Well, this should have been a doddle. His style appeals to me and it is not so dissimilar
to that of one of my favourite artists, Morandi.
But I just couldn’t come up with anything more than a copy of one or two
of his still-lifes – and that is not the point of our challenge which is to be
inspired by an artist’s work. So, it got
pushed further and further back until the deadline was scarily close.
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| My still life |
In the end I set up my own still-life in the style of
Lundstrom with a ‘shocking’ plan in mind, something I have been tempted to do for a while. This could be the solution to my problem: I
would construct a still life and then slice it up!
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| Before being cut up |
The first thing was to construct the piece, take a photo of it and
print it out a few times. I
sliced a photo vertically into four sections and moved the segments around, some
flipped. It was terrible – maybe if I
had sliced it into more segments and of varying widths… Then I cut a photo into 16 (4” squares) –
that left me with a lot of plain blue background squares. Nothing was
gelling. Next, I cut the photo into 9
squares - not a lot better. So I divided each square once diagonally. Great, it was talking to me! Now the problem was when to stop moving
triangles around and trying out different compositions – every time I walked
passed I couldn’t resist playing around.
Yesterday was crunch time and I had to make a decision as to
which layout I was happiest with. The
triangles were bonded onto the felt batting and it was machine quilted
using a variegated thread. I guess if
this was a competition/serious piece I would vary the thread colour so that the
blue background stayed in the background (ie blue thread on blue fabric, etc).
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| Finished |
It has been a fun experiment and I am quietly pleased with
the result. I feel I have fulfilled the
brief – been inspired by his work but delivered something uniquely mine.
Thanks, Mai-Britt, and roll on the next challenge.
Hilary
Wow! Very smart & brave but what a result. Love it.
ReplyDeleteI take it you fused the shapes onto a base cloth?
ReplyDeleteI fused Bondaweb over the whole piece before I cut it up. The triangles are fused to black felt and it has a backing fabric. I love felt for its stability and when I don't need 'puff'. I used rotary cutting rulers to line up the triangles and make sure everything was 'square' before ironing them down - one at a time. H
DeleteI like how you have done this technique Hilary. And being me, i see a story of a little black creature playing hide and seek! LOL
ReplyDeleteSandy in Bracknell
This is great stuff Hilary. We have all liked/loved an inspiration, yet struggled to do anything with it. You have done it, it sometimes happens in the last minute, as it did for me...... and I set the challenge.
ReplyDeleteHilary, I just realized I forgot to comment on your piece. I love it! what a great idea. I can just see you spinning the pieces every time you walk by. Just fab!
ReplyDeleteVery innovative Hilary and thank you for sharing your method .I don't do traditional quilting because corners never meet properly so I now realise there are other ways to do this !! I love the colours you used and your placement of the cut up pieces . So well constructed .
ReplyDeleteI love that blue fabric: it almost glows. Ilove what you have done with your original composition as it makes it look so much more interesting.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant Hilary! What a great idea to cut it up. And the colours help make it work. Love your quilting to tie it all together
ReplyDeleteI agree with Phil, very, very brave to cut it up but how beautifully it worked. Everything came together - your colours, stitching and the way you placed the triangles. Stunning!
ReplyDelete