'ASHTRAY' IN FABRIC STARTED

I started to make the previous "Ashtray" sketch in fabric!

First things first, I need six gradations of gray and purples and three of the reds.  So, knowing I'd never find what  I needed, I dyed my own!  It's great that I can even do that, you know?

Not knowing anything about how much dye I'd need or anything about making gradations, I just winged it!  I guessed, but I was pleasantly surprised at the results.

What's funny is some of the things I thought I knew turned out different.  For instance, I wanted the purples to be clear and even and the grays to be mottled.  So, I put salt on the grays thinking that would cause some variation in the coverage.  Wrong!  They ended up being more clear and even than the purples.  The purples were mottled because I had mixed Cobalt and Fuchsia dyes, and they separated somewhat.  

The lights were not as light as I wanted, so I had to add some commercial fabrics that I had, so here is the group of fabrics I'm going to work with.  I really like the deep purples, they turned out great.

Next, I took the simple line drawing to the office store and enlarged it to 18" by 24" and made a 'cartoon', a working drawing.

Using freezer paper I started cutting out the pieces.  I'm learning as I go, it's going slow to start.  Here's what it looked like at the end of day one:

And at the end of day two:

Stay tuned!

CONNECTING ART TO STITCH LESSON #1

 I found a very interesting book the other day, Connecting Art to Stitch by Sandra Meech.  I've read the first few chapters and decided to start doing some of the exercises in the book.  It's purpose is to show/teach you how to take your artwork and interpret it in fabric/sewing.  

This first lesson was about doing a simple scene in shades of gray.  I looked through my file of still life photos and came up with an old one I've always liked.  It shows an ashtray on a table with a chair, looking down from above.  I converted it to black and white in Photohop, and used a filter to simplify it.

Having read the chapter a few days before, I went out to the studio in the morning and started painting paper with acrylic paints in seven shades of gray going from white to almost black.  That in itself was quite a learning experience.  It took me a lot longer than I thought and I really enjoyed doing it because of all the things I learned.  I was really impressed with the results, too!

But, I didn't think it all the way through, and I didn't do it the way the book suggested with tracing paper and charcoal.  I just used the regular paper I would use when painting with acrylics - I should have used thinner paper.  This paper is too thick for this project, but it takes the paint well!

I used a tracing paper overlay to aid in alignment, and cut the pieces out with an exacto-knife.  The white edges of the paper show, particularly on the darker ones.  I was very disappointed at first, but since it's consistent throughout, I think it looks okay.

This is 'Ashtray' in cut painted paper, approximately 8" by 10".

I really want to do this in fabric now!