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Fabric Collage Landscape Part 4

Fabric Collage Landscape Part 4

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This is the last in the series of posts about the fabric collage landscape that I have been creating. If you have missed the prior posts, just click on the links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. I began working on the foreground by fusing the green fabric to the foreground and creating some rocks.

I used a dark purple fabric for the shadowed parts of the rocks. Then I created some paper patterns for the sunlit areas. I wanted to try and get the perspective and shape of the rocks correct before I cut any fabric. I only had a small amount of the light purple fabric and didn’t want to run out because of poor cutting choices. So I kept refining the paper pieces as I went along.

Once I had the rocks started, I began stitching the trees along the near shore line. I used cut up bits of dark green fabric and then stitched over them. As I said in previous posts, the fabric shifts around and so I wasn’t able to be precious about placement of the fabric. I think this is why it looks more natural because I didn’t have a lot of control over where everything ended up. You can see in the photos above the progression from left to right of the trees and then added a few more moving into the foreground. I actually probably should have done the ground cover first but I didn’t think of it.

So then I added in the ground cover. The part that is further away used a duller color and I used a piece of cheesecloth that had also been rusted. So that gave the rusty color which I think really adds to a more natural look. I kept testing the rocks as I went to see how everything was coming together. I also added a brighter green ground cover in the center foreground where the rocks are sitting. Again, it was a combination of chopped up fabric, thread and yarn.

Next was to create the rocks with fabric. The center photo shows how I added a sheer layer of painted nylon organza to achieve shadows on the rocks. The right photo shows all the rocks completed and fused down. Now on to add stitching details to the rocks.

I started with a dark grey thread in the shadowed areas of the rocks. All of the stitching is done with free motion machine stitching. Then I added black thread as the rocks definitely needed more darkness. The last thread I used was a light purple thread for highlights. I did go back in in several areas and add more grey to get the effect I wanted.

The last step was to add greenery to the rocks on the left. I used chopped up fabric again and carefully stitched it down. This was a bit tedious as the pieces of fabric were jumping around all over the place but I managed to get them all stitched down.

So finally, I have a finished fabric collage landscape. It was a lot of effort and took a long time but I am pleased with the results. I am still contemplating what to call this one. I am planning on framing it with a matte board and black frame. Thanks Antje for giving me the “push” to create this piece. I had a great time working out how to do it and I think I will be doing more of these in the future.

Fabric Collage Landscape Part 3

Fabric Collage Landscape Part 3

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Here’s the next edition of my progress on the fabric collage landscape I have been working on.

In the photos from left to right, I worked on texturing the middle ground green area. I used a mixture of chopped up pieces of fabric, thread and yarn. I worked small areas at a time since the fabric mixture was easily shifted around as I machine stitched it. Using a wooden skewer to hold things in place definitely helps and protects wayward fingers. Once the green was all stitched in place, I noticed that the water on the left didn’t look exactly right. The portion of water going into the distance towards the left should have been shadowed by the hill behind it and not had any pink reflection. I needed to fix that.

So I covered that piece of water on the left with more of the blue green water fabric, stitched it down and then stitched along the edge of the shore and into the pink reflection to integrate it into the area better.  I also added a few more fingers of purple sheer fabric into the water on the left in front of the peninsula. Then on to more stitching details along the shoreline.

You probably can’t see a lot of difference in the photo on the left but I added black stitching along the shore line to give a bit of shadow at the water’s edge. Then in the right photo, I used a dark green thread to add some details including tree shadows into the water and little “island” bits and tree shapes on the peninsula portions.

Next I checked the green foreground again to see if I needed to fix anything else in the completed parts before I started the foreground. Another water error was definitely in evidence. Water should look like it is lying horizontally to the horizon line. My water was falling down the front because of the pink lines that were diagonal instead of horizontal. My stitching lines should have been more horizontal as well but they didn’t show as much as those pink fingers. Those needed fixing!

I used some scraps of the red sheer fabric and filled in the areas so the diagonal pink fingers were disguised. This looked much better and I was satisfied with the background and mid ground so now to move on to the foreground. Stay tuned for the next edition!

Fabric Collage Landscape Part 2

Fabric Collage Landscape Part 2

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Continuing on with the saga of the fabric collage landscape, I am steadily working my way down the piece.

I added texture to the mountains including threads, yarns and bits of cheesecloth.

I then stitched the bits down with free motion machine stitching. The trickiest part here is keeping everything in place but I just didn’t worry if things shifted. I kept going and moved things back as needed and just got it all stitched down.

I decided the grey cheesecloth was a bit much on the central mountain and added more brown cheesecloth on top. Then I stitched that in place.

Then I discovered that I didn’t like how the orange cloud and the distant mountain were so much alike. I tried stitching some darker thread on the mountain first and that helped.

