How Do You Handle Design Challenges?

Imagine being given a photo of Italian art to use as design inspiration.....how would you handle it?  Would you use the imagery as it is - a realistic portrayal? Would you take pieces or elements of the photo and go from there? How about colours....or size? So many choices, so many decisions!

 

A few months back I was invited to create a piece of textile art based on "The Annunciation" by Fra Angelico......as a group of artists we were each given a different art work to use as a "jumping off point" for our own work. I'm not sure what images the others were given but since the exhibition is at the Italian Cultural Centre in Vancouver, I imagine the art was all Italian.....haha!

Have you ever taken part in something similar? How did you approach this? What ideas and decisions were you faced with? Sometimes it's easier to work within parameters than being given free rein. I began by turning the art into a rough portrait format and thinking how I could place the figures, I also loved the multicoloured wings of Gabriel.

After some reflection I realized that I really had never used figures or people in my work and I didn't want to start doing so......amidst all the design work I wanted to explore how this piece might be come a beginning for a new series. I had taken masses of photos during my recent walk on the Camino de Santiago and had some great interior shots of the cathedrals I had visited:

So then I started to focus on the building part of the artwork - the figures appear to be in a "cloister" which is generally "a covered walk in a convent, monastery, college, or cathedral, typically with a wall on one side and a colonnade open to a quadrangle on the other". It was beginning to make sense for me...look up to the soaring arches of the space above>

I wasn't sure about the columns, so those were eliminated. I was working at simplifying the design to some very basic shapes.

 

I'm  looking now with the idea of construction - how am I going to put it all together? As my career began as a traditional quilter, I'm familiar with a wide variety of piecing methods so I decided a "stack, slash, shuffle" method was the best choice. the widths of the sections would be the same but I could work with different lengths and thereby achieve a variety of rectangles and get some visual interest going....

The fabric had been chosen a while back, luscious hand dyed vintage linen with wonderful drape to it - a little on the heavy side but I knew the texture and thread count would be perfect.

Construction began and went smoothly - put together in less than a day.

 

I had pulled out a dozen or more threads for the quilting but in the end only used four - I thought some metallic would be good but changed my mind. 
And so "In the Cloister" heads off for the exhibition shortly and the shapes, imagery and design will be considered for the future, perhaps this winter would be a good time to begin!

In the Cloister

I hope you'll join me at the Exhibition Opening - September 12th at 7pm. at the Italian Cultural Centre in Vancouver.

 

Fabric and Threads, Threads and Fabric....

Like most of you, I'm always checking out places to buy supplies and find items for my art work. Many of us shop at the local quilt shop for our fabric, books and notions, and its necessary to support our nearby businesses! Often though, I find that I need odd items or large quantities of certain things so my searches often take me further afield.
I buy my PFD (prepared for dyeing) cotton from a local wholesaler, I am probably their most boring customer as its the ONLY item I order from them....plain white! But lots of it!
But I find my other fabrics in a variety of other places.! When I was in Florence last fall I found a flea market and bought three yards of the most luscious linen that you can imagine! The shop had a huge roll of it, I should have bought more but had run out of cash...... I want to make something extra special with that fabric, I just havent figured out what!
I often find wonderful linen  napkins and tablecloths at thrift stores. It doesnt matter to me if they are a little worn and usually the damask pattern shows up beautifully once they are dyed. I did find a whole set of linen placemats stamped with an embroidery pattern (but never worked) and they took dye and paint so nicely.
A student of mine found a wonderful linen in the drapery department of a discount fabric store and it was wonderful when dyed. And there are often interesting remnants in a very chique home decor store here in town.
I often order some silk and blends from a dye supplier in the US, the price is reasonable and sometimes there's good rates on shipping.

Threads are somethimes a little trickier to find. I used to buy crochet cotton at the thrift stores but I found once it was dyed, tiny fibres tended to to slough off of the threads. Although tatting thread is usually a better quality, but I generally don't work that fine!
Last week I found skeins of a cotton and linen blend of knitting yarn that will be beautiful when its dyed and also a skein of rayon and cotton chenille yarn that I know will be simply gorgeous! I'm looking into ordering larger quantities of skeined threads (its a lot of work putting the threads into skeins for dyeing) and always on the lookout for other supplies of both threads and fabrics.
Where do you like to shop for your supplies??