Letting Each Color Do Its Work

I’m so grateful that it is a new year, filled with possibilities. I feel a great burst of creative energy

This week I have been working to complete the blue-trees artwork that has developed into an art quilt. It is making me think about color and how it works.

I try hard to use my colors intentionally.

Colors have purpose; I find my work is most effective when I let each color do its job.

Generally, I compose works with one dominant color. I work almost monochromatically through a lot of the creation. Then, I add accents and splashes of (usually) the complement or near-complement.

The dominant color in this work is blue. A blue palette with tree images evokes dreams and memories to me. Although I have added a lot more complexity in monoprinting multiple layers and values in the individual sections, the overall palette reads as blue.

This section is monoprinted with blue acrylic on rice paper, then collaged to muslin

This section is mooprinted with multiple colors on sheer polyester, then collaged to muslin

Using MOSTLY one color throughout a work provides unity. Using ONLY one color throughout would just be boring.

In this work, I love the splashes of orange and mustard yellow. Their job is to wake up the blue and make it more lively. (Complementary colors next to each other create a visual “pop.”) Here are the two sections from above next to an orange hue.

I created the tree with the complements of orange and blue. Orange was the underneath color. The tree was formed with a hand-cut stencil on a gelatin printing plate, with some organic grass pieces providing the texture.

Even where the blue overprints the orange, that bit of orange shows through and gives it some depth.

Here is the reverse. I have overprinted orange shapes through a stencil onto a blue background. But the magic ingredient here is not the complement, it’s a little bit of white.

If you put blue and orange (complements) NEXT to each other they each “pop.” If you put orange on TOP of blue, you get mud. The orange is not opaque unless there’s a bit of white mixed in. The white is what has transformed this pure orange into a cantaloupe—like color. White adds opacity.

I also used the opaque quality of white to create the window shape around the tree.

I am enjoying this quilt, but I am also anxious to complete it. My new year energy has stirred up all kinds of ideas of what to work on next.

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

bobbi@bobbibaughstudio.com

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A Little Video... Art Quilt "Becoming One with the Night" step-by-step

I recently put together a little video about the making of this art quilt.

I believe that people appreciate a piece of artwork more when they know what goes into its creation. So, I have tried to address both the inspiration and the step-by-step process.

I remembered one particular part of making this quilt as I reviewed the images:

The underlying structure of squares in tension with the overpainted trees.

I remember that after I had printed and collaged all the individual squares, as I was laying them out in various patterns to finalize the composition, I almost didn’t go any further. I loved the squares. The colors were delicate and the patterns were interesting. I just wanted to look at them.

But, at that stage the piece did not accomplish the emotional goal I had for it. There was no reason for a character to enter the scene if it was just pretty squares. So I proceeded to the overpainting and the final composition.

Now, however, I know they are under there. It is one of the interesting aspects of creating textile works in sections. Even when the sections are not an obvious part of the final design, they are an underlying structure. They are in communication with, sometimes in tension with, whatever layers are on top. All of this adds depth and interest to the work, even when the viewer is not—at first—aware of their presence.

I enjoyed sharing this work in person with visitors during my recent studio tour. I hope you enjoy watching the video.

(The video should show below automatically.

If not, you can find it on You tube, here: )

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There's Blue. And then there's BLUE!

I used to think I didn’t like using blue in my artwork. I am very drawn to warm earth tones . I love terra cotta and orange. (And I actually do have a real aversion to pale baby blue.)

Then, I took a look at my body of work. There it is: lots of blue. And today, working on several very different projects in my studio, I rediscovered the ranges of blue I use, and my reactions to them.

This is a fun series I created several years ago. I am updating the presentation. I had mounted these on birch panels with a raw-edge muslin fringe, which I later concluded was quite a  mistake. They have lived on my shelf for several years. There are four in the series. I really like the soft watercolor-like images of the palm fronds and the backgrounds. (All monotype prints on sheer fabric.) So I’m adding a punch of very bright color as a frame. (These are also monotype printed, but on cotton muslin.)

This in-your-face very very blue is an unusual choice for me. It can overpower everything else quickly. On this lighthearted series of collages, I think it works. I’m enjoying these.

A few feet away on my easel is a work I’ve just completed that is part of my series focusing on home and memory. Again, there’s lots of blue. And, some is printed on sheers and some on muslin. But so different from the fish pieces!

(Detail - “Looking Through to the Memory”)

Adding finishing detail - “Looking Through to the Memory”

I’ve found my blue home when I mix phthalo blue with varying degrees of burnt umber, or — sometimes — raw sienna. This range of color is magical to me. It moves nicely into lighter, washy hues. It is wonderful when it’s heavy and deep. I also like this range of blues as a connecting color in landscape/nature-based works.

