Blog, Inspiration, Textile work, Wanderings

Quilt and Stitch… Some Ideas from Australia, Part 5

Image April 24, 2015 Andree Fredette

Wanderings are a great source of inspiration for mark-making.

(My previous Quilt and Stitch posts: One, Two, Three and Four).

A few years ago, I returned from a trip to Australia with a camera-full of photos of rocks, vegetation, landscapes. And a head-full, too!

Once I got home, I got busy hand-dying fabrics to build a palette that reminded me of the rocky landscapes and the exotic vegetation I had seen Down Under…

Above, a shot of the erosion on Uluru, or Ayer’s Rock. Very interesting lines. And that colour!

The quilt top went together quite quickly and it was soon time to add the texturing layer, the quilting. I decided to try wool batting. I found it very “puffy”, light and resilient. That puffiness is useful if you are looking for a way to create contrast between areas of dense quilting and others with looser pattern repeats.

In the texturing, I tried to evoke scales, seed pods, leaf veins, water flow… I also had fun with filling-in larger shapes. It’s amazing, really, how a set of lines added inside a shape can completely transform that shape.

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Above, a palm tree on Normanby Island, south of Cairns. Everywhere I turned, trees had lots of personality. Lines, ridges, thorns…

Above, a set of thorny lines, reminding me of a certain palm tree that was covered in thorns. Nasty thing! (Yes, I accidentally brushed against it and learned a valuable lesson about watching where I am heading…)

Above, the wool batting “puffiness” quality shows up between tighter lines of stitching.

I think that by varying the scale and density of mark-making, I can achieve a more interesting surface. Big contrast.

Above, another angle.

And to close this post, a leaf that was washed ashore near Cairns. With a little filter play…

About Art, Blog, Inspiration, Photo Wednesday

Blushing Beauty – Photo Wednesday

April 22, 2015 Andree Fredette

My friend Anne Popperwell is an artist whose paintings are sensuous and beautiful.
Blushing Beauty tulips. Photo © Andrée Fredette

Last week, she brought me these gorgeous “Blushing Beauty” tulips, and explained that she planted the bulbs in her garden because she wanted to paint the flowers, when they bloomed.

Blushing Beauty tulips. Photo © Andrée Fredette

I can see why she wanted to paint them! I have never seen a tulip of that size before. They are very large and so elegant.
For several days, Beauty resided on my table.

Here is a final close-up…

Blushing Beauty tulip, close-up. Photo © Andrée Fredette

Blog, Inspiration, Just Because, Wanderings

Southern sea creatures in Seattle

April 17, 2015 Andree Fredette

On a grey and rainy day in Seattle, a visit to the Seattle Aquarium means entering a world of exuberant colours. A carnival of textures, particularly in the Southern Pacific section of the Aquarium…

I admit that I was lazy and did not write down the names of these critters, anemones, and corals. I just feasted on their looks.

The corals (or are they anemones?) are spectacularly beautiful. Luminescent, almost. Their texture is very inspiring for a textile artist.

Here is another example of coral – which looks a lot like a group of anemones but is not, apparently.

And this riot of lines is the mantle of a giant clam. I spent a good deal of time admiring its markings, a recipe for drawing lines. The underwater world is a great source of inspiration on the use of colour, contrast, and line.

Oh, and at the top of this post, the Lionfish (Pterois) is my “over the top” poster version of this very dangerous, venomous creature. This is a fish that offers plenty of warning…

In the same tank, I spotted its cousin, the Clearfin Lionfish (Pterois radiata) on a side wall. I caught a slightly out of focus shot of it, below.

Lines, lines everywhere. Some lines as a form of come hither, some lines as forms of serious warning. And colour, naturally.

Blog, Just Because, Photo Wednesday, Wanderings

Carousel – Photo Wednesday

April 15, 2015 Andree Fredette

Mini-road trips are fun.
Carousel at the Seattle Waterfront. Photo © Andrée Fredette
After visiting the Seattle aquarium, next door, we wandered along the waterfront. At the foot of the big wheel, we discovered this gorgeous old school carousel. It’s described like this: “…an original hand carved carousel from the early 20th century. It is one of the oldest working carousels in North America…”

Did you know that there were several styles of carousels in the US alone?

In the United States, the carousel industry was developed by immigrants, notably Gustav Dentzel of Germany and Dare from England, from the late 19th century. Several centers and styles for the construction of carousels emerged in the United States: Coney Island style – characterized by elaborate, and sometimes faux-jeweled, saddles – with Charles I. D. Looff; Philadelphia style – known for more realistically painted saddles – with Dentzel and the Philadelphia Toboggan Company; and Country Fair style – often with no saddles at all – with Allan Herschell and Edward Spillman of western New York, and Charles W. Parker of Kansas. The golden age of the carousel in America was the early 20th century, with large machines and elaborate animals, chariots, and decorations being built.

Here is a photo of a carousel horse, decorated in the Coney Island style, taken by Peter Greenberg:

Coney Island Style Carousel Horse, Photo by Peter Greenberg

Want to see more? Check out the slide show of the “Carousel of the Month, April 2015” (as chosen by the National Carousel Association), a 1902 Herschell-Spillman Carousel still in operation in Ocean City, Maryland. An outstanding menagerie of creatures, beautifully sculpted and painted.

About Art, Blog, Inspiration, Textile work

Quilt and Stitch… Some ideas, Part 4

April 10, 2015 Andree Fredette

If you have read the preceding parts of this series (Quilt and Stitch posts: One, Two and Three), you know that I get my ideas from nature. A leaf pattern, a stem, wave action, water… And in this case, water, definitely.

Above, this is another example of my little “corridors” or lanes, first drawn with a straight stitch (well, meandering, but straight, if you get my drift…), and then filled with a motif. I chose the curl to hint at flow, eddies of water. In this case, a piece about the desert in Australia, absent water…

It usually takes me a long time of staring at a quilt top before making a decision on exactly how I will go about texturing it. Sometimes, I will put the finished quilt top away for weeks, before bringing it out, hanging it on my work wall and taking a fresh look at it. In other cases, I know how I will proceed even before finishing the top.

In earlier examples from Quilt and Stitch Ideas, I showed examples of how some quilts “tell me” that the quilting lines or motifs should remain within colour boundaries, within the lines.

But other quilts call for lines that flow across the whole piece. I carry the lines across those boundaries, because it feels right.

This last image shows how much fun it is to compose patterns intuitively. Looks like critters coming out of the ocean, doesn’t it?

Quilts and Photography