Escher

  I went the other day to the Forney Library, which is a specialized art Library in Paris, and quite by chance found a copy of Jinny Beyer's  "Designing tessellations: the secrets of interlocking patterns", which I was able to borrow.  She explains the symmetry of them and how to make them. There is a section on Escher's complex designs and she shows how she thinks he developed some of them. It could be useful: I'm trying not to be at the last minute!

Swirl

I have finally finished my Alex Janvier inspired quilt and am at last up to date. I was not inspired by one particular quilt, but by the lines and curves of his art in general. At first I tried marbling with shaving foam, but  I ended up with a mess that was unusable, so it was back to square one. I then tried playing about with swirling lines until I decided on this design, which I decided to try on a black background instead of a light coloured one. I drew the design then cut it apart and used it as a stencil with markal paintstiks. I then machine quilted the other swirls.

Does it have to be...

Not sure whether this is the right spot to ask this question - .... BUT: does it have to be a picture/painting by the artist that is used as an inspiration for a challenge, or could it be anything about the artist that sets off inspirational process?
Thanks for feedback/discussion of this item.

Escher Puzzle

Remembered I have a puzzle.

Artist for the next quarter is....

When we lived in The Netherlands, I was so impressed by many, many Dutch masters and their incredible works. The Hague is the home and studio of my favorite artist, M.C. Escher! I can't wait to see what you create!!

Birch Tree

    I love Klimt's patterns, but I find a lot of his paintings have too much pattern. It is a bit overwhelming, especially with all the gold. I much prefer his paintings of birch trees and decided to combine both pattern and a single birch tree when I discovered some Klimt inspired patterned fabrics in my stash that I bought quite a few years ago. I was intending to include leaves hanging down, using patterns from the fabric that seemed suitable. However they looked more like seaweed. I then thought of adding some smaller birch trunks in the background, but that did not look right either. So it is a single birch in winter. I would have posted this yesterday, but for the realisation that I couldn't finish it with a facing as I usually do, as the extra wadding that I put under the tree made that part too thick  to use this method. So instead of spending about an hour and a half in putting on a facing, I spent 6 1/2 hours sewing, unsewing and resewing (repeat several times!) a pieced binding as I did not want to put a 'frame ' round it with a single coloured binding. I will avoid doing a pieced binding in future! By the time I finished it, there was not enough light left to photograph it, so I left it until today. I had hoped to  finish my Janvier quilt yesterday too, but that will have to wait until next week now.

Three Portraits                                              

is the title of my quilt and my inspiration.

My aim was that you would never guess what my inspiration was, he,he.....

At first I looked for paintings with very little colour in them and I fell for these three wonderful portraits. I decided to incorporate them all by printing them onto fabric, add Heat and Bond then cut them in bits. I  selected the bits I wanted to use and made a pleasing arrangement (to me). Fused to a heavily quilted background, then added some machine stitching.

I meant to include no gold, but couldn’t resist, starting with the border.

Had it in my head for a long time, and it turned out exactly as I had hoped. 

Now bring on the next challenge!

Mai-Britt

Birch Forest

It was difficult at first to get away from all the gold and swirls which I really like.  My first attempt was not successful.  But then I started to look at his forest scenes and thought that this was way more up my alley. 

And then I remembered an exhibit of Wolf Kahn's work that I had seen and thought I would take a look at that style which I also admired.  So this is a bit of a combination of the two. 

Klimt's Beech Forest

Wolf Kahn

Klimt - Big Brother is watching you...

As I said already in my self-introduction, Klimt is not exactly one of my favorite artists. But I took the challenge, and I found a picture of one of his drawings in one of my art books. Didn't want to have to search for long, and if working with an unpreferred artist as inspiration, it doesn't really matter which painting you use, that was my thought.

"Die Hoffnung" - Hope

I was mostly attracted by the circles on the robe, and took it from there. I had printed a fabric when visiting Ali George in Australia in November 2015 and wanted to use this. Recently I have been including pieces of a reflector fabric in some of my work, and instead of gold, this seemed an appropriate substitue for Klimt's glitter. Add some found washers, start playing around...

Then I thought the oval just looked too solid, and cut out a piece that could be added in reverse.

I added some stitching, fixing the washers and applique the reflector fabric - and then I decided I might change the orientation of the whole thing.

When it's dark and the reflector fabric is 'active', it looks like this, and could be called "Big Brother is watching you."

Although I am not exactly sure of the title yet. And might change the orientation back, if persuaded. I just have the problem that I had to finish before I will be leaving for Birmingham and my trip to the US day after tomorrow and needed to get this up before I leave...

Talented group

The time has come for me to bid farewell to this amazingly talented group. I've truly had a lot of fun with the challenges but I need to step back. Special thanks to Hilary for leading the group and organizing such a memorable trip to England. I will continue to follow the blog and look forward to seeing all your wonderful creations. xoxo

Look Mum - no bling

Oh dear, what to do with Klimt whose work provides us with so many ready made quilting patterns!  I frequently use a free cut version of the cobblestone block shape that appears in his Portrait of Adele Bloch Bauer and I lingered there a while and also looked hard at the Three Ages of Woman but decided that I couldn't do that particular title justice.

Whilst endlessly scrolling through images and interpretations on the web and my own PC I remembered a photo that I had of an eraser print by Margaret Cooter.  The original was made from carved Staedtler Mars Erasers which are 23mm x 65mm to give you a sense of the scale.

The subdivided sections put me in mind of this section of 'The Kiss'' from which I took my colour palette. Whilst I like his use of grey here, when I tried to replicate this in fabric it seemed to flatten the piece so in the end I stuck with yellows, albeit some of them quite greyed, and black.

And yes, I totally avoided any suggestion of gold, hence the title. I'm not averse to a bit of bling but it just didn't seem necessary here:

Klimt Waterfall

How to make a Klimt inspired piece without it looking like a copy?  Not sure I have succeeded but I had a lot of fun trying. I have taken every piece of material in my stash (in all senses of the word) that has gold and silver in and used them - cotton fabric, plastic, metal mesh and sheet, foiling, lame, sheers - you name it.  Add to that buttons and crystals.

Background is a hand dye from Frieda Anderson which I have screened printed.  Shapes fused in place and machine stitched. Satin stitch around the edge.

Looking forward to the next artist.

Hilary