Looks like I relate to blue more than I believed.

Detail of another blue monotype in my studio now. I’m still formulating a plan for this one.

AN INVITATION: This weekend, I will be one of 22 artists in the DeLand area opening our studios on the Off-The-Beaten-Track Studio Tour, Saturday and Sunday 10-5. If you are in the Central Florida area, please accept this invitation to visit my studio. The tour website is FloridaArtsTour.com. That’s where you find artist information and a map. If you are not a DeLand resident and haven’t discovered our wonderful downtown, that’s another good reason for a day trip adventure. Explore art, meet artists, and enjoy lunch or dinner downtown. A perfect day!

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On the Other Side of the Ugly Stage… at last!

I wrote about this piece a few weeks ago when it was in an early stage of development and when it was – well, ugly seems harsh, but definitely not working for me.

Some pieces seem to fly together. This one has not. But, I completed almost all the surface design this afternoon and I’m pleased at how it has come together. At last! Phew!

Some lessons. First, a work may not go in the direction you originally envisioned. In this one, it changed from being all about the twigs. That’s what drew me to the reference photo. Those were the patterns I wanted to explore. But, when I had laid down the first stencil layer of twigs and branches, the pattern seemed awkward, not fascinating.

But, second lesson, auxiliary ideas may arise. For awhile, I left the twigs to let them simmer, and worked on other more abstract branch shapes. Some are straight, some have a gentle curve. They are definitely graphic elements, not pictures of twigs. But I like them a lot. I like that the piece is big enough that I could play with positive and negative variations with this linear pattern.

Third lesson – hold on to the things that you like and seem to be working. I have been very drawn to this teal and purple palette. I like the fabrics I printed. It seemed to me there was something good in there that should work. So, I hung in with the project.

Fourth lesson – scale. I had originally drawn this composition with just two small birds. But, even though finding the birds among the twigs and branches was part of what interested me from the get-go (in other words, I did not want giant-sized immediately obvious birds) two birds in this space just got too lost. So I added more. There are now five birds. And as I added more, lesson two – auxiliary ideas – came into play. The positioning of the birds implied an overall arc through the quilt. This became the composition solution I was looking for, as I developed up a pattern of foliage.Almost done. I need to stitch a few sections for texture. (Previously learned lesson: Don’t sew the same day you collage. Wet glue is generally not like by your sewing machine.) Once it’s bound I’ll be able to look for final details that may need a little paint tweak or two.

I’m glad I stayed with it. I’m glad I have a piece I like. I’m glad they are not all this hard!

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Working through the ugly stage… a work in progress

Maybe ugly is too strong a word.

I’ll go with “isn’t-working-for-me.” Yet.

There’s a lot I like about this work-in-progress. I think the sketch and composition are strong. I was inspired by a photo I had seen from a bird watching group. A single song bird among an intricate thicket of twigs and branches created a strong silhouette. I envisioned those twigs creating an abstract, linear background in which to discover the bird. I flipped the bird mirror-image to add another one. I like the addition of the leaves as solid abstract shapes. Here’s the sketch at full size on my easel (about 36”H x 45”W)

I also like the palette a lot. The background teal-violet of the washed-in trees was painted wet-into-wet on sheer fabric. I like the patterns and colors.

And to accompany the background fabric, I have printed new fabrics to put into the composition. The monotype roots pattern in shades of blue is especially pleasing to me.

Here’s what I have assembled so far (collaged and stitched) on my easel.

I am going to complete the stenciled images of the two birds and the balance of the twigs as I have sketched.

Then I think I will have to sit back and ponder this awhile. My hunch is that the branch and twig shapes I liked in the sketch don’t recreate sufficiently the complexity of what I loved in the photo. I can add more, finer twigs and increase the abstraction. I may also be able to relief print some organic twig shapes from the same bundle of roots I used to monotype print the two-tone roots at the bottom. (Those were done as stencils in multiple passes on a gelatin plate.)

And, somewhere, I’ll need at least a splash of something that’s not blue so this is not so monochromatic.

This is going to work. I am telling myself that, believing in what I see already working.

I’m just not sure how to do it yet!

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Revisiting the Night

I recently submitted this work for an exhibit. That process caused me to look at it closely again, as it was on my computer screen in detailed enlargements. I remembered the process.

Some things went as planned. Some things I had not expected.

From the beginning, I knew I wanted the feel of nighttime. I wanted to recreate the sensation of being outside on a cool evening, dipping one’s toes into the night air.

