WIP- The Green Man is Quilted!

Well, it is not like me to stick to a project until it is finished, LOL! But I have been excited by the online workshop with Pamela Allen, and am really enjoying the pieces I have created in this class. So, here is the latest progress on The Green Man. I used black, dark green, sage green, shiny emerald green, and even Glow-in-the-Dark thread to define some woodsy motifs in this piece. Can you see the rather primitive frog on his forehead? There is also a lizard hidden in the foliage on the side.
But the unexpected surprise I think will be thought-provoking is the subtle text in the lower part of the quilt. After I do some shading with my inks, it will show up a little easier. Explanation:


The Green Man is such an interesting subject. I have been researching him on the Internet since choosing him as my subject for the two-color composition. There are many Websites devoted not only to Green Man as an architectural element, but also to his legend and lore. I have now requested one book from the library, and purchased another online. I was looking for some appropriate text to perhaps quilt into the piece, or use on the back or label. Choices abound, including works by Shelley and Shakespeare (whose Puck, in A Midsummer Night's Dream, is his incarnation of Green Man.) Some people think Robin Hood is also Green Man. But I was most taken with this quotation from William Anderson's book:


Our remote ancestors said to their mother earth: "We are yours."


Modern humanity has said to Nature: "You are mine."


The Green Man has returned as the living face of the whole earth so that through his mouth we may say to the universe: "We are one."


I have quilted the three phrases into the lower part of the quilt, almost as if they were carved into the trunk of a tree. I hope to finish this piece this weekend. I would like for him to be of an organic shape, perhaps with leaves extending over the edge. I have some fibers and other embellishments to play with, so we will see how he looks when he is finished.



And, notice, no pics showing off the back of this piece! I should have used a busy leafy print for the backing. Grendel the Gammill does not approve of using lots of different thread types, and there is an assortment of knots, "eyelashes", and other quilting judge "No-No's" on the back. I used a khaki colored hand-dye, which is the perfect shade to blend with all the greens and browns. Actually, it looks interesting, and I may end up painting the back to get another reversible quilt. Those thread glubs and pokies would make good tree bark!

WIP Continued: The Green Man

Here is my "paste-up" of my Green Man art quilt project. Now he is peering out from a tree or forest. He will be going to the mountains of North Carolina tonight! Excellent inspiration!

Green Man Tweaked

My Glue-Sticked Original Green Man
Pamela Allen's Tweaked Version (PhotoShopped)

Not only is Pamela Allen a fabulous artist, she is a very generous one to allow me to share her vision for my Green Man art quilt. Yes, he needs to be put in context of leafy surroundings instead of floating in space on a brown rectangle! Thanks, Pamela!

WIP: Green Man

I quickly put together this little composition for Lesson 2 of Think Like an Artist, my online workshop with Pamela Allen. I am learning so much from this class, just by looking at the work of the other students and reading the comments with suggestions.

For Lesson 2, we were to choose two colors, and use light, medium, and dark values of both. We were to avoid "pure" hues except for details. I finally decided on green and brown, so I could make something woodsy. You know me, I love the outdoors, woods, mountains... so after I put down my three background pieces, it occurred to me to try The Green Man. I have always admired the sculptures and images of him. This is a pretty far cry from the still life I started in Lesson 1! I can see him getting lots more layers of leaves, dimensional quilting, some bits of sticks, maybe a bird's nest!

I posted my Green Man to the Think Like an Artist class, and almost immediately got a response from Pamela that knocked my socks off! I am not sure if I have permission to post her Photo-Shopped version of my piece, so will have to wait. But now I am totally excited by this creation and its potential! Suffice it to say, I was following the instruction to lay down three shapes for the background. Now I am going to make it all leafy and botanical and wild! Stay tuned!

Tomorrow is DH's birthday, and we are going out with Dave and Emily (son and DIL in Raleigh) to the Outback Steakhouse for supper. I have wrapped his presents and have a cake in the oven. We are taking tons of stuff to the mountains on Thursday, including a new lawn mower, the awesome bird feeder and pole I got for Christmas, DH's new television antenna, and a nightstand that I am borrowing from our guest room for my side of the bed up there. We are taking a trailer to haul behind the truck. Big gas expense, but that's the only way it will all get there. It will be lovely to be in the mountains for Easter. If I don't get a chance to blog again until then, I hope that you have a wonderful weekend. We are off from school Friday for my first vacation day since going back to work in February.

An Artsy Retort

When I posted my final pictures of the stitched-down Cut Flowers piece, I received this reply from the workshop instructor (artist Pamela Allen):

Hasn't the stitching enhanced the leaves especially! You tell your turning applique friend that your stems and the stitching is an element that makes the viewer take pleasure in the NEGATIVE space between the stems. This had a good start and now a great finish!

Wow, I could never have phrased that so well. I did not know the viewer was taking pleasure in my negative space!

Yesterday, I was outside weeding the mini-garden surrounding my mailbox when it started to rain. A soft, gentle rain. Just what my flowers needed! Later in the day, the bottom fell out of the clouds and we got at least an inch of rain. Charlie and I had a rare opportunity to sit on the front porch rockers and watch the lightning while we sipped our wine. (Our area has had very little rain for the past year.) Some time during the night, our power went off. I was awakened by a blinding flash of lightning, followed by eerie darkness and silence. We normally have two fans on in our bedroom, a ceiling fan and a box fan, to muffle sounds of barking dogs and provide a nice "white noise." It was strange to try to sleep in total silence. The power was restored before morning.

Yesterday, I went upstairs to begin my Lesson 2 for the workshop I am taking. I had to decide on the two hues I will use. I got all my hand-dyed fabrics out and sorted them by color from light to dark. I did not know I had so much! I collected hand-dyes for several years from a New Zealand fabric dyer who sold on e-Bay. Sometimes I was able to get a meter of gorgeous hand-dye for as a little as $3.00. She does not seem to be e-Baying as frequently any more, but her selling name is 2dye4-fabrics. Anyway, I never did decide on my two hues. I did get a lot of my fabric sorted, including several drawers in my dresser full of fat-quarter size commercial fabrics. And I started going through my two plastic file cabinets of "scraps." Most of these I can get rid of, since the pieces are too small to deal with.

Then, I started cutting some of the scraps into various-sized squares for scrappy quilt projects.

All this did not get my new sewing room put together, or my Lesson 2 completed, but it was satisfying to make some order out of the chaos in the old sewing room.