Hearing a call from New Zealand’s Aotearoa’s Quilters about an upcoming colour challenge I couldn’t resist taking part.  This challenge was a yellow 10″ square  (or mainly yellow) textile art piece.

My first attempt with acrylic felts, stitched, cut and burnt back was rather terrible (that’s putting it mildy !!!)

So I went back to an old favourite… PEARS !

I was able to re-use my drawing of a pear  (see my previous post about how to draw them!… the easy way!!)
Want to see how I drew my pears the easy way ? click here

As acrylic inks can be quite translucent and pencil marks will show through on the fabric, I traced the pear drawing to the wrong side of the white fabric and with white foam coreboard underneath the white PFD fabric I could see the outlines really well. It doesn’t really matter that the edge lines are not crisp.. you’ll see why later!

Then for an interesting backdrop for my pears I decided to stencil the fabric.  I used a (thickish) paper scrapbooking stencil that I had picked up for .50c and used a little sponge and dabbed my not too wet sponge over the stencil.  I tried using yellow on the white fabric…

..mixing the paint a little as I went so that the colour was a bit blended and not too flat.  In some areas in the middle I must have used the sponge a bit wet as it bled under the stencil… but that would be hidden under my arrangement.

Then I tried a lovely solid colour in the same hue and some coarse calico which gave great texture!   I loved the solid coloured fabric best behind the pears so decided to go with that one.

I divided the 10″ up into 3rds and stitched a geometric commercial print across the bottom third of the stencilled background.  I layered this with batting and stitched around the design.

I decided my pears needed a vessel and modelled the base after a vase that my sister had.  It had great bumps on it that I wanted to replicate so I used a coarse linen, backed it with fusible, cut holes in it, put little squares of yellow solid fabric with extra wadding behind each hole and stitched them together.  Then I trimmed the yellow circles and wadding.  I think this got great dimension.  Then using my inktense pencils I added some shading.

Backing the pear paintings with fusible I then stitched them out which tidies up the edges beautifully!  I realised I was going to need to adjust my shading a bit as I had not paid enough attention to light source when painting the pears originally!

When I was happy with the placement I fused it all down, backed it with fabric backing and stitched my edges and added a little stitched interest.  Then the trick… you know how pears have those fine little dots on them ?  well, get an old sewing maching needle, or one you’ve been using for too long, remove the thread from your machine and stitch !  Stitching without the thread leaved great texture in the painted surface.

I’ve then re-evaluated my shading… I was so happy with the above result as it was.. but a dear friend and wonderfully talented artist felt I could do better !   So…

the finished item… What do you think ?

 

Now I just have to get it to New Zealand!