A4 Challenge Group

A4 Art Quilt challenge December 2014 Architecture

| janicepd

The December theme was Architecture. /definitions…

  • the art or practice of designing and constructing buildings.
  • the style in which a building is designed or constructed, especially with regard to a specific period, place, or culture.
  • the complex or carefully designed structure of something.

That was a difficult them for me because my work is more organic.  I chose door number three: the complex designed structure of something…an art quilt.

Architecture theme 2014
Janