This has been a week of rejuvenation for me. The fall art festivals are all behind me. I celebrated a wonderful and simple Thanksgiving meal with a group of friends, went to see the Mr. Rogers movie (more wonderful than I ever could have expected!) and I am beginning to wade more deeply into a large quilt that I am working on for submission to a show at the end of January.

The new work will be filled with images of a largely forgotten, faded Southern town. It could be one of many little towns you find when driving away from the Interstate through rural South Carolina and Georgia. I have written before about the stirring of emotion I found shooting photos in several small towns.

This week, I began working on some of the surface design to go with the photos. I want to create the feel of vintage Southern interiors, the look of blankets that would have been on the bed, and the look of wallpaper that would have been in the foyer.

I’ve begun with two “wallpaper” panels, each combining a white magnolia, some crackled background fabric, and a pattern of roses on a vine.

This is experimental territory for me. I don’t work a lot with floral patterns. I am figuring out how to use my regular studio techniques – collaging and stenciling – to create this quilt section.

Here goes.

Aging with crackle. I started with two sections of muslin in the size I want and painted them pale cream. Then I covered them with wheat paste to create a beautiful, unpredictable crackle pattern. Here’s the wheat paste after it dried and I crackled it, covered in a dark burnt umber paint to go down into the crackles. (A few pictures down you’ll see the result.)

The floral pattern: I drew this out at 100% final size on butcher paper, including all the roses and the leaves. Then I traced this onto wax paper. (Wax paper is a studio staple for me. Here, I’m using it as a simple tracing paper.) I needed the pattern on something see-through so I could trace it onto the bristol I’d use for the stencil.

(You may be thinking I’ve gone a long way around the barn here, which is true. I could have just drawn the design on the Bristol. But I was interested in different things. On the butcher paper, I wanted to see the final design with some details, and suggestions of the shadows and stitched lines I’ll add eventually. I want to keep that intact for reference. The Bristol stencil is just about shape. That’s all I traced.)

Now It’s time to cut the stencil.

My tool of preference is just a straight edge razor blade. I’m sure it’s because that’s how I was taught to cut masks and film back in the early pre-computer days of working in commercial printing. An exacto blade with a handle just doesn’t feel right to me.

I’ll be using the negative stencil shape for printing. I keep the positive for reference, and to position the negative on the fabric. (It may also appear printed in some future project.)

Here’s the result of the first color stenciled. I used a burnt umber made transparent with matte medium to create the rose-vine shape. This will appear as a shadow. You can see the printed crackle on the cream colored background.

At the end of the day, I had stenciled the second hit – the shape of the rose-vine in green. I’ll be adding more layers tomorrow. But I felt like the image on my worktable of this project-in-progress — with afternoon light through the window — was a good affirmation of the path I’ve started.

Thank you for reading.
I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi

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