The second quilt is finished

Fittingly, I finished my second big flag quilt on Memorial Day!  This is going to be a Quilt National entry so I won't show you the whole thing, but here it is awaiting its next-to-last seam, joining the blue union to the seven short stripes.

I have been constructing this quilt in modules, quilting them densely, then butting the edges and sewing them together into larger and larger expanses.  I have been very pleased with this method of working because until the very end there has been no physical stress.  Quilting in an eighth-inch grid would be horrible if not impossible on a huge quilt, but when you're only doing a piece the size of a placemat it's child's play (in fact, my 5-year-old grandson quilt helped quilt on one of the panels).

I knew there would be a day of reckoning when it came time to sew the last pieces together and feared that the last seams would be hard to do, but I decided to play Scarlett O'Hara and worry about that when it came.  So yesterday it came.  The next-to-last seam was fairly simple, although it went slowly as I had to shift the rolled-up bundle across my shoulder a few inches at a time.

For the last seam, horizontally across the quilt right under the blue union, I decided I needed help and enlisted my husband to stand behind me and hold the rolled-up quilt, feeding it gradually onto and over my shoulder as I sewed.  (Behind the sewing machine, the quilt was supported by a card table so it didn't drag.)  What a difference that made!  And when you have only one seam that needs a helper, you can probably bribe a helper into helping. He probably wouldn't have agreed to hold my work for 25 hours or 40 hours or however long it takes to
quilt a huge piece, although it would certainly have made those huge quilts of the past a lot easier.  This one is 98 x 59 inches, by the way.

So I am feeling rather giddy right now.  I'll have a week of vacation, going to Auburn NY for the opening of the Surface Design Association show at the Schweinfurth Art Center on Friday.  Then when I get home, on to flag #3.  

"Mountain Labor"

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Last September, a group of artists and I arrived at the top of the Yellow Mountain by cable car. However I have found that the most of supplies for hotels on the top of mountain was carried up manually. The painting was done based on a photo I took.

It was a few days struggle to do this painting (no comparison to the person who carried a giant oxygen tank climbing who knows how many steps). Somehow I feel it is my self portrait, carrying a heavy load on my journey going up. There is no way back, and there is still a long way to go. Even I don't know if I can make it.

Tomorrow will be the deadline for my 2016 China trip. We still need a few more people to make this trip a "Go". I hope some of you can join us. I am very sure it will be a wonderful trip.

Jungle Falls!

Waterfall scene done for the animated movie Rio2.

 

 

Sunday funnies 17

Happy Memorial Day!

FNF 5 -- representational

Only one of the 20 quilts in Form, Not Function had a realistic representational image. That might be surprising in itself, because realism is such a standby in quilt/art shows, but I've already commented on the fact that this year's jurors voted strongly for abstraction and piecing.  What I liked about this quilt was not just that its image was striking and well-executed, but that its method was something rarely seen.

Deborah Hyde, Leda (detail below)

Yes, this is a pieced quilt, made entirely out of half-inch squares.  And you can see in the detail shot that some of the half-inch squares are themselves pieced to give smooth edges to the shapes of the image -- a lot of piecing going on here!

Also notable, from the design standpoint, is how she has superimposed the traditional sunshine and shadow quilt pattern of concentric squares on point over the realistic image.  It takes careful consideration of color and value to achieve this effect while keeping the representational quality of the original image.  Good work!

"Young Artist 2"

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I did a painting called "A Young Artist" many years ago. That boy must be a handsome young man now. Almost at the same location, I shot another photo a couple of weeks ago. Now this artist is doing almost exactly the same thing, innocent with the same concentration. Is the time really exist? I doubt it. If we don't individualize, We have already lived in the Eternity.

FNF 4 -- a prizewinner

One of the prizewinning quilts at Form, Not Function was this beautiful piece, printed from a digitally altered photo onto silk and then cut and collaged together.  It is one of only two pieces in the show using digitally printed imagery, a surprise because printing onto fabric is so commonplace these days in art/quilt circles.

Charlotte Ziebarth, Wave Equations

It definitely deserved a prize, but I'm puzzled at the prize it won: the Award for Creative Use of Stitching.

If you're intrigued by this quilt,  visit Charlotte's blog (here) to read about how she made it.  (And to see it with better color saturation.)  After fusing the wavy diagonal strips to the base fabric, she mainly machine quilted along the lines of the printed image.

The stitching is lovely and well done, but is it creative?  Or more to the point, is this a creative use of stitching?  I thought quilters had been using stitching to accentuate design lines in a patterned fabric for centuries.  Or maybe I'm missing something.

