Strong Roots - Art Deco

Some days I surprise myself, and today was one of those days!

It was just yesterday that I posted my Journeys Thru Art Impressionism project.  Yes, just over 24 hours ago!  And you remember me saying how I hate Art Deco and I didn't even want to work on it until the end  *laughing loudly* not only did I think about working on it, I drew it out and finished the block construction today!

I was going to spend today quilting on a customer quilt, but it was a rough attention day... I was truly bouncing all over the place.  So I did nothing, putzed... all morning, into early afternoon.  Well while I was eating lunch I doodled out my Art Deco block.  Wow, that worked out.  After lunch I was quite rammy (from too much putzing - also known as boredom), and getting cranky (sounds like a toddler I know, but its true).  So I put all that aggravated energy to good use... I started my Art Deco block.  I figured why waste the crankies?!!  I told myself, I'm already in a rotten mood, get on with it and do what you don't feel like doing!

And bam, it was done!   I don't even have pictures of the process because it happened so fast -- I was on a serious roll and wasn't stopping!

It's not yet quilted and still needs to be trimmed to size, but it is created!

To keep with my previous JTA post, here is the brief lesson on Art Deco:

http://char.txa.cornell.edu/art/decart/artdeco/artdeco.htm

Art Deco is a decorative style that is essentially an extension of the French Art Nouveau and English Aesthetic styles, but also includes elements of Arts and Crafts form. Some historians claim that because of its eclectic borrowing from so many sources, it should not be identified as a distinct style. Yet it has enjoyed recurrent popularity, and has contributed to later stylistic developments. The term Art Deco is used to describe a design style that originates around World War I, and runs through to World War II (c. 1915-1945).

The style emphasizes surface embellishment, drawing heavily on the colors and styles of some of the early modern art movements, from Impressionism through Cubism. Like many of the modern art styles, it was inspired by Chinese and Japanese art, both of which were popular during this period.

Only two more to go!!!  Perhaps next weekend?  I can't wait to share them all hanging next to each other - that should be pretty cool!  But that won't happen until after they are quilted and bindings are on.  Soon, very soon!

Strong Roots - Impressionism

Instead of spending my day floating in the pool, I decided to work.  Ahh... yes, but on my own stuff -- the Journeys Thru Art 2012 project.  Recently we all decided to work at our own paces (rush) and attempt to get these done early.

The projects are miniquilts (blocks) for these six styles of art:  Fauvism, Cubism, Expressionism, Art Deco, Impressionism, and Pop Art.

You remember my Fauvism square right?  If not click here.
And my Cubism... no?  Click here.

Well... Expressionism.  That one needs to be redone.  I wanted to do the entire square as thread painting... started, block shrunk up more than 1/2 inch and I'd only just started.  That was making it extremely difficult to keep at my 12" finished size.  So instead of trying to calculate exactly how much larger I'd need to start, it is easier (and quicker) to redo.  This time I'll use some paint and some thread play

Onward... Art Deco... bleck!  Not my favorite.  We'll skip that one and do it later.  Don't want to crush the creativity because I'm not happy with the style, we're on a deadline here people!

Impressionism.... B I N G O!  Easy peasy!

Now, for those that don't know about Impressionism here comes a brief (super short) art lesson compliments of Wikipedia (click here if you want to read the full version):
Impressionism is a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists. Their independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s, in spite of harsh opposition from the conventional art community in France. The name of the style derives from the title of a Claude Monet work, Impression, soleil levant (Impression, Sunrise), which provoked the critic Louis Leroy to coin the term in a satiric review published in the Parisian newspaper Le Charivari.Impressionist painting characteristics include

• Relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes
• Open composition
• Emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities 
• Common, ordinary subject matter
• Inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience
• Unusual visual angles

Radicals in their time, early Impressionists violated the rules of academic painting.  They constructed their pictures from freely brushed colours that took precedence over lines and contours, following the example of painters such as Eugène Delacroix and J. M. W. Turner. They also painted realistic scenes of modern life, and often painted outdoors. Previously, still lifes and portraits as well as [1]  The Impressionists found that they could capture the momentary and transient effects of sunlight by painting en plein air. They portrayed overall visual effects instead of details, and used short "broken" brush strokes of mixed and pure unmixed colour—not blended smoothly or shaded, as was customary—to achieve an effect of intense colour vibration.

I choose to use a snippet technique for my block.  I felt this would accomplish the small, visible brush stroke criteria.  My tree is definitely ordinary subject matter, and all the rest, well, we won't worry about those... deadline, remember?

Here are my palettes blues for the sky, greens for grass, and browns for the tree:

And the day in pictures (minus the sticky glue/fusible fingers):

Strong Roots - Impressionism

So what do you think?  I know, it still needs to be quilted -- that's a breeze!  Stay tuned for more on my Journeys Thru Art 2012 projects!

JTA 2012 Challenge - Cubism

Well, when you leave something until the last minute it usually bites you in the ass.  And, it did!  I did not start working on my cubism block until a few days before it was due.  Not smart, not smart at all!  I rushed it, skipped some things that I probably shouldn't have, but in the end I think it turned out okay.


