Thread Painting The Flamingo

So now it's time to do the thread painting. To thread paint the flamingo I use mostly a zig zag stitch back and forth over the area. The zig zag stitch is set to a narrow width and short length. On my machine I use 1.5 for both of these settings. I have an open toe foot on the machine, feed dogs are up and the presser foot is in the darning position. I just go back and forth over the area. It is important to change thread colors as you move to another part of the image. You want to match the color to the bird. Overlap colors at the edges where you transition from one color to the other.

These are the threads I pulled out for this project:



They are mostly 40 weight cottons. Pam Holland says that thinner cotton threads work better, and I'm taking her advise.

So here are some in-progress photos:
































I'll show what I'm going to do with the background in my next post. Thanks for visiting my blog!

A Very Cool Background Fabric For My Flamingo

Tin Tile Painted Fabric

Teresa Shippy is a friend of mine, and she is well known for her tin tile workshops. She has acquired several ceiling tin tiles, and she teaches you how to use them to make printed images on fabric. This is a piece that I made in one of her workshops. I love it and I think it will be ideal for my flamingo!

If you are interested in learning more about Teresa's tin tile workshops, here is the link to Teresa's blog:

Teresa Shippy's Blog. 

I highly recommend the workshop. It is fun and Teresa is very generous with her knowledge and materials. 

My next step in this fiber art piece is to iron the cut out flamingo on to the background, and then sandwich it for quilting. 

Here is the flamingo on the background. The reason this works so well is the flamingo is a thin shape and allows the tin tile design to be seen. Many appliques would almost completely cover the tin tile image, obstructing too much of what is interesting to me. 

I'll get it basted and then it's on to the thread painting. That I'll show in my next post. Thanks for visiting my blog! 

Another Flamingo Textile Art Piece - In Progress

In progress flamingo

So what the heck is this monstrosity? It is my in-progress flamingo. In my last post I talked about using a printed image of a flamingo painting for the background of my thread painting. Well I didn't want to do the whole painting, just one flamingo. So I cut one of the flamingos out of fabric, sort of. The print didn't have the entire flamingo printed on it, so I had to improvise and add in tail feathers and the leg bottom from other flamingos, with some ink drawing from me. It's a bit of a Frankenstein flamingo at this point, but it will improve, I promise!

In fact this is what it looks like after being completely cut out and laid on something white on my floor. It's not so strange looking now.

I forgot to mention that I put fusible on the back of the flamingo before I cut it out. Now that it is cut out and it has a fusible back, I can iron it on to the background fabric for this piece. That will be my next post. Thanks for visiting my blog!

Flamingo Textile Art Piece

Years ago I did a painting of flamingos based on a photo I took at a zoo. I used this painting to make a print on fabric through Spoonflower.  The print was the basis for another fiber art piece that is several years old now.

The printed fabric order came with more than one of the flamingo images. I only used one for the original fiber art piece, and I have saved the second one for a long time, waiting to figure out what to do with it.

Flamingo Watercolor Painting

 

A couple of years ago I took a thread painting class from Pam Holland and I was very happy with the technique I learned from her ... and now I have an idea for what to do with the second print of the flamingos!

The thread painting technique requires you to do an under-painting of the image so that the background is the color of the thread. This gives you the correct color even if your thread painting coverage isn't complete. So, I could use the printed image on the fabric as my "under-painting", and stitch on top of it.

That is going to be my next project that I'm showing here. Thanks for visiting my blog!

Watercolor Practice

I haven't been doing much watercolor painting in the last couple of years because I'm so motivated to make fiber art, there just isn't enough time for it all! But this summer I decided to take a class and try to refresh myself in the fine art of water color painting. This is one that I completed recently.



I'll post a couple more watercolor paintings as I finish them. Thanks for visiting my blog!