"Red Hair"

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Painting figures is really my dream. When I started painting, I immediately went into figurative. Very soon I have realized how difficult it could be. So I took a detour and went into still life painting to strengthen my foundations. You have seen I only occasionally paint head studies and figure practices. So fast, more than a decade has passed. Now I come back to my try love.

"New Video about China Trip"

I have made another video about our China painting trip last year. This one is about Xidi and Hongcun, the villages we stayed and painted last time. I am looking forward to having another wonderful China trip coming up this September. Time goes by so fast, I want to remind you that the deadline for signing up is May 31. If you are interested in visiting China and do plein air painting there with me, Please visit my China Painting Trip 2016 webpage as soon as possible. The trip is well organized and reasonably priced. You may contact artists who attended previous trips for reference. Please email me, and I will provide the contact information.  To some people this trip can be the one of the life time. Please take action now before it is too late.

Hoatzin Bird in Watercolor

Sighted on a trip to Central America and painted in watercolor, blog readers have identified this for me as a Hoatzin.

Sunday funnies 16

FNF 3 -- more pieced quilts

Lots of pieced quilts at Form, Not Function this year!  As it happens, all three of the artists I'm showing you today were also in Art Quilt Elements in Wayne PA last month -- but with a different quilt in each case.  That's nice, getting to see two works by favorite artists in person so close together.

Bonnie Bucknam, Red Lightning

Bonnie's work is always big and beautiful; she has won best in show at FNF in the past and her quilt, striking from a distance, got one of the places of honor at the end of the two symmetrical galleries.  That's it in the center of the far vista below. Bonnie's work is characterized by dramatic jaggedy shapes, beautifully pieced and quilted.

Valerie Maser-Flanagan, Shifting Thoughts 
















You know I'm a sucker for stripes, so obviously I like this piece, and yes, the stripes are all individually pieced; no lazy-woman's commercial stripes for this artist!  I like the very simple palette and construction, surprisingly yielding a lot of complexity as the stripes angle up and down on a whim.

Denise Roberts, Mitote #4 (detail below)

Here's a woman who knows how to cut and piece complicated curves, but doesn't know when to stop.  The colors twist and weave, plunge under and reappear,  "Mitote" comes from the ancient Toltec word for a sacred circle dance, but now is used to mean an uproar or turmoil; it's easy to see both those meanings reflected in the busy composition.

More quilts from FNF coming up next week.

Puss in Boots Beatboard

This is the "beatboard" from The legend of Puss in Boots. Myself and Marcos Mateu Mestre were the first artists on the show and our first move was to review the script and identify key moments to sketch out. We call these "story beats" hence the term "beatboard". This was our process to get the ball rolling and work toward finding a "look" for the show. It's a collaboration, Marcos sketched out the scenes and I painted them.

Our most important skills at the studios are to layout scenes for best storytelling effect, then use color and lighting design to create mood and emotion. Marcos has a wonderful book for layout called Framed Ink and my tutorials are at Schoolism.com

Making myself clearer 2

When I wrote about two pieced quilts in the Form, Not Function show, Sandy left a comment:  "I am not quite sure what you mean by some statements."  I had described Sandra Ciolino's work as "a classic 'motif' quilt, using a simple block over and over in different shapes, sizes and configurations to make a complex overall pattern."  Sandy said, "Not being a piecer/patchworker, perhaps I am not really seeing the classic in this?"  

So let me walk that statement back and explain it in a little more detail.

Sandra Palmer Ciolino, Precaria #4: Kinetics

Perhaps it's just those of us who have studied with Nancy Crow, and the next generation of those who have studied with those who studied with Nancy, who are intimately familiar with the concept of working with a motif.  In this approach, you start with a simple sketch of one or two shapes in a box.

Here's Sandra's basic motif, a five-sided shape just touching a four-sided shape:

She turns it in different directions:

She stretches it out:

She stretches it out in the other direction:

She makes blocks with just the four-sided shape:

Or just the five-sided shape:

The size and shape of the motifs varies, the orientation varies, and most important, the colors vary to give you a whole lot of tension and complexity.  Figures become ground and vice versa.  I have seen people use their motif in dozens of quilts, each one subtly different; it's a technique that allows you to explore many different aspects of composition and design and understand how all the moving parts work together.

I infer from the title of Sandra's quilt, Precaria #4, that she's been using this motif for a while.  It would be interesting to see other works in this series!

Invited Artists' Workshops

Besides I am teaching workshops intensively around the world, I also invited accomplished artists come to Austin. In the near future Hai-Ou Hou and Derek Penix will come and share their artistic expertise. If you are in or near Austin Texas, Please check my invited Artists' Workshops page and sign up.

I believe many of you have participated or plan to attend various plein-air events. Painting quickly and manage the essence of scene is the key for being successful. Hai-Ou's workshop will help you to accelerate your painting speed and keep the paint quality loose and dynamic. If you participate quick-draw or any plein air activities, Her technique will be directly beneficial.

