort of blue, or sort or lavender. I need to have a think on it, but it needs a little something. 


Similarly, I like the rocks, but I think there's a little bit of a flat effect happening. Not that it's "flat" in a 3 dimensional way  - I do like very much that these rocks bring the eye forward and help to show that the cliff rocks are in the *background* not the foreground - but I think they're just sitting there doing nothing you know?

Not that rocks *do* a lot, but they're not doing much for this piece.  Maybe the addition of some fuzzy moss - but not TOO fuzzy - perhaps a little moonlight glittering on the wet? That kind of thing.



And Ms. Mermaid.  Although I love her tail and body shape, I don't like her skin.  Despite the fact that I used 3 shades of coppery brown and added a little gold-mixed-with-burnt-sienna to give her a bit of a glow - it's still quite flat looking. 


The legends of the mermaid at Little Karoo talk about her 'rosy cheeks" and I've certainly got that down, and I love, love, LOVE her hair (made from braided embroidery floss and sewn down),  but her lips are too pink and her eyes seem to be looking in a different directions, and I think her head's too small!!! lol

So I need to re-do her face, too. 



But despite all those "complaints", I'm pretty happy with her. Just a few little tweaks and she'll be good to go.

I'm going to take a break from her for a little while though - she's not due until July 23 - and I need to step away for a bit.

Something new next week!

Photobucket
16
Share

So, remember when I said that I thought I was going to have to add some washes to make my night time scene less "early morning" and more "night"?  


Well, "Ta Dah!!!"  :)



I started out with blobs of blue, black and red to make a purple wash...



...which looked sort of an eggplant-y once it was all stirred up. Even when I added the water, it still looked very dark, but when I tested it on the side, it looked like... 



The bottom wash, which I figured was too dark. 

So I added some more water in increments of about a 1/4 of a cup, and got the second version (above it) and then again (the very top version) which was my target colour. 



After the first, wash, I had this. Better, but still not dark enough. 

So I added colour directly to my wash, first a little blob of navy blue, and then added two more washes with more additions of navy blue...


and then added more black to the mixture and did two or three washes of the black.  When I started getting into the navy blues and blacks, I was adding washes to the pond water as well, to darken it up.


And this was the end result.

No, right?  

The water looks great, and it's certainly dark enough, but there's hardly any differentiation between the sky and the rocks. 

So I got out those original teals, blue-y greens and purples I started with, darkened them up with the additions of a drop or two of black and a drop or two of Prussian blue...



And that's what I ended up with.  Much better, no?


So, if you look at where it started, you can see that it's a big difference, and it doesn't look like morning or an overcast day anymore. Now, it actually looks like night. Yay!



You can see the progress side by side here (that pic is clickable if you want to look at it in a bigger size) - those four pictures represent 15-20 washes in total!

I'm totally in the home stretch now, I have probably only two or at the most three hours left on the piece. Phew!

Come on back on Friday for the big finish!

Photobucket
P.S. - It's Wednesday, so I'm linking up with the Needle And Thread Network - please check out what other Canadian fiber bloggers are up to!
15
Share

I had hoped to show you a finished piece today, but I grossly underestimated how long it would take me to braid enough embroidery floss to make the mermaid's hair - not to mention, some of the hand quilting I've done hasn't turned out so well, so I need to re-do it. :SIGH:




But I DID make some rocks. I knew I knew how to do it, and I thought if I pulled out By The Sea from last year, just looking at those rocks would remind me how I did it. That didn't work - I pulled them out, petted them, and thought "how pretty", but couldn't remember how I did them, exactly.



Bu then I found and  read my own instructions on how to make them (gee, I'm glad that this is a process blog!), except, this time, I broadened the colours of roving that I used, and put them on a gray silk background, rather than stablizer and pinned 'em all up.


Since I didn't have very much of that grey scrim left, I inserted into my rocks for more texture instead.

Once I had it all pinned down, I needle felted it.



And when I was done, I had this piece of fabric. It was  sooooooooo SOFT, I just wanted to pet it like a bunny. :)  Alas, I needed to cut it up...



...into rock shapes.

Which I put onto some fabric I wouldn't use for much else (a heavy cotton upholstery fabric sample I was gifted by a friend - said friend gave me banker's box full of such samples and they've come in very handy in a lot of applications.

There's a lot of that stuff in the "America Now" series, for instance. Painting them over covers a multitude of sins!)



But back to this piece, my rocks  needed to be on that background, because I wanted to quilt them before I put them on my painted background.

So, we're getting closer!

I have to finish braiding Ms. Mermaid's hair and fix up my hand quilted elements - and though I've added the washes I talked about last week to take my background from early morning to the night I intended, I think I have to add two more washes of purple and blue (and maybe teal) to the sky to further differentiate it from the cliff.

But, we're in the home stretch now! Finished piece on Wednesday or maybe Friday.

Until then...

Photobucket
6
Share
I was just being tongue in cheek, but how cool would it be to write a story about a mermaid and illustrate it with quilts?


But back to our current tale...there's not much to say, except that what you're looking at right there are hundreds of sequins and about 30 hours of hand beading - I'm sure someone else would be faster at it, but it took me quite awhile to figure out a: how to do it and b: how to do it in a way that worked!


These are the beads that auditioned for the piece,





And these are the ones I used. 

Originally I was going to hand-cut her scales and sew them down, and then I had this "brilliant" idea that it would somehow be faster to make her scales beads. I laugh, laugh at myself.  

That said, I do like the effect. 



And this is the drawing that I started out with.

Also, remember this:



that I did just about a year ago?  I did it AGAIN while I was quilting the background -hence the switch to beading the mermaid.

