NC Truck Revised

I have made a couple of changes to the truck piece.  I asked for some suggestions from a friend, Ellen Lindner, who does wonderful art quilts and teaches some really fun, informative classes online and in person, ( www.AdventureQuilter.com ), and she mentioned that the background was too bright, and took the eye away from the truck.  She mentioned perhaps using tulle or a paint wash to correct it.  Well, I had already done the quilting on the background and thought the tulle would just flap in the breeze if not completely sewed down, so my alternative was to use a black paint wash.  Let me tell you, it took some courage to take that first brush stroke on the almost finished piece!  I watered down some black acrylic paint and darkened the leaves and tree, and I really think it improved the piece, don't you?  Thanks, Ellen!

I have added some FME to the fenders and the wheel well, but I think the piece is now done.  And perhaps I have the motivation to begin the larger piece.  I mounted the work onto a piece of archival foam board and will have to go out to find a suitable frame. 

An Experiment

I have a picture that I took in the backroads of North Carolina of an old, rusting truck and I have wanted to do a large quilt of it for awhile, just haven't had the time to start.  The project seemed a bit daunting to me so I decided to do a small piece to kind of work out the bugs.  This is what I have assembled so far:

I intend to mat and frame the small piece, it is 8 x 10.  I haven't completely finished it yet; I still want to add more quilting and some thread work.  I used colored pencil to do some of the shading on the truck and like the effect.  The shadow was created using a black shiny sheer with a black interfacing behind it.  The original truck was red, but I liked this mottled orange/red fabric that I have, and it sort of gives the illusion of rust.  What do you think?

Robin's Baby Quilt

My niece, Robin is expecting her first child in July.  She is a PhD and works for NASA in solar research.  She wanted a quilt with a rocket and planets, in primary colors and this is the quilt I designed for her baby boy.  It has to be quilted and my friend Irene is going to do that for me.  She has a longarm and will be able to put in more detail than I would.  As you can see, I added some coronal ejections to the sun, because of Robin's profession.  I hope she likes it!