But I thought it still needed a bit more attention in this area, so I added more blue stitching into the sky. I didn’t want to eliminate the orange, I just wanted more distinction between the sky and the mountain.

Next up, the central mountain needed a bit more detail. So I stitched some vertical dark lines in place. The trick is to add enough detail to get the impression you want but not to over do the distant mountains. The detail needs to be less here than in the foreground of the picture. (I just noticed that I must have stitched this part before I stitched the sky but you get the idea, I hope.)

 

Next up, I put the green mid ground in place and worked on the water. The sunset reflection had felt a little dark so I place a piece of light blue fabric in that portion instead of the blue green going all the way across. I then added a blue purple sheer fabric covered with a red sheer fabric. I messed around with the edges to make them look more natural. You can see here on the left if you look closely that there is a straight line going down the right side of the sunset reflection, that is where the blue green fabric butts up against the light blue fabric. I cut that edge in V’s so that wouldn’t catch my eye so much. I also played around with foreground fabric to see how it would eventually look with more green added at the bottom of the picture.

I then stitched the water into place. I wanted the water to have minimal stitching and texture so it would appear flat against the rest of the textured landscape.

Then I added the green mid ground pieces and fused them down with the iron.  You will notice that there is some white in one of the green mid ground pieces. The original photo that I was inspired by had snow in the mountains. In the end, I decided not to have snow in my picture so that will be covered up soon.

Next time I will show you texturing the green mid ground and some changes I ended up making to the water. Luckily, this is a forgiving process so mistakes can be covered up pretty easily.

Fabric Collage Landscape Part 1

Fabric Collage Landscape Part 1

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I was inspired by Antje’s post recently about creating a fabric landscape. I have had this on my list of things I wanted to do for a long time. So thanks Antje, for giving me the push to get it started. I have piles of hand dyed and commercial fabric. Many are just small pieces and scraps and I thought this would be a good way to use some of them up.

First I needed to find some inspiration. I looked through my photos of Glacier National Park and I wanted to create a landscape featuring Hidden Lake where we had hiked several years ago. Sadly, that was one of the years that we had thick smoke in the area from wildfires so my photos were not impressive. So I googled images of Hidden Lake and found one I liked to use as inspiration.

I used heavy interfacing as a backing and then started putting together my sky fabrics. In Antje’s post, she didn’t mention anything about fusing the fabric down as I would normally do so I decided to just wing it. I added threads over the top and then started stitching.

I started with light blue thread and stitching across trying to catch all the various elements down. I switched to a darker blue thread and then to two tones of orange thread. It was a little frustrating as pieces moved as I went but I just kept going.

I had less control over where each piece of fabric was and that made it less “perfect”. But that’s OK because I was trying to see if I could do a piece that was more “abstract”. (Not that I ever get too abstract.)

Then I started finding the mountain fabric colors and giving them a trial against the sky. I did put fusible on the backs of the mountains so I could iron them in place before I added the “texture” on top.

I continued to play around with a variety of fabric pieces to get the mountains the way I wanted.

Then I moved on to the green mid ground. On the left, I am trying the fabric I might use to see if it is the correct value and color. Then I cut out pieces to the correct shape for the mid ground area with trees.

I realized at that point that I would need to place the water before I attached the green as there was water on the left hand side underneath the green “fingers” of land that stretched into the lake. So this is a trial for the water.

Then I needed the reflection of the sunset in the lake. I tried a piece of cheesecloth on the left but it was a bit too pink and also too textural. I wanted the water to feel smooth against the textures of the trees and foliage. So I found a couple of pieces of hand dyed sheer silk organza and gave them a try. It’s looking better but still feels a bit dark in the reflected area. I also tried the green in the foreground. It’s looking more like a landscape but I still have a long way to go. It takes a lot of time for the trial and error of finding the right piece of fabric for each portion of the landscape not to mention the time spent stitching.

I hope you don’t get tired of seeing the process of this fabric collage as it appears there will be several posts to go before it is completed.

Completed Tree Fragment Series

Completed Tree Fragment Series

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I promised that I would show you when I completed the Tree Fragment Birch piece that I showed you last week. I stretched the background fabric around a canvas and fused a piece of brown paper to the back to cover the fabric edges and staples. I ended up gluing the birch tree down with soft gel medium. I liked the idea of using stitches but I thought the silk fabric tree was just too fragile and I was afraid the stitching would tear it apart.

Here you can see the finished birch tree and the backing.

These are the two other pieces in this series. I was really rushing to get these all done because I am putting them into the Uncommon Threads exhibition at the Bigfork Cultural Center in September. 

