No More Ships

I've just finished photographing my latest art quilt, measuring the dimensions and setting it up into my online gallery. Those are the detailed tasks that are always a pleasure to do, bringing some closure to a piece that has consumed a lot of my physical and mental efforts over the last couple of months.

Now it's time to send it out into the world....the first stop is the TD-Art Gallery Paint In, more commonly know as the Moss Street Paint In this coming Saturday. No More Ships will be the feature piece, it's the largest art quilt I've ever done 44 1/2" x 59". It's my intention to work large (for me) in the future, after visiting a couple of high end art quilt shows recently, I like those larger works....going to give it a try!

No More Ships is the latest in my ongoing series Inspired by Structure which focuses on the abandoned buildings of the Burrard Shipyards in North Vancouver. I'll be continuing to work on this for the foreseeable future.

The fabrics I used are either hand painted (the sky) or dyed and painted. I tried some of the painted fabrics and then decided they were too stark so toned down the contrast with some textile paint!

The sleeve and label will be sewn on this afternoon and then it'll be one more item checked off the list for the weekend. If you're around Victoria, please stop by at Booth #114, south of May Street.

Here's a detail shot of the building:

Why Was I "Left Behind"?

While working in my current series that uses "structure" as my theme I made a piece titled "Left Behind" that was inspired by the photos I had taken at the Burrard Shipyards in North Vancouver. Here's the picture:

 I cropped the photo and made it into grey scale:

For some reason I thought I should incorporate the modern building in the background and make that part of the design. I think it was a mistake, while we can identify it as a component in the photograph, in the quilt it didn't make any sense....

In fact it was turned down from two juried shows.....it was Left Behind.

So yesterday I masked off the "good" areas and painted over the background with a sponge roller. One of the things I like about the effect is the texture created by the quilting, lots of areas of lines and shapes in there. At first I used pure white paint, which seemed a little stark, so I then reapplied a light grey over top to tone it down.

 A much better result, I'm happier with the quilt now and I will try entering it again. Maybe it won't get Left Behind!

It's a Good, Good Feeling!

.....when you're done and it's turned out pretty fine! Over the past couple years I've been galumping through a series that I've called Burrard, named after an abandoned shipyard in North Vancouver. There are some terrific old warehouses, big cranes and old decaying stuff there and I took lots of photos that I'm interpreting into art.

Perhaps you remember my blog post about the background/sky that I had pieced and painted? Then some dye on my print table came through? Yikes, it was a scary time....but the subtle colouring (after a good washing and over painting) lends a bit of character to the piece. Least, that's what I'm telling myself. Oh, and then I realized I'd styled the rafters at the wrong angles, luckily it wasn't too late! If you'd like to read back to that blog post, it's here: http://susanpm.blogspot.ca/2017/02/getting-there-getting-there.html

Now The Warehouse is done, except for the paper work (the measuring, the description, the inventory and putting into my archive listings) and I'm happy.

The Warehouse 37" x 47"

The Warehouse - detail

The Warehouse - detail

I'm heading back to my photo files to see what else inspires me for the next piece. I tend to finish (or close to) one piece before starting another - too many years of UFO's! How about you?

Getting There, getting there....

For me, happiness is a few hours in the studio....this week I was able to get over the hump with a new piece in my Burrard series, after a few false starts. Mostly the challenges that I mentioned in my blog post of January 30th: http://susanpm.blogspot.ca/2017/01/what-am-i-afraid-of.html

I had decided to paint the sky with diluted white textile paint to tone down the contrast of the black and white fabrics. As I was doing this, I though....gee, I should have put a plastic sheet over the print table....because I watched the damp fabrics wick up some dye residue from the table, red, blue, green and some bright orange.....!!!! Gosh Darn was the polite term!

So, thinking through what I should do, I waited for the paint to dry and rinsed out the fabrics with a bit of Oxy-Clean......then hung it to dry. After it was dry I ironed it thoroughly, hoping that I could get it all to lay flat! I painted the fabrics again (this time with plastic underneath) let them dry and heat set! Most of the dye had come out and the remainder blended into the the over all fabric collage. Lesson Learned!

I added the fabrics at the bottom in a collage format as well and began adding the torn strips for the steel girders....with three packs of 1/4" Steam a Seam tape!

I was all set to begin pressing in place and double checked my photo reference......

Ooooppps, the girders do not reach to the top....they are set at an angle

Well, good thing they're not fused down.....some re-positioning and its making more sense:

Now its ready to come off the design wall, get a heavy dose of steam and some additional pieces fused in place. The remaining girder lines will be done with stitching heavier black threads. Then onto the quilting stage.

I had an art consultant visit the studio this morning and she mentioned a gallery space in town that might be interested in my work.....

What Do You Think?

I'm just finishing a piece that I want to enter into the Quilts=Art=Quilts Exhibition http://www.schweinfurthartcenter.org/, just need to take out some basting and get it photographed. The deadline is July 25th so I've got masses of time, right? I'll post a photo of it once I know if its been accepted.
So here's my dilemma: I want to continue working with the theme  that began with the first piece, an abstraction of an abandoned shipyard in North Vancouver. I took several photos years ago that I keep coming back to as design inspiration.
But I can't decide which one I should work with....so you get to vote! I like them all and will probably create a piece from each of them, but I just want to get started!
In no particular order, should it be Photo#1:

 Photo #2

 Or Photo #3

You can leave your vote in the comments below.... and in case you are wondering, here's link to some history of the site: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burrard_Dry_Dock