Art on Monday
Structures #97 (In Progress) ©2008
Structures #97
I spent a few hours this evening moving the lines and changing colors on this new textile painting. I see a few minor things I’ll tweak now that I see the photo on the screen then it’s done and time to start sewing the composition together.
Shelia made an interesting observation on a previous post about the colors of this work being all cool colors and wondered if it was a reaction to the hot weather. She’s definitely right, cool greens and browns and almost definitely a result of the current environment, not by design but by influence.
I think a lot of my color choices are a result of my mood and my environment. Often I can tell how I’m feeling based on the colors I’m using.
Tonight I added a few warmer colors but once it’s sewn together they will be much less noticeable. This is definitely some art to cool you off on a hot day.
Handdyed Fabric
This morning I finished ironing and folding the fabric I dyed over the weekend - 72 yards of beautiful colors. All told I spent about 15 hours doing the dyeing, washing, etc. At least I think that’s about how long it took. I’m curious so next time I’ll try to figure out how much time I do spend. I’m engineer, I like numbers.
I love having this fabric stacked up on my cutting table to look at for a while. I see some color combinations in there that are really great and might make their way into a new piece.
And check out the middle stack of fabric - more very cool colors. Although I’m happy to report I was actually cold for about 20 minutes on sunday as it rained a bit during my hike/walk up in the foothills. It was the best feeling.
I’ve been watching twitter for a while. Wasn’t sure I’d ever do anything with it but signed up quite a while back. I started posting (I refuse to say tweeting - that’s just not a word in my vocabulary yet) a few days back. If it takes a ton of time I might not keep up or maybe I’ll get addicted. We’ll see how it goes. It’s kinda funny.
You can see my profile here if you want to follow me: Lisa Call’s Twitter Profile.
For those of you not familiar with twitter - think about a mini blog - what would you write if you could only type 140 characters? Not a lot. The idea is to answer the questions "What are you doing?" several times a day. Each post is called a tweet. Makes me feel like a yellow bird to say that so I stick with "post".
Maybe it falls under the too much information category. Or maybe it doesn’t. We will see. I think there could be some real value there, I’m not sure what it is yet but I think over time my twitter participation will need to evolve into something a bit more than a few posts about my life and a public conversation with others. Or then again, maybe not.
If you are already following me you will know I bought a new laptop computer. Actually 3 of them as the kids each got one. More in my next post as to why and what and how happy I am about owning an orange computer.
Posted by Lisa in: Making Abstract Contemporary Textile Art
Tagged: dyeing fabric, making art, new laptop, Textile Paintings, twitter
Christinee said,
August 5, 2008 @ 12:43 am
Lisa,
May I ask you about the fabric you are using to dye this beautiful colors? I have tried myself several brands but most of the time I am frustrated because of the fabric being too light which ends up in having the seam allowances showing through in the quilts. Thank you sooo much in advance and sending many kind regards from Vienna, Austria, Christinee
Tina Mammoser said,
August 5, 2008 @ 2:28 am
Gorgeous colours! That middle pile….yummy. I might just have to do a painting inspired by your stack (if that’s okay?).
Welcome to Twitter. :) I liked seeing what you were doing the last couple days.
Jackie said,
August 5, 2008 @ 6:32 am
I was sure I left a comment somewhere but I can’t find it so please forgive me if you heard this before! I waas wondering how you attach the strips to each other and whether you hand quilt or machine quilt? There is a world of difference between say, the fabulous quilt in your header, and the flatter fabrics in the preparation pics. The texture of the quilted pieces is gorgeous, the colours are wonderful…I am in awe.
Candy Glendening said,
August 5, 2008 @ 7:23 am
I’m loving the mustard yellow/chartreuse colors against the lilac background in the lower left!
PaMdora said,
August 5, 2008 @ 7:40 am
But saying you’re tweeting is half the fun…..
cynthia said,
August 5, 2008 @ 9:40 am
At least you’re making art - I’m finally going to venture outside to the studio today since we’re supposed to only have a high of 85 today. It’s just been too hot and forget about firing the kiln…
Which begs the question for me - do you try to incorporate a combination of hot and cool colors in all your pieces, or is it more about the placement of the blocks and how the lines work together? How does color factor into your work? I’m really asking out of curiosity since color and ceramics is limited depending on the temp one is firing too. It’s almost an after thought for me…but not quite.
I love the photograph of the freshly dyed folded fabric and how you’ve organized the pieces.
I’m still on the fence about twitter.
Lisa Call said,
August 5, 2008 @ 6:18 pm
Christinee - I use kaufman pimatex pfd. A very tight weave fabric so it’s rare for a seam to show through as you describe.
Tina - be my guest to use it as inspiration.
Jackie - Thank you I’ll take some photos and do a post about how I attached things together. The pieces are machine quilted - with a walking foot - very dense stitching - less than 1/4 inch apart.
Candy - me too - I can see a larger piece with those colors as the feature some time.
PaMdora - tweet tweet
Cynthia - hopefully today you got going in your studio. I don’t try to do anything with my colors on a conscious level - for me it’s all intuitive. Sometimes they are balanced warm and cool, sometimes more to either side. I just let it happen. I’ll push colors that might seem weird or different just to see what happens and take myself out to an uncomfortable place (like the chartreuse on the lilac) and sometimes its good and sometimes it doesn’t see the light of day.
cher said,
August 6, 2008 @ 7:43 am
I can only post on twitter when I am home-no access from work to a lot of the sites I normally read-one reason I don’t post much on twitter-love the new colors you did and the new piece by the way…will look forward to your post on attaching the strips-as my question would be, raw edges?? I have a real problem accepting raw edges in my quilting, a personal taste thing.
Lisa Call said,
August 6, 2008 @ 9:50 am
No raw edges Cher - I construct the work using traditional quilting-making techniques (sewing seams). Pictures coming in a post soon.