Art Quilts AroundThe World Reveal: Uniform

Today is reveal day for my Facebook art quilt group Art Quilts Around The World. The challenge theme was UNIFORM and I interpreted that as something being the same or having conformity. I prefer to make portrait quilts so I selected an Andy Warhol style with four of the SAME images of a woman and I call it "Pop Art Princess 3." What is the same in this quilt: The background; the sashing and the sashing quilting; the image of the woman; the stripe in the halter dress and the position of the stripe on the dress; the brow, lip and eye color; the variegated thread used for the skin tones; the glitter nail polish on the eye lids and the quilting on the images. What is NOT the same: The color of the hair, the skin tones and the glitter nail polish used to embellish the hair. The size of this quilt is 11.5" x 17.5"

Of the four images I like this one the best because the combination of values of the skin tone, lip and brow color seem to be the most flattering. In the upper left corner, the image with the lightest skin tones and the pink hair has too much eye brow contrast and she looks severe. Likewise the black woman in the lower right corner has too low of contrast and I can't hardly see her brows. This became a happy accident to use in my lecture on value. This situation shows how a medium color appears dark or light in relationship to the colors it is placed with.

This is my second favorite image because the woman appears serene. Even though I use the same applique pieces the women can look slightly different based on the fusing placement and the way I quilt it. The next challenge due November 30th is on TEXTURE which is a no-brainer because I use a variety of textures anyway in many of my quilts. I will now go back to prepping for my teaching job at IQF in Houston which is at the end of October!

Sunglasses Wall Hanging-Bring on Summer!!

 I did a spin on my original Angelina pattern by making four of the same bobbed hair style, two skin tones, facial features and a few sun glasses and a Andy Warhol style placement to create a fun Summer wall hanging. I added two of the glasses I used in my pattern in this wall hanging so if you have purchased this pattern from me online, from one of my classes or when I was vending you can make this quilt. 
I'm not going to make any instructions-just go with it!! I found the fun sun glasses fabric locally at Pine Street Quilts and the idea came together. I originally had just the red sun glasses on one of the women and posted a photo on Facebook. One of my fine artist friends (Mary Mc.!) commented that she thought all four of the women should have sun glasses. I had considered this and went back and pulled a few of the different frame styles from the sun glasses fabric print and color coordinated it. I love to make the eyes on the portraits so to cover them up with the sun glasses seemed sad to me. I knew I wore my sun glasses on the top of my head and sometimes peeked out over them so that is how I positioned the sun glasses without sacrificing the eyes.

  I added a small amount of red glitter nail polish to all the lips, nail polish to eyelids and a few red rhinestones to the upper left sun glasses to get the retro look!

I had most of this wall hanging finished but used it in the Open Studio at the International Quilt Festival March 28, 2015 in Chicago as a demo for my portrait quilt presentation. I was antsie to finish the wall hanging because I am personally ready for warm weather and it will be a seasonal quilt on my wall very soon!!

Pop Art Princess or Fourteen Shades of Gray

This small wall hanging began with the Valentine quilt in photo three using 16 3" squares in a vairety of values of Valentine print fabric and the woman motif raw edged fused applique. Then I chose to donate a piece to the local Taste of the Town for the local free clinic fundraiser. I didn't really have anything on hand to donate so I thought a small piece sized 12" x 12" would be easy enough to make in a short amount of time. I discovered the gray large scale print in photo 2  while I was working on the "value" quilt and the yellow and blue caught my eye. I thought why can't I use a background of grays and have the applique in blue ( eyes, nose neck/chin), yellow (hair) and red (mouth/binding.) I didn't really know what it would look like but I began anyway. I quilted the entire piece using a Madeira rayon variegated gold/blue/red combo and was thrilled with this thread. It is easy to quilt with, I love the sheen the rayon provides and there are many color combos which I am going to have to purchase in the future!! I embellished with chunky red/blue nail polish on the lips, subtle blue glitter nail polish on the eyelids, one amber colored rhinestone on the nose and a combination of two felt flower buttons and a stray blue satin button as a hair accessory. The quilt came together quickly and was so fun I made another one just like it for myself and one in another color combo which I will blog about in my next post. When this piece was photographed it reminded me of a Warhol pop art Marilyn Monroe so I am titling it "Pop Art Princess" but the one I am keeping is called "Fourteen Shades of Gray"

This is the fabric that began the inspiration-you never know what will get my attention since this fabric has been in my stash for awhile and I just noticed it now!!

This is the quilt I made for my quilter friend Suzanne who loves Valentines Day and her birthday is Feb. 13th. I enjoyed making this one and couldn't stop!! Am I making a series of quilts??

Art in the Park at Henes Park in Menominee MI

It is three days until Art in the Park at Henes Park in my community Menominee, MI.  The art show is on Sunday August 22 from 11-4.I have done one outside art show and thought I'd give it another try especially when some of my artist friends are in it. They have helped me with displays and we have cheered each other on. This small art quilt (24 x 24) was inspired by the original fabric postcard design which I enlarged and made a framed piece with one woman with blonde hair and flesh tone skin. I decided to pick by favorite colors of lime green, hot pink and red with black and white and do a Andy Warhol style piece. The four images are the same-I just changed the colors of the face, hair and lips. I went a little traditional and sashed the small squares with a fun stripe and then a chose a polka dot outer border since I love dots and it picked up the colors in the quilt. I embellished the quilt with glitter, Smooch paint (love this stuff!!) and fabric paint. It will be for sale at the art show and I call it "Four Funky Divas." I like the woman with the white hair  the best because it reminds me of the white queen in "Alice and Wonderland"