Only this time, it was a 70/10 rather than a 14/90,  and it was just at the tip; so no hospital visit was necessary - after a short, intense argument I managed to convince BSP to pull it out with a pair of pliers (this time, is was just straight in rather than curved through) and I've had no ill effects. Be careful out there! ;)

Photobucket
See you on Monday with some rocks - and maybe the finished piece!
12
Share

It was Canada Day yesterday, so I was golfing and generally celebrating being Canadian and forgot it was Monday and that I was supposed to post!



So, the background is done now - as you can see, from when I left you last, I've added foliage and the pond.  This is the background in it's "finished" state (I'll be adding quilted elements to the background and foreground later), but I thought I was already finished earlier.



You see, this little section originally looked like this. And, don't you think it looks like there's a wee tsunami happening on that shore?  



So, I painted it out ...


...waited until it dried,added in some more rocks, waited until they dried, and then added some more trees and bushes. 




And this is what it looks like now. I think the background's done, but I may end up adding some washes of blue to make the sky darker - we'll see once I've quilted the background and added some quilted elements.

Anyway - stay tuned... more on Friday! And for my American friends, enjoy your holiday tomorrow!

Photobucket
* and linking up with WIP Wednesday at the Needle and Thread Network.  Go and have a look at what other Canadian fiber bloggers are up to!
13
Share
Hi everyone,

I had hoped to get some work done on the new piece that I could show you today, but BSP was sick on Wednesday night and last night, I conked out at 6:00 p.m. (!!!!) and didn't wake until 6:30 this morning, so I have nothing to show you, except...


Called "Winter's Wane".  It was a piece I made but didn't make the cut for the show at Rochester Contemporary Art Gallery - which is just as well because someone absolutely loved it, and it currently hangs above BSP's desk in the office.

I'm on vacation for a week starting today, so I'm actually typing this in front of my current piece - and will be painting more as soon as I'm done. 

See you on Monday with more mermaid work. Until then, have a great weekend!

Photobucket
4
Share
Newer Posts Older Posts Home
Follow

Followers

Subscribe To

Posts
Atom
Posts
All Comments
Atom
All Comments

Find me on Facebook

Kit Lang Art

Promote Your Page Too

Find my work here

Find my work here

.

.

Member of:

Member of:

Popular Posts

  • Incendiary: Marie-Joseph Angelique
    (All pics are clickable for a bigger view) When I left you on Monday , Angélique and Claude had flown, and behind them, the city...
  • Hiraeth
    "Hiraeth"39" x 29" In the late fall of 2012, there was a call for a challenge group I don't belong to - "...
  • The 411, news and information post. :)
    Catch up time!! First of all, as promised, I'll tell you about the meaning behind each of the elements that were part of my Travyvon M...
  • Winter Is Coming
    My little transfer paint piece is complete. I've been reading Game of Thrones and my head is filled with images of that magical realis...
  • My Sewing Room, let me show you it!
    Well, good morning everyone - and welcome to my sewing room!  I'm so glad you decided to come for the tour! :) As you walk in to my...
  • Surprise Giveaway (to all of us! lol)
    Okay, to start with the good stuff... Here's what I'm giving away! No special hoops - if you want it - leave a comment - the...
  • Friday Finish and ANOTHER Giveaway!
    Golden Headed Blackbird (c) 2013 Kit Lang So, first things first: - here's my finished bird - a golden headed blackbird - and che...
  • America Now - Walking While Black
    In the black community in Canada and the US, when certain events happen to our brothers, our fathers, ourselves, we say "Oh ... DWB....
  • Blog Hop - Giveaway!
    COMMENTS CLOSED - Thanks everyone! It's a Saturday post and you know what that means... a surprise giveaway! I'm participating ...
  • Fairy Wren
    All done! Okay, I need to paint in that little stretch on the hem and I also need to paint the sides of the mounting board, but otherwi...

Labels

Angelique aquarelles argh Art Art 2009 Art 2010 Art 2011 Art 2012 Art 2012 Will work for Fire Art 2013 Art 2014 Art 2019 Art 2025 bead embroidery beading behind the green curtain bird series Bloggers Quilt Festival blogging break Bremen babies Briar Rose challenges Charley Harper collage and mixed media commissions completely terrifying things contemporary embroidery discharge disperse dye doh drawing class dum de dum eco dyeing encaustic ephemera er...oops ethereal exhibitions and shows experiments and play fabric dyeing fairy tales fern series festivals n' events First quilt foil For the birds Friday Link Post Friday' S-Linky Post from the discard file Fugitive Media Fun stuff Generation Q Magazine gifts hand -painted fabric hand painted fabric hand painted paper hand work handwork horn tootin' I'm a lucky girl illustration in progress in progress inspiration kit is talky Kit Lang learning Lunchtime project Mermaid Mixed Media mixed media art monoprint needle felting New blog new to me news nqr ONN other sewing paint lutradur and pellon painted lutradur painted lutradur and pellon painted paper painted papers painted quilt painted work paper work paperwork pellon stabilizer and lutradur political pretty stuff process Project Kit PSA Quilts Quilts 2008 Quilts 2009 Quilts 2010 Quilts 2011 Quilts 2012 rust dyed fabric S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y-DAY SAQA saved me from myself SeeMe Gallery Sewing room shirt piece sketches small pieces Stolen art studio Taking Flight textile painting the 100 day project 2025 the gentle arts the journeymen quilts the process behind the process the100dayproject2025 thread painting totally cute things transfer paint and/or disperse dye Trayvon Martin tree series watercolor watercolor printing watercolour Week Link Post what next? whitewashed Will work for Fire Winging Away wip woman at work working with disposables works in progress world watercolor month 2016 Year In Review
Copyright © 2016 Studio Kit

Created By ThemeXpose | Distributed By Blogger Templates20