You know I just came back from this year's OPA National Show. Do you know who has won the Best of the show ($30,000)? Yes he is Derek Penix. I am so happy that Derek will come to Austin to teach. He has very special way to manipulate colors and texture to give his painting a bold and energetic expression. He will share his approaches of alternating warm and cool and complementary colors to create a very Impressionistic painting.

I feel I have a mission of bringing high quality art education programs to the central Texas area. I hope you can benefit from those programs and bring your art to a higher level.

Making myself clearer 1

After I posted about two pieced quilts that I liked at FNF, Sandy left a comment:  Not being a piecer/patchworker I am not quite sure what you mean by some statements.  For Maria Shell's work, " (By the way, it may make you jealous to hear that each of the nine blocks in this quilt was also the subject of its very own nine-block quilt.)" 

Sandy, you're right -- I was kind of speaking in code.  Let me try again and see if I can describe more clearly what I was trying to say.

I happen to know a lot about this quilt and its provenance, because I had the privilege of making a presentation to the SAQA conference last month about artists who work in series, and Maria was one of them.  So I can not only tell you some of the back story, but show pictures.  For several years Maria has been working with the traditional Crossed Square block.

She makes a complex pieced block like this small one-block quilt:

Maria Shell, Way to Grace's

...and then multiplies it to make a larger quilt.

Maria Shell, Tribe

When she started working with print fabrics instead of solids, her quilts were looking like this (and I was wrong in saying that they were nine-block quilts -- they had four blocks, plus sashing):

Maria Shell, Solstice

Maria Shell, Deep Blue Sea

Eventually she made nine such quilts, and didn't they make a striking display all hung together?

(And you can see they were pretty big!)

Finally, she combined one block from each of the nine quilts and put them together into the nine-block quilt in the show.

Maria Shell, Wall of Sound

Portait Book Images!

My portrait book is done and ready for the printer! It should become available end of summer. Here's an image for you:

FNF 2 -- pieced quilts

Is there some strange alignment of the planets this spring to make pieced quilts the favorite of quilt show jurors everywhere?  No sooner did I finish telling you about all the pieced quilts at Art Quilt Elements last month than I get to tell you about all the pieced quilts at Form, Not Function.

Probably my favorite was Maria Shell's, which also won the award of excellence given by River City Fiber Artists (full disclosure: I'm a member of that group, and we got to choose who got our award, so there's probably some cause-and-effect relationship).

Maria Shell, Wall of Sound (details below)

Maria works almost exclusively with the traditional Crossed Squares quilt block, but her treatment of it is anything but traditional.  She uses commercial prints so a lot of the action in this quilt comes from the store, but there's still lots and lots of piecing there.

The energy in this quilt is almost nuclear as it explodes in a riot of color and pattern.  (By the way, it may make you jealous to hear that each of the nine blocks in this quilt was also the subject of its very own nine-block quilt.)

Sandra Palmer Ciolino, Precaria #4: Kinetics (detail below)

Here's a classic "motif" quilt, using a simple block over and over in different shapes, sizes and configurations to make a complex overall pattern.  I liked the slightly offbeat color palette, the meticulous piecing and wonderful quilting.

More pieced quilts tomorrow for your viewing pleasure.

Sunday funnies 15

It's a phone booth, on a dock on the Amazon.  (I kept waiting for Clark Kent to duck in and become Birdman.)

"Demo for OPA National 2016"

I did this still life demonstration for the Oil Painters of America 2016 at Dallas. It is a major milestone for my art career. I am so honored to show my art at this highly prestigious art community. Many my audiences are my teachers. I am glad I did OK.

Form, Not Function opens at Carnegie Center

Last night was the opening of Form, Not Function: Quilt Art at the Carnegie, with a quite different look this year.  Instead of 24-30 quilts as has been the case for most past years, there are only 20, with no little ones at all.  I have helped to hang this show several times in the past, and some years it was a struggle to find room for all the accepted pieces, but this year the gallery looks especially spacious and elegant with relatively few quilts.

Of course you want to know about best in show, so I'll tell you that right off:

Niraja Lorenz, Strange Attractor #13 -- Skyview (details below)

Until last month I had never even heard Lorenz's name, but was impressed by her piece in Art Quilt Elements in Wayne PA.  (I wrote about it here.)  Her style is so distinctive that when I saw this piece on the wall at FNF I knew immediately whose it was.

Lorenz uses lots of striped panels in her intricately patterned quilts, and all of them are pieced from solids, so you are looking at a lot of work here.

And may I be forgiven for observing that sections of her work look a whole like sections of my own work?

Lorenz detail

Loomis detail

I'll show you other pieces from the show in subsequent posts, so stay tuned.

