Technique of the Week #19 – Shading with MistyFuse

Project hours: 2 hours
Design and materials: 1 hours
Execution: 1 hours

MistyFuse is a paperless fusible web that comes in white, black, and ultraviolet.  Iris, the wonderful woman at MistyFuse, had some that wasn’t black enough, but was perfect for what I want it for, so I bought a whole bolt. 
The pear is layers of MistyFuse to create the “drawing” of the fruit.  No tulle is used.  How I did this was to draw out a design onto paper, including marking where I wanted the shading of the layers to lay.  I laid a small piece of MistyFuse down over the drawing, and holding the MistyFuse with one hand, I snipped away the excess with the other.  I did this for each layer, and fused it down with my Goddess pressing sheet as I cut them.  It was really neat to see the design take shape.  More complicated designs would take longer, but I can see using this for shading still lifes, people, and much more. I especially like how it looks hand drawn.

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Eat a Pear

This was an unusual start to this project. I bought a real pear and took several photos. Here’s a sample.

Then I painted a watercolor of the photo, of which I am still not very good at. But Kelli Perkins had an article in Cloth Paper Scissors a while back on sewn watercolors, which made me want to give that a try. So here is my version of that.
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Grab a Pear

This lovely work was last week’s quilt. I was playing with several of the principles and elements of art, as well as some of the “pseudo-elements” which aren’t considered canon “P&E of Art”. First, I was working with color. Next, my compostition is circular and “open”. I have an odd number of pears, and I am also using transparancy. I got to work with some of the hand dyes from Cherrywood fabrics, which is what gives the pears that velvety look. I really enjoyed making this. It was a bit like Robbi Joy Eklow’s works, though that was unintentional until it was finished and I was looking at it.

I also went to Blick Art supply and got myself a portfolio/presentation case for my works to take them to meetings alot easier. I was already asked if I plan to present to galleries. Hmm….
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Grow a Pear

This pear was entirely painted. I drew a funny pear with a face on it for a swap at my favorite ATC trading site a few weeks ago. I decided to do an all painted quilt for this week’s work.

ALA Judy Perez! The pear is tsukineko inks, and the background is Jaquard Lumiere paint. So cute!
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Pick a Pear

I don’t know why I picked “pears” for this month’s theme. After the “Incident“, the pears I stamped out of foil have been on my mind. This is one of my class samples from my foiling class.

There’s pears everywhere. In fact, two Art Quilt books I am studying from currently have pear projects in them. I also recently did a pear watercolor, so it’s not quite as obsessive as I have been with the Pomegrantes, but Pears could be a whole subject to themselves…

I am not sure why, but I have been lackluster in blog-land this week. I apologize to my readers for not posting very much, but I hope this will change. I am rolling out the big project at work this week, and it’s taking my mental energy. I am also working on some super secret stuff, and hope I can reveal that in due time.

I was a “winner” this week too. I went to a spring/summer fashon show put on by my salon, and was the winner of a gift basket full of Redken products! My New Year’s resolutions were to “use it up” and I haven’t bought new hair or face products since the beginning of the year since I already own so much that I never use! Now I have even more. I was pretty excited to be the winner though!

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