Let's start with some research of CUBISM...


According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cubism was on the the most influential visual art styles of the early twentieth century.  It was creative by Pable Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973) and Georges Braque (French, 1882-1963) in Patris between 1907 and 1914.  The French art critic Lous Vauxcelles coined the term Cusbism after seeing the landscapes Braque had painted in 1908 at L'Estaque in emulation of Cezanne.  Vauxcelles called the geometric forms in the highly abstracted works "cubes".  Other influcense on early Cubism have been linked to Primitivism and non-Western sources.  The stylications and distortion of Picasso's ground-breaking Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (Museum of Modern Art, New York), painted in 1907, came from African art.  Picasso had first seen African art when, in May or June 1907, he visited the ethnographic museum in the Palais du Trocadero in Paris.  The Cubist painters rejected the inherited concept that art should copy nature, or that they should adopt the traditional techniques of perspective, modeling, and foreshortening.  They wanted instead to emphasize the two-dimensionality of the canvas.  So they reduced and fractured objects into geomtric forms, and then realigned these within a shallow, relief-like space.  They also used multiple or contrasting vantage points.


And the official definition from Dictionary.com

cub·ism

 

[kyoo-biz-uhm]
noun ( sometimes initial capital letter ) Fine Arts .

a style of painting and sculpture developed in the early 20thcentury, characterized chiefly by an emphasis on formal structure,the reduction of natural forms to their geometrical equivalents,and the organization of the planes of a represented object  independently of representational requirements.

And then, my favorite, artyfactory.com, which explains the two different styles of cubism, Analytical and Synthetic.

Cubism had two distinct phases.  The early phase which lasted until about 1912 was called Analytical Cubism.  Here the artist analysed the subject from many different viewpoints and reconstructed it within a geometric framework, the overall effect of which was to create an image that evoked a sense of the subject.  These fragmented images were unified by the use of a subdued and limited palette of colours.  

Influences by the introduction of bold and simple collage shapes, Synthetic Cubism moved away from the unified monochrome surfaces of Analytic Cubism to a more direct, colourful and decorative style.  Although synthetic cubist images appear more abstract in their use of simplified forms, the other elements of their composition are applied quiet traditionally.  Interchanging lines, colours, patterns and textures, that switch from geometric to freehand, dark to light, positive to negative and plain to patterned, advance and recede in rhythms across the picture plain.

Needless to say, I marched to the beat of my own drummer and did my own thing.  I probably came close to the synthetic cubism style, but I don't think I nailed cubism quite as closely as I wanted to.  Although, I came pretty close in my rushed time... at least I think so!

Here is my mini-quilt for cubism, it still needs to be tweaked and quilted, which will definitely add more interest:

And here are the others in the group, well except for Pam's as she was away on reveal day.

Kathy's

Pat's

Natalie's

Judie's

Eyvonne's

I can't wait to see what Pam created.  I think they all turned out fabulous!  Our next block/mini-quilt is "Expressionism" -- can't wait for that one either.  It's not due until July but hopefully we'll all get ahead of schedule with the challenges and possibly have them done for the Mancuso Show in West Palm in November... hopefully!

Check out the previous JTA challenge block "Fauvism".

JTA 2012 Challenge - Fauvism

I belong to an art group -- Journeys Thru Art -- a wonderful group of artists.  You might remember last year we did a Door Challenge, if not, here is a collage of the eight doors.

Well, the door challenge was loads of fun, struggle, aggravation, thrill, surprise, and learning all rolled up into a quilt -- well at least for me.

This year the project is quite different.  We are doing six mini quilts -- only 12"x12".  Each mini quilt will be our interpretation of a specific style of art.  The first style is FAUVISM.  Well, you would not believe the dilemmas that followed!  Do I choose a single subject matter for each of the styles, do I do something different, keep color schemes matching?  The questions were rolling out of my brain faster than I could think, let alone, answer any of them. 

So, we'll start here... practice day at my kitchen table. Nancy and I get together just about every Friday, for sewing, shopping, chit chat, bitching, moaning, complaining, and altogether general fun!  Some days we don't make it beyond the coffee and donuts, other days we conquer world peace!  Natalie came over for this special practice day, she brought her So Soft paints -- all 9 bazillion colors of them (there goes that exaggeration problem I have).  Here is Natalie and Nancy, and you can see in the picture she's got oodles of those cute little paint bottles.  We figured with all these beautiful paints it would be more than easy to get our creative juices flowing in the proper fauvism direction!

We were ready... for what, I have no idea, we were just going to let the creativity flow -- it does that a lot at my house, even if you aren't prepared for it, it'll still happen!  Just ask Nancy!

For those that don't know, here is the definition of fauvism according to The Metropolitan Museum of Art  Fauvism was the first of the avant-garde movements that flourished in France in the early years of the twentieth century. The Fauve painters were the first to break with Impressionism as well as with older, traditional methods of perception. Their spontaneous, often subjective response to nature was expressed in bold, undisguised brushstrokes and high-keyed, vibrant colors directly from the tube. 