Form, Not Function opens tonight -- with something missing

I went to the Carnegie Center for Art and History earlier this week to look at the quilts in Form, Not Function: Quilt Art at the Carnegie, which opens this evening.  The purpose: to choose a winner for the award for political and social commentary that I have given every year since 2006.  I do this award because I want to encourage people to make quilts on serious, even dark subjects, art that will challenge society and its priorities and decisions.  Several times in the past there have been more than one piece in FNF that fits the description, and I've had a hard time choosing the winner.

But I was surprised and disappointed to find that not one of the 20 quilts in this year's show had even the remotest connection to political and social commentary.  They were beautiful quilts, most of them with superior craftsmanship, but none of them seemed to be about anything that I could identify as socially relevant.  Most of the quilts were abstract, so I even looked at the titles to see if any were called something like "climate change" or "homeless" or "failing infrastructure" or "remembering Glass-Steagall" that I could infer to be social or political.  No such luck.

I don't know why there was nothing in this year's show that would qualify, and hope it's only a glitch, that commentary will be back with a bang next time.

"Pink Rose Study 02"

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Flower painting, I have done quite a bit, but I still see much more room for improvement. I'd like to paint from life as much as possible, but this one I did from a photo. When I in a studying mode, I tend to paint very slowly. The flower does not want to sit still. It grows right in front of me. Some time I paint so slowly that I feel I was chasing the growth of the flower.

I have started an new online activity: selling my art directly from my website. Please check my "Available Paintings" web page. I want to be the gallery owner of my own art. I appreciate all of you to support my new endeavor in this part of art business. If you have any suggestions, please let me know. Thanks.

Sewing too much

Any time you make a big quilt there's a lot of repetitive motion involved, but it's interesting how much variation there is in the pattern of work.  Some quilts involve a lot of design and thinking, with considerable design wall time breaking up your actual sewing.  Others have repeating rhythms of sew and wrestle -- for instance, when you're quilting parallel lines all the way across a big piece.  It may take three minutes to stitch a line, then a minute or more to clip the threads and manhandle the quilt back into position for the next line.  Still others have the sewing interrupted by pressing or trimming.

I suspect that all these work patterns are better for your body than the quilt involving hours and hours of pure sewing, where your machine gets overheated and your mind and body get totally overloaded.

I'm working on a piece like that right now.  It's a second flag quilt, in which the red stripes aren't made of red fabric, but of dense red quilting on a white background.  The lines of stitching are about 1/8 inch apart, and the stripes are 5 inches wide by 98 inches long, so that's a lot of sewing.

Once a panel has been set up for sewing, with its sandwich made and the right color thread on the machine, I JUST have to sit there for a couple of hours and sew.  It's easy work, because the panels are small, so no need to wrestle with them. And the stitching is almost continuous, because you just turn the panel around when you get to the edge and head right back in the opposite direction.

The last time I had a project like this, with hours and hours of unmitigated machine stitching, I discovered to my surprise and dismay that my right knee was in pain -- who knew that just working the pedal of a sewing machine could damage your body?  I had to finish my Quilt National piece with the left foot on the pedal, and who knew that it would be so difficult to do that?  Almost as hard as writing with your wrong hand.

But over the weekend I encountered a new symptom of sewing machine overload.  I use a knee lever to lift the presser foot, and when it's not in use, the lever hangs down very close to your right calf.  The other night in my third or fourth hour of sewing I became unpleasantly aware of that lever grazing my calf while I was stitching.  I tried to shift my foot pedal or my chair or my leg to pull away, but couldn't find a way to avoid the lever.  It wasn't a painful pressure, not even a firm presence, just a constant little nudge there against me, and I started getting vaguely hysterical, as though imaginary ants were crawling all over my skin.  I've told you before that I am like the Princess and the Pea, overly sensitive to minuscule physical irritations, and this one was really getting to me.

I finally took the lever out and sewed with lots of empty space to the right of me.  But I was quickly reminded why I love the knee lever: it takes more time and motion to turn your sewing when you have to raise the presser foot by hand.  I soldiered on for another hour or so doing it the old-fashioned way, then gave up.  (I know this is a first-world problem, but still...)

Fortunately when I returned to the machine the next day and put the lever back for a test run, it didn't bother me any more.  In fact, I could comfortably sit without it touching me at all unless it was in use.  Why hadn't I need able to find that position the might before?

I have many, many hours of sewing ahead of me on this quilt, and then there's a third one to come.  I guess I'll have to be vigilant about pacing myself on the machine so I don't end up the summer as an invalid, either mental or physical.  Meanwhile, I have four stripes finished and sewed together, and well on my way to the fifth one, so I guess I'm about 35% done.  It's coming along!