"No Hitter" Background

  One of my favorite things about this piece is the background. I like how it makes him look like he's high up on the mound with a big sky behind him.

To make the background I pulled out about three different blue fabrics that reminded me of sky. These pieces were cut into different shaped squares and rectangles. The placement of the pieces is a trial and error process. 

This is one iteration. I place the ball player next to the background so I can see how he looks next to the fabrics. It is important to have enough contrast to allow the ball player to stand out.









 
 Another iteration is shown here. This one is pretty close to the final version. It's time to move on to the grass and mound!

Thanks for visiting my blog!

"No Hitter" - Progress Photos

  This is my most recent portrait piece and I'm calling it "No Hitter." It is based on a photo of my nephew Shane when he was in little league. Here is the photo that I have based it on:


This photo was taken by one of his parents.

I took the photo and traced a line drawing from it. I enlarged the line drawing and used that as my pattern.











My first step is to paint the exposed body parts. I use white cotton fabric for that. Here are some photos of the painting process:




It looks pretty ugly here, but it improves as you keep going.

Here is my palette:



After all the body parts are painted it is on to the clothing. I used a commercial fabric and enhanced it to give shadows and highlights. Here is a photo showing the shadows on the pants:
















I'll show more on this art quilt process in my next post. Thanks for visiting my blog!