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Wednesday, February 16, 2011

My Version of a Valentine

For a good number of years, probably since I realized how important quilting is in my life, I have given Tom a little quilt for Valentine's Day.  Well, usually it is a quilt-in-progress, a.k.a. a quilt top, that many times adds to the height of my quilts-in-progress pile.  Last year I did manage to finish the quilt

This year, instead of hand-dyes, his quilt top was hand painted:
This is one of the pieces that began life as an exercise in the fabric painting class I talked about in my last post.   Our instructions were to try printing with string on a brayer and that technique produced the original blue lines that looked like bark to me.  I did a brown color wash over that and finished it off with the leaf print.  

At first I thought the print had not worked because the house was dry as the furnace fought the arctic temperatures we were having, and any paint on my palette or on the leaf itself dried almost immediately so the print was not as clear or "complete" as others I had done.   But when I looked at it the next day I realized  I liked it--and that it would make the perfect gift for my tree-loving husband.  

I have not quilted it yet and that may change its look a bit so I thought I'd share it with you now.  And, if you are still with me, thanks for the company.




3 comments:

Vic said...

I'm currently viewing this on a netbook, which is not ideal, but I like the effect. For me, the partially see-through nature of the leaf adds to the illusion that the leaf is suspended above the trunk. There is also a fortuitous "shadow" area to the left that adds to the three-dimensionality. I have a feeling that a fully opaque leaf would have resulted in a less dimensional impression.

I really like the bark as background and the composition in general.

IHaveANotion ~ Kelly Jackson said...

Wow....that is really neat. I admire your willingness to try new things and play with what comes of your work. What fun.

Smiles,
Kelly

quilthexle said...

What a wonderful present to your husband. I just love how your piece resembles bark, with a leaf on top. Beautiful ! Will be fun to watch what you do to it next ;-))