It’s time to finish my Shield of Words fabric painting. It no longer feels like I’m waiting to find out what I need to do, it now feels like I need to make the decisions that will complete it.
I’m going to focus on it, give it the attention it needs to finish it.
For a week or so I’ve been experimenting with ways to deal with the background. Today I mixed some fabric painting, coming up with blues and greens, and testing them scraps of fabric. And although the colors were right, and I liked the way I had watered them down and applied them, when I looked at the test scraps pinned to the fabric painting, I don’t feel like they added anything.
They almost seem a distraction.
I beginning to think the background needs to stay the natural color of the original quilt. Complete with its hand-stitching and minor staining, which speaks to the history and age of the quilt.
There was one thing that I knew I wanted to do. That was to somehow outline the dress. I decided on using green embroidery thread and hand stitching around the dress.
Now I’m experimenting with filling in the hands and face of the woman, using tea staining. I thought that instead of manipulating the background, that I’d give her skin some color, which is really deathly white.
I like the idea of using tea instead of paint because I’ve used tea staining before in my pieces and I like that continuity between my art. But I was also thinking of how her dress is made of fabric that represents vegetation and I’m thinking of the tannin that comes from leaves and colors water. It seems natural that she be the color of tannin.
I see that a lot of tannins colored mud puddles in the woods and even in the chicken’s water bowl, especially this time of year.
