Through the years we've occasionally seen these regal fowl flying along the shoreline in their migration north.
This is the first time we've ever seen them in the water. There is a strong wind from the northwest. I guess they got tired of flying headlong into it and decided to paddle north for a bit.
I kept waiting to take a photo of them taking off the water, but they just kept paddling.
The first quilting is done on the foremost trees and the top edges of the dark green forest with a lively variegated mix of greens. I dropped down from those top edges to add spots of brightness here and there.
The second round of quilting filled in the dark green forest with a variegated thread that is a blend of greens that nearly matches the fabric.
The third round of stitching is done on the trees up in the mountains with a variegated blend of muted green, gold, and rust colors.
I stitched varying sizes of zig-zag patterns since these are pine tree forests of the Rocky Mountain National Park. All the top threads are King Tut by Superior Threads and bobbin thread is Bottom Line ... also by S.T's. The free-motion quilting is done on a Brother Nouvelle 1500S. I very much want to love this machine, but the overly sensitive tension settings drives me nuts. Do any of you have this model? Do you have any tricks to maintaining an even tension? Both the top and bobbin tensions change while I'm stitching ... aargh!
I used my "ortwork" collage technique. I constructed it separately from Susan's whole piece. It consists of silk flowers, "bits & pieces", and roving collaged over a hand-painted background fabric plus a thin layer of batting. Tulle netting and free-motion quilting holds it all together. A bit more quilting secures it to Susan's large piece.
I have had the experience of being among such an array of wild flowers on a sunny blue skied day and have definitely felt their "power" ... I just collapsed and didn't want to leave.
There are wonderful hand stamped papers and fabric, a length of fun yarn, a hank of roving, fine copper mesh pieces, interesting beads and a pair of beautiful wooden earrings.
Soon photos of individual parts and my thoughts about the whole piece will be posted. I'm thinking some of those goodies from Susan will end up on the finished piece.
My husband's two cousins and their wives were visiting the cottage for a few days. My friend, Helen, came to spend the day playing in the studio with us.
Just before Helen left I took this photo of her and the cousin's wives birds. My bird had not progressed very far during the day due my hostess duties and helping each of them with unfamiliar machines as well as some of the steps involved in creating their birds. Poor thing had no feet, wings, nor eyes.
By the end of the day he got his cow bird wings to become the MaCowCowa bird. He found his roosting place on the ledge above the wood-burning stove in the living room.
My husband and I created the tile mosaic in 1999 to make a fire proof barrier for the heat generated by the chimney. Elvis is peering out of the top of Big Red, the lighthouse.
My work is rarely populated with recognizable forms whether human or mystical, but it often features flowers. So hiding a fairy among flowers was the most natural and easiest choice for me.
Creating the fairy was experimentation and play. I drew several versions of her. The chosen one's outline was traced onto freezer paper. I cut away her form to get an outline of her face and shoulders. The waxy side of the paper was ironed onto a piece of hand-painted silk. A flesh colored oil stick pastel was used to shade her skin. I ran the pastel across the rough surface on a piece of paper, then used a stiff bristled paint brush to pick some of it up to color the skin area exposed within the freezer paper template. I kept applying the pastel until it was built up enough to be seen against the background. I used a permanent pen to draw her facial features. If I were to do this again, I would use a light brown ink rather than black. However, black is what I had at the moment. Then her wings were traced from my drawing onto the silk with that same pen. I ended up painting them with a mixture of silver and white acrylic paint plus Gloss Medium to make them shimmer. Yarn, roving, and thread form her hair.
I took the above photo from that window. Stepped out the door and took this one less than a minute later.
By the time I got down the steps and the path to the deck overlooking the beach this part of the world was treated to a glorious sunset.
I love the horizon clouds reflected in the big shoreline puddle that is created by the extraordinarily high water table in the ground. Every once in a while I have a concern that some of my lake series quilts are too colorful. Sunsets like this are a confirmation that they're not "over the top" unrealistic ... that my memories and feelings about the lake are grounded in real moments scattered through many years of visual experiences.
Our son, Kemper, was the most successful with his new, wide angle digital camera. There was much lightening in this fast approaching rolling wave of clouds. Of the many shots taken, this is the only one that captured a streak.
At the point in the photo below we vacated the deck overlooking the beach with a fast retreat into the cottage. We thought surely there would be water spouts (tornadoes over water) dipping down from these rolling cloud banks, but we didn't spot any.
Soon after getting inside the cottage we were under the edge of that storm. It took about twenty minutes from the time we noticed that strange bank of clouds on the horizon until this point.
This photo was taken that same Sunday morning after the huge thunder storm the night before.
The inner lake that connects to Lake Michigan via the channel with the big red lighthouse had flooded the road. My husband has been coming here for over seventy years and has never seen this phenomenon. Once in a while there has been a big puddle over one side of the road, but never a flood.
Arlee's dangling appendages presented a challenge to work around. I figure they serve to push my flat area more into the background. After all, weeds can hardlty be noticed growing in the hard dirt where nothing else will sprout.
The plants in this piece are actual weeds that I had picked along a rocky bed of a stream in Colorado. They were pounded with a flat river stone into a piece of muslin. That was done several years ago and the natural dyes had faded so I used crayons to give them color. I heat set the crayons to melt the wax and pigment into the fabric. A fusible web was ironed on the back before I cut them out and adhered them to the background fabrics.
Across the River (24"x 24") - 2007
Regeneration (60"x34") - 2006
Laying them in basic tree shapes on a sheet of water soluble stabilizer that has been lightly misted with a spray adhesive. To add leaves, I cut thin strips of many colors of green fabric and snipped bits directly onto the stabilizer. I let them fall "wherever".
I kept building up branches and trunks and lots of leaves. Then laid another layer of water soluble stabilizer on top. It also had been lightly misted with a spray adhesive.
That "sandwich" of tree pieces was heavily stitched making sure that all lines of stitching crossed a number of times to ensure that all of these tiny pieces are connected. Click the photo to see a close-up of the stitching. I used a Microtex needle and Superior's polyester thread ... smoke in the top and clear in the bobbin (because I have more clear than smoke).
I slipped a plastic bag over a cutting board to give support to the lacy trees while I ran water over it to dissolve the stabilizer. I set the nozzle to a light spray to more easily wash away the sticky stuff.
I patted it dry with paper towels while it was still supported by the cutting board.
It was easy to pick up and lay on this plastic grid to dry flat.
I've made several batches of scrub trees and bushes for the foreground shore of the mountain lake piece. That is the first project I'll work on when I get to Michigan.
I had previously sent ATC's to Caroline and Julie who also added their skills and imagination to that piece. Caroline's got in the mail before I thought to take a picture of it. Here's both sides of Julie's.
My Exquisite Corpse piece will be presented here with close-up photos when it arrives in the mail from Canada. The last two mailings from there to here have taken sooooooo long ... nearly five weeks for one and two+ weeks and still counting for this one. Is it the gas prices? Customs? What?
