Monday, August 29, 2011

"Prayer at Sunset" and a Zentangles Piece

I have actually been working on some pieces to take when I go to my Jane Dunnewold independent study class in late September. I have to have something to take for critique. I really don't want to be the one student whose "dog ate her homework," so... Here are a couple of pieces I'm working on. They aren't nearly finished yet.

This first piece is called "Prayer at Sunset." I saw a picture of thousands of people in rows on their knees in prayer at sunset. The picture stayed with me. I'm not sure where the sword and the eye came from; but when I started sketching, they appeared. I'll have to think on the meaning of them (obviously, it came from my subconscious somewhere). I pieced VERY narrow strips of sari silk together to get the color. They are separated by 1/4" bias tubes. I used 1/2" bias tubes for the upper portion of the piece. The sword is made of silver/gray silk. I still want to do some stitching between the eye and the rows.
I have written a blog post about Zentangles (http://quilterbeth.blogspot.com/2011/04/new-bird-pics-surprisezentaglesa-book.html) and have several of the Zentangle books. I have found great enjoyment and relaxation doing the Zentangle "doodles." I like it enough that I decided to try it with fabric. I knew it would be challenging, and it was (is). If you click the picture for a close up, you can see the detail of the work. There is lots of embroidery and texture--the upper left is made up of thousands of french knots; the circles are yo yos; the black in the clam shells is satin stitching; the spikes are paper pieced. I'm not finished with the right-hand side of the piece yet; I'm working on that. I will be adding more small yo yos to the wavy section. I'm thinking of adding one red yo yo as a focal point. 
 I did take a close up of the french knot section. The color turned out really yellow--not sure why.

4 comments:

Wendy Kimball said...

Love the way the black and white piece came out! So fun to see it as a work in progress. Love you!

Robbie said...

Now this is a true Zentangle quilt! You'll have to send in to Rick and Maria (Zentangle.com) when you finish. This is a wonderful piece!!!!

Pam said...

I can't say more than these are just beautiful. You are so talented. I'm proud of you.

Debs Erwin said...

These are such awesome pictures! They are even more impressive in person. I'm glad I saw them so I can appreciate them even more as you progress with them. You are so much more talented than you are willing to take credit for!