Design Steps for an Art Quilt

  This is the inspiration photo for one of my recent art quilts. I am making a series of art quilts of people showing "attitude", and this photo grabbed my attention immediately. I love the posture that she has, the way her eyes look at the camera, and of course her wonderful sense of fashion. She is very sure of herself!

For this series I am doing some pieces in a portrait fashion, and others on a whole cloth where I paint the image and the background on one piece of fabric. Portrait pieces have the image mounted on a separate background. For this one, I decided a portrait style was more suitable.  My plan is to create the image of the girl separately and then place it on a background that serves as a frame for the image.

My first step is to make a line drawing of the girl. I traced over the photo and got the major shapes and lines. Then I enlarged it to a full size print out at my local FedEx Office. They have a large format printer in their self service area. I have become good friends with that printer and know how to get my enlargements done without waiting for someone to help me. What a time saver!!!

This image is about 2' x 3 '.




I use the enlarged drawing as a template for the parts of the piece. By parts I mean individual clothing pieces and body parts.  I used to cut out freezer paper templates for the various parts, but not any more. I simply place the enlarged drawing on my light pad, place the fabric over the drawing, and pencil in the outline of the part on the fabric. Then I cut out the piece and paint on it to modify as needed.

I trace the outline of the image on a piece of muslin too. I mount the various parts on the muslin as I complete them. Here is the muslin I used for this piece:



The muslin serves as a connector to keep all the parts together, and it helps to prevent the background colors from being seen through the image. I use a muslin that has a tea stained color, light brownish. That color is good at preventing background color from coming through, and it add a bit of warmth to the top colors.

I'll show the making of the clothing next. It was fun finding the crazy color combinations that she was wearing in the photo.


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