Monday, October 29, 2007

Blossom girl continues...

No, really, I do other things than going through old knitting magazines...
Thanks for the comments, though. Gosh, they're fun. Don't encourage me too much, ladies, 'cause I've also got some Beehive pattern books from the '30's and '40's that are ripe for lampooning!

Yesterday afternoon and last night I got back to working on the Blossom Girl. Once I traced her on to the fabric (Roc-Lon bleached muslin with mechanical pencil) I untaped everything from the wall upstairs and moved it down into my studio. I'm pretty lucky with the size of my space - there was room enough for both drawings to be pinned to my design wall, then to work at the sewing table (a twin to our dining table...DH made them both for me).

When working with Tsukineko inks I find it's best to work up in layers of colour, much like watercolour (all those who followed me through this process in Jan/Feb for the Cherub Quilt might not find this part all that interesting).

The first wash was done in Banana Creme (their colour name). It was applied to the parts of the painting that are going to have skin tones, or as under painting for areas like leaves and the circle that she's sitting in.

The next wash was done in Apricot - again focusing on the areas the will be warmest in colour.

This time, just so that I could keep an eye on how the whole piece is developing, I started in with the Orchid colour, then the Celadon. Normally I'd work the warm tones all the way up through their next two (at least) washes, but because the piece is so big, it was better to work over larger areas.

If you enlarge the photo at left you'll see some of the roses to the far left have already had some dark purple (purple mist? I'll have to look up that name) shadows pushed into them.

I know things look a little amorphous at this point, but stick with me...it'll all come together. And if it doesn't? I've got another piece of muslin waiting in the wings.

Happy Monday,

Lisa

(P.S. I'm totally jealous of all you Houston travellers out there....have fun, have fun, have FUN)
:)
L

3 comments:

Vicki W said...

It's looking wonderful to me so far. I've never done any fabric painting like this so it's really interesting to see each step. On, and I'll try to have some fun on Houston!

arlee said...

Nice to see the process and progress--she's going to be lovely!

QuiltNut Creations said...

obviously i have not visited in a long while! this is fantastic Lisa!