Water, Bird and Fish in Fiber Art

Life is Full of Surprises

It was great fun to see these three of my works in the Shaped by Fiber II exhibit at the Mission Viejo Library as the lead in to the great video that Laura and Luke Bisagna created.

3 of My Works in the Beyond the Edge Fiber Artists Exhibit

Always remember, never fear to experiment.  

Sometimes wonderful things happen.

© Linda Friedman 2016.  All rights reserved

Koi Drawings

As I continue developing my work for a 40" x 40" "Crossings" challenge, the red circles on the background fabric suggested bubbles to me (see  Step #1, Step #2,, Step #3, Step 4, and Step 5) .   My thoughts turned to fish.  I first conceived of salmon going upstream to spawn, but the faces of salmon seem almost mean to me.  When I think of lovely fish, koi always seem to come to mind. Koi swim over and under each other and cross through ponds of lily pads. That idea stuck with me so I set about sketching a couple of these fish. The images that evolved were from my memories of koi fish.  They are not meant to be anatomically correct. 

I first pencil sketched a couple of koi images on paper and then poster printed the sketches. 

The koi that was to become orange was printed on a 2x2 poster print setting.  The pages were then taped together and color was added with Inktense pencils.

 I also printed the koi that was to become red in the same manner; however, because of it's curve it needed to be printed in a 3x3 poster setting.

Tomorrow I will post about transferring the drawings to fabric and painting them with Setacolor fabric paints.
Note:  These posts are my participation in the 31 Day Blog Writing Challenge.  If you, too, would like to participate, link to Cheryl Sleboda's:  http://muppin.com/…/inde…/the-31-day-blog-writing-challenge/

Until tomorrow...

Always remember, never fear to experiment.  

Sometimes wonderful things happen.

© Linda Friedman 2015.  All rights reserved

Deep Sea Ballet in Fiber - Scene 3

I'm ecstatic to report that I completed my 38"(w) x 42"(l) "Deep Sea Ballet" whole cloth, art quilt last evening.   I'm quite excited about it and am chomping at the bit to post a picture of the entire piece; however, as mentioned earlier, it may be exhibited in August, so I still must wait until the exhibit has opened.  Thus, only close ups of some elements will be posted here.

Henri Matisse's work, La Danse, was a constant inspiration as I created this work.  Perhaps you can see how Matisse's painting influenced the "Deep Sea Ballet" fiber art work.

In order to accentuate the suggestion of water movement I inserted piping between the top and the batting and stitched on either side of to create a raised effect an upward motion.

 I created upward "floating" sea flora by sewing together strips of hand dyed stretchy fabric.  After the strips were sewn together, I slashed the edges and then machine stitched the streamers to the top. The green ocean bottom image was made from a loosely woven scarf that I free motion stitched over the "base" of the sea flora and to the quilt top fabric.

To further suggest ocean flora, I hand cut a stencil from freezer paper and stenciled it with Setacolor opaque and transparent paints.

 Until August, this will probably be the last time I write about this work.  Once it is hung in the exhibit, I'll post a picture of the finished work.

Thank you for taking this deep sea journey with me.  It's been great fun.

Always remember, never fear to experiment.  

Sometimes wonderful things happen.

© Linda Friedman 2015.  All rights reserved

Oceanic Flow

Snippets from fabric remnants, decorative yarns, Angelina fibers, thread clippings from previous projects and roving were stitched between a top and bottom layer of water soluble stabilizer to create the work. The photos show it atop a piece of silver lame; however, I believe this piece will shine if mounted between two pieces of glass because one can see through it, almost like looking into a fish tank.