BLOG 468

Blog 468

 

I am definitely in creative mode now and I had a fancy to work on pansies this week. At the moment this is just playing and the process is explorative so you could call it a fact finding mission. I have created quilts with fused fabrics many times before, the first time probably 18 to 20 years ago, but I still need to be comfortable with the process so the time spent playing is invaluable. So I surrounded myself with art books/cards/sketches, I dug out fabric already fused and left over from other projects and I prepared small pieces of batik in the colours I thought would be useful. Finally, a simple pansy pattern was drafted and I was ready to start.

 

 

             Inspiration

 

            Left overs

 

               Pattern 10”

 

              Fusing fabric

 

             Fusible on WS

 

After trimming away the un-fused strips of fabric which can be clearly seen above, I made a decision to work entirely in circles. The whole idea of this process is to be painterly and to allow the fabrics to blend one into another so a variety of colour and tones is essential. Here is a sequence of pictures to illustrate my progress.

 

            Circles

 

                Pansy

 

              Background?

            Another palette

 

             Progress

 

 

And then I had a break and came back refreshed the next day. In the meantime I had been thinking! This is inevitably a dangerous process as it usually involves under-mining the progress of the day before! I had started to question the virtue of using circles and I decided I wanted to make the pansy look as though I had used brush strokes to ‘paint’ it! This led to another play day, this time using strips cut with pinking shears. Here is another sequence of pictures to show my progress.

               Alternative method

 

 

           Pansy

 

             Comparison of methods

 

                 Pansies and buds

 

 

At the time this blog is posted I have no idea which method I prefer nor how I will choose to continue. Perhaps I need to play some more!