And here is a very interesting blurb from WebMuseum, Paris - Fauvism, French Fauvisme, style of painting that flourished in France from 1898 to 1908; it used pure, brilliant colour, applied straight from the paint tubes in an aggressive, direct manner to create a sense of an explosion on the canvas. The Fauves painted directly from nature as the Impressionists had before them, but their works were invested with a strong expressive reaction to the subjects they painted. First formally exhibited in Paris in 1905, Fauvist paintings shocked visitors to the annual Salon d'Automne; one of these visitors was the critic Louis Vauxcelles, who, because of the violence of their works, dubbed the painters "Les Fauves" (Wild Beasts). 

And my most favorite description comes from artyfactory, Fauvism was not a formal movement with a manifesto of rules and regulations. It was more an instinctive coming together of artists who wished to express themselves by using bold colours, simplified drawing and expressive brushwork. 'Les Fauves' simply believed that colour had a spiritual quality which linked directly to your emotions and they loved to use it at the highest possible pitch.

Now, armed with all this information we practice and play...

FUN... nothing planned, just let magic happen.  So I think we pretty much conquered practicing fauvism.  BUT... the real project... ahhh.... nothing coming out of my brain yet.  Other than, YES, I am working on a tree.  I decided that ALL six of my mini quilts (blocks) would be based on one simple drawing.    This way, there would be a consistency when the six of them were hanging together -- you would see the differences in the styles better because they are all the same drawing.  Yep,  that's what I decided... then I realize, one drawing, six different styles of art... this would be much much more difficult than to use six different subject matters that lend themselves to that style of art.  Never have I known myself to take the easy route... never.  So I drew a tree, of course I added my own little life to it, which will make the six styles even more difficult!  But, what good is a challenge if you are not challenging yourself!!

So... I was thinking what am I going to do.  How am I going to make this simple drawing into a beautiful interpretation of fauvism?!!   I layered a bunch of scraps of a beautiful terracotta orange fabric on top of each other (held them there with a little glue stick), traced my tree in reverse and started stitching from the back.  I had no idea if this would work the way I had intended or not... Yep, it did, it was beginning to look exactly like my plan.  Don't you absolutely LOVE when this happens?!!

So I conquered the tree, and it turned out pretty cool.  But what about the ground???  Well, Friday while packing my husbands lunch it hit me... I ran into the studio (haha, the old living room), and started my idea before it fell out of my head.

Wow... again, don't you absolutely love when things work out exactly like you were thinking?  I took some scraps of a turquoise and orange batik and cut them into strips of varying widths, then I cut pieces of a variegated wool yarn and I randomly stitched a giant zig-zag to hold them down.  Then I cut more strips of fabric and more pieces of yarn and filled in all the open areas, and zig-zagged some more.

And then... the felting of the wool yarn.  Let me start with I have never felted wool, ever.  The only reason I had this wool yarn was to help Nancy knit some wool for her special woolies that she makes.  She is the felting pro... I just listen.  So I took this beautiful thing I'd just made and put it in the sink with very, very, hot water.  Then you pretty much beat the living crap out of it... seriously.  You rub it, stretch it, and even scrap it with a metal sieve... what ever you have to rough it up.  Then you throw it in the dryer on very high heat and wait.

So then comes the fun part... I wasn't sure how this would turn out, because it wasn't knitted, it was just stitched in with the fabric strips.  Well, turns out, it turned out perfect!  This was the exact look my mind was seeing!  Kinda like some crazy lumpy mossy grass.  I know you can't see in the picture, but there is so much depth to this mess, I love it!

Gee, how could I make this any more wonderful... why not use gauzy fashion fabric for the sky background -- remember no rules, no regulations, just expressive wildness -- love it!!  The deep turquoise was the perfect color for this project -- it totally made the orange fabric of the tree pop, and pulled the turquoise out of the batik in the grass.  At this point I was super pleased, and both new things I tried worked -- not only worked, they worked perfectly and exactly as my mind saw them!

So then on to the quilting (my favorite part) -- nothing crazy, just follow the flow of the felted wool in the grass and some detail in the tree and some simple lines in the gauzy background.  But holy cow, look at the amazing textures in the grass.  I was more than pleased at this point.

I even couched some decorative thread -- I have had this amazing spool of YLI Designer 6 for eons (I have three different colors and I guard them, they are my absolute most favorite decorative thread, they are like a little satin cord -- I guard them because I have found them to be difficult to find), and it just happens to be the most amazing dark turquoisy-teal color.  Look how fantastic this is -- it is exactly what was needed to pull it all together!

Well... let me just say, gauze is not the easiest fabric to bind with... even with oodles of starch it has a mind of its own... but why do easy now?  Here is my finished mini-quilt "Strong Roots - Fauvism"

I hope you have all enjoyed the journey of this block as much as I have.  I really wanted my project to be more than just painted fabric -- that would have been way too easy -- I hope that it translates well and still speaks the style of fauvism even though it is all fabric, no paint.  Thanks for reading all the way to the end, I know this was a really, really, long post!

PS... just got back from the big "reveal" meeting... OMG, awesomeness as always!  Here are pictures of everyone's projects:

Eyvonne Smith

Natalie Carlton

Kathy Rentz

Judie Gutke

Pat Foust

Pam Post