Here are all three pieces together. I photographed them on the floor but you get the idea. So if you’re in the Bigfork, Montana area in September, make sure to stop by to see the exhibit.

Tree Fragments

Tree Fragments

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I posted about felting in silk paper with real leaves here. Now the question was, what to do with it? I decided to create another fiber collage similar to this one.  I still had more of the green background material and another piece of silk paper so I decided to combine those elements.

Here’s the silk paper. It was made with natural silk color and you can see the silk still had some vegetable matter in it. No worries, I had plans to make it more spotty!

I found the green background fabric and here is the felt on top of the fabric. I like that there is some of the orange color in the green background to tie it together. I then decided to cut the grey edge away from the felt and just have the silk showing on top.

I sketched a tree on to tracing paper and made sure that it was the right size for the piece. I wanted the tree to overlap the leaf piece. Sorry about the quality of the photos but tracing paper doesn’t like to have its picture taken.

I then painted the silk paper with acrylic paint and let it dry.

Then I hand stitched the felt down to the background fabric. You can see how it looks here with the edge of the felt cut away.

Then I cut out the tree and glued the branches on that needed to be glued down. So the tree is in one piece but hasn’t been attached yet. I am trying to decide how to attach the tree. I am leaning toward gluing it on at the moment. I think stitching it will be difficult but I could hand stitch it down. What do you think? How would you attach the tree? I could fuse it down with fusible too but if I was going to do that I should have already added the fusible before cutting the tree out. Hmmmmm….

 

Folder Cover and Hat Template

Folder Cover and Hat Template

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A few years ago, I made some fabric collages. I didn’t do anything with them for a long time, but eventually they all became notebook covers. I had one left, a large blue one:

fabric collageOn a whim, a few days ago I decided to make a cover for a ring-binder out of it. It wasn’t quite big enough, but luckily after a bit of a search, I found some of the backing fabric I’d sewn the collage onto. I used this to make the front sleeve. But first, I used a spare piece of the collage to make a little pen holder.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI used an offcut for the back sleeve

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI used some nice braiding I got a while ago for the straps, and hand stitched the edges with regular sewing thread, and little blanket stitches.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThe other thing I worked on this week was making a hat template. I had the same one for years, but when I cut my hair, it was too big, I have another, but I’ve worn that in the garden, so I used it to make a template. It was a bit like tracing around a lampshade or coffee cup to make a template, I had to roll it…and then squash it, and  bend it 🙂 Eventually I had what looked like my hat. Using Photoshop, I went over the curves with the circular selection tool and drew lines between the edge to where the top curves intersected. Just to make sure it was even, I copied one half, flipped it over and joined the two halves.

hat template actual size geometric outlinesNow, all I have to do is find the time to make it 🙂

3rd Quarter Challenge and a Notebook

3rd Quarter Challenge and a Notebook

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I’ve finally made a start on a couple of pieces for Karen’s 3rd Quarter Mixed Media Challenge. I chose two different types of background, the first one is a 7 x 5 inch art board, I think it is meant for watercolour paints. These are boards with a textured paper surface.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI covered this with Weldbond glue then added some cotton scrim, I added some Golden gel medium and added some more scrim, making creases, gathers and folds. Then I covered it in Gesso.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThe next background is hardboard, the same kind of thing pegboard for workshops is made out of. I got some 8 x 6 inch pieces cut years ago for making polymer clay mosaics.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI covered this in Weldbond glue, added a layer of scrim, then glued another layer of scrim on top. I covered this in Gesso too. They are both almost dry, waiting for me to forget to finish them 😉

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI finished another fabric collage notebook cover last week. This is a small A6 one. This is the front:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAAnd this is the back:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI used some flowery fabric to line the inside, and used the sewing machine to attach the flaps, then hand-stitched blanket stitch around all the edges.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAIt’s probably not quite as effective as zig-zagging with the machine, but it’s helps stop the fabric fraying.

Fabric Collage Notebook Cover

Fabric Collage Notebook Cover

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I had 3 more pieces to finish before I could put my sewing stuff away. They are all notebook covers made from fabric collage pieces I made a few years ago. I thought it was a waste to have them all rolled up and put on a shelf out of the way. I managed to get the parts that needed to be machine stitched all sewn up, and now I just need to finish off the edges by hand. I did finish one yesterday. It was from a collage of autumnal rusty colours. It’s mostly fabric, but has some art yarns sewn in too. I used some braid and delrin clips to make a closure.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThis is the back:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI had a really nice fabric piece that I’d used as part of the collage  and used this for lining to hide all the stitches:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI thought I’d have a few pictures of the other part finished pieces, but it’s raining today and really dark, but they were made from multi coloured collages. Hopefully they’ll be finished over the weekend, but here’s a supermacro just because 🙂

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

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