STILL LIFE - Sheeler

After much oohing & aahing & deliberating the light bulb came on.  It took a couple of reads of the 'key ideas' behind his work and eventually I decided I would work along the lines that he often took .... photograph it, craft a drawing based on the original photograph & then use the drawing as a model for the painting. However I went back to the photograph for my painting. I liked the idea of his still life's so this was the journey I took.

This was my inspiration.

This was my photograph, however it was in colour as that was my first intention.

This was my drawing. Hilary will recognise this as this was one of my sketches I shared with her (sneaky!). My sketch pad is small so I could not fit the flower in as I wanted the vases to be big enough to play around with. 

This is my piece. I reverted to black & white as I wanted to capture the challenge of a B & W photograph.  The vases & flower are painted, cut out and fused onto the background which is stamped & painted as a whole cloth.  Then I hit a brick wall. How on earth was I going to quilt it ??? I tried using a blind hem stitch with invisible thread on the middle vase which was disastrous as it stuck out like a sore thumb. If you zoom in you probably can see the stitch marks which have proved very difficult to remove thru the paint. The result is the vases & flower are only fused.  I have quilted the 'wall' to simulate an embossed wallpaper and the table simple lines. 

At the end of it all I have loved doing this challenge & I love my piece.