Sunday, November 22, 2015

Birds

Our prompt for November was bird(s)

Marcia - I made - what else?!? - a chicken! This one is a light brown Dutch. I used yarns and ribbons on burlap to make it 3-D. I also did a lot of hand stitching in the background in "chicken scratch" pattern.


Hope - I really wanted to do a toucan but just could not get it right. Then I thought of the gambel quail. It has tiny wings and can not actually fly. I made up the little saying at the bottom in their honor. The words were hand stamped with alphabet stamps. The birds are made from various fabrics.



Joan - This is a photo I took of a tree in our town. I printed it on fabric and added a crow. I love the interesting trunk of this tree and the photo perspective looking up into the sky.



Cathey - I started with white fabric and used a Gelli plate to print the background in multiple layers. I then created a stencil and used it to silk screen print the crow and tree. The piece is not yet quilted. The group noticed that the background had an interesting translucent quality when it was backlit. The bottom photo is the same piece in front of a light source.  








Melanie - Music is Life. This piece is a take on the "tree of life." It is a tree made with music symbols and for the challenge, it has a songbird. 



Pat - I decided to experiment with quilting white free-form feathers on a black background. I plan to mount these black and white pieces on canvas. 




Shelia Rae - Old Birds. The center of this piece is crewel work that I was given. It is re-made from another piece. The green flowers are silk flowers deconstructed with button centers. The background is an old piece of vintage patchwork. I used a pencil eraser as a stamp to stamp many green dots on the background vintage block and a glue gun to apply other embellishment. 


In addition to the piece for the month, I made this piece called "Folding Space." It is another re-make from an older piece. I used a lot of hot-fix crystals, some blue sequins for the geisha's eyes and some pleating to add dimension.




The third piece I made is called PTSD comes from the visions and voices when I have a PTSD related nightmare. I started with whit fabric and used a variety of surface design techniques to creat the fabric, The text is stamped with alphabet stamps. The figure at the bottom is mean, trying to turn away from the pain and chaos and put it all behind me.