Friday, December 30, 2016

Nap Time

I remember being put down for naps as a four- or five-year-old, way more for my mom's sake than for any need on my part to sleep, and entertaining myself by investigating the many fabrics and textures in quilts made by Nana May. Or maybe it wasn't Nana May. But it was someone in my family who was decades older than I and probably happy to take a midday nap.

Those quilts came to mind today as I finished up another 'paint quilt,' i.e. a card on which I offloaded excess paint from my brush while working on other projects. This one had some stripes, since I started it while working on a stripes lesson in my Jane Davies workshop back in October. I added more stripes, played again with my new 'oops!' colors from Home Depot, affixed a bit of collage, and brought the 'fabric scraps' to life with Neocolor II wax pastels.

I still pull one of the actual hand-sewn Nana May quilts out of the linen closet sometimes when I visit my dad—a good six-plus decades after I first traced patterns, stitching, and seams with my fingers and imagined who might have worn the dresses that later metamorphosed into a quilt.

Nana May's Scrap Quilt
4x5"; acrylic, collage, and wax pastel on manila stock
abstract
2016
[gift]

7 comments:

carol edan said...

What a lovely story. Yummy to curl up in quilt on a rainy morning. Lovely little card, especially the little dots/drips?

carol edan said...

Looking at it on large computer I see dots in dots..each piece of "cloth" a different pattern.. 31st and I am frozen in fear.. almost can't push myself... where does this come from? Am I SO incompetent?

dotty seiter: now playing said...

Yes, each piece of 'cloth' is a distinct fabric with its own colors/patterns.
Then there are embellishing stitches of 'embroidery' in places, made with Neocolor II crayons, that overlap some 'seams.' And, finally, I scattered a little flow of 'French knots'—I dripped a mauve-ish house paint first and then put white ink dots on top.

Frozen in fear re the 30in30 challenge?

carol edan said...

Yes, because I will be drawing/painting without references!!

dotty seiter: now playing said...

Way cool! Bon voyage! We'll no doubt have plenty to talk about!

Unknown said...

Love all of the designs and happy colors in this one.

dotty seiter: now playing said...

Joje, thank you! This was a fun one to play with. I like when I have a 'start' that's utilitarian, i.e. I was just offloading paint so as not to have to wash as much from my brush when cleaning it. I just brush off the paint with no care for composition or color theory. Then, later, I get to return to it to see what I can make of it. Fun!

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