I had a nice reference photo to work from. My neighbor, a lovely young woman, had come over to my house to pose for me. The porch is my porch. But, in the process of creating the composition, I did some angle adjusting and some perspective playing, making it more interesting than the original photo had been.

I worked almost exclusively with sheer fabrics as I printed the images. This created a watercolor-wash feel that worked well with the feel of dream and memory I hoped to create.

I worked this piece in squares. That’s not my normal way of constructing pieces. But it created some tensions that I found interesting. I don’t think the squares jump out immediately, but they are there, as a background architecture behind the trees. The trees overlapping the grid and working in relation to it create a nice tension of foreground and background. And, because I did not use squares in the section with the young woman, she is in a reality somewhat separated from everything else.

Finally, as I look again closely at this work I think of the woman it depicts. What is she thinking? What is she remembering? That is the mystery of the work

Becoming One With The Night  2017  35" x 45"
In the Journeys and Stories and Galleries Gallery, HERE

Water + Home… putting together two powerful images

In my studio this week I have begun a series of smaller art quilts that are simple compositions combining images of home with images of water, and tree silhouettes connecting the two.

This feels completely natural to me. As I construct the house sections, piecing in reflecting waterlilies or photo transfers of rippling water intuitively seems just right.

And yet – logically – water and a home are not a good mix. Nobody wants to find water seeping in from a wall or roof. The term “underwater” regarding a home is not desirable. And severe weather can damage or destroy a home with water.

So, I’ve been thinking through what this is about. I think that what I like about water is its quality of hidden life. I find it mesmerizing to sit by a body of water and just look down into the surface. Below there is another world. Sometimes life forms are visible: fish, moving plants. Much of the life is microscopic and invisible. But it’s there.

At the same time that it is mysterious, water is soothing. Imagine the sound of moving water. Waves against a beach. Ripples and splashes over rocks. People are just drawn to the sound of water.

The series of art pieces I’m creating about home invites viewers to enter their memories and dreams of home. It is not intended to be a logical journey, but an emotional one.

The water forms inside are a vehicle to enter that emotional place of remembering.

Detail - Art quilt in progress

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Striking’ while the sun is hot… the unexpected… and some closeups

When the rain finally broke earlier this week, I knew it was time to spring into action. I had lots of yardage that needed painting, and we’d had nothing but rain.

I set up a 6-foot door on sawhorses right outside my studio door on a concrete area which I gave up trying to keep clean a long time ago. I can drip without fear here, and a nearby fence section provides a place for drying.

I generally start with plain unbleached muslin for my quilt backs and then create painted patterns compatible with the quilt’s front. I like to work wet and fast. First I used the garden hose in a fine spray to get my yardage pretty well damp. With a wet natural sponge and acrylic paints, I got down the background color, a deep violet blue.

I hung it on the fence to dry.

That ‘s when the first unexpected surprise occurred. As I lifted the muslin off my table, the vinyl cover over the surface had pools of water and paint in beautiful patterns. It was a now-or-never opportunity. I quickly went inside and grabbed a few yards of sheer polyester, brought it out and gently laid it down in those irregular pools. What a beautiful surface design I’d captured!

Next I needed some teal fabric, so I mixed the color and sponge painted about three yards of that, wet into wet. Again, when I lifted it up off the table, beautiful irregular pools were there. I picked up the sheer that had violet blue on it already, and pressed it into the table surface again. Aaaah!

After all this dried (in a wonderfully short time, thanks to the Florida sun) I painted abstract tree forms, again using the wet natural sponge, but this time with stencils, both the muslin and the sheer.

Result: I have some muslin for quilt backing plus some watercolor-like sheer polyester to incorporate into a quilt front. And a little more spatter and drip on the concrete.

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Is Juggling a Good Idea?

For me, in the studio, I believe the answer is yes. I looked around this afternoon. There are at least five projects working. One on the easel is one in the midst of collage layers. One is a sketch tacked to a board. One is in pieces by the sewing machine ready to stitch. One is nearly finished and awaiting hand stitching of the binding. One awaits a fabric-painting session, which I am putting off till I have a few hours of sun to paint outdoors.

I love the energy of multiple projects in the works. Perhaps it’s because I feel good about the source of these works. I’ve been sketching and thinking and composing a series for awhile, and I am now in the process of creating the work. So I am watching the ideas unfold. I am using the quiet time of hand work to think ahead about the next piece. I am allowing the movement back and forth between works to keep the whole process alive and interesting.

It’s not really so much like juggling. It’s more like a dance – an old-time reel. Moving in a patterned way from one partner to the next, coming back to the beginning, moving in a new way, then over again. The studio dance.