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Saturday, January 20, 2007

Nude in Taffeta - Putting Closure on an Unfinished Quilt

Well, this piece is a work in progress. I started it last summer by painting some synthetic taffeta I brought home from my mother's place when she was moving.

I wanted to sketch a female figure with thread on this fabric. Don't ask me why - it was just an idea that I came up with. I loved the colors and shades the paint left on the fabric and I wanted to preserve that as much as possible.

When it came time to do the thread work, I was scared and overwhelmed - paralyzed. It has been pinned on my design wall unfinished for months, so today I decided I would give it a go for better or worse. It needs to move off my design wall so I can move on.

Here is the result of today's stitching. Better than I thought it might be, but not exactly as good as the mental image that started me on this piece. I wanted to keep the image sketchy and somewhat impressionistic, but it seems to be lost on the fabric (and the face looks unhappy ... . er . . . demonic!). I am contemplating going in with another layer of paint, crayon, paintstick, or colored pencil - to either darken the figure or the background or to add shadows somewhere.

Any suggestions?

2 comments:

Shirley Goodwin said...

I would certainly darken up the image, asit's quite hard to see. Maybe just the outline, or highlighting the outline in some way. Your nude does look very cross!

Miami Threads said...

Your nude is great. Try boosting the contrast of your image. Did you take the photo with a flash? It might show up better if the light is diffused.

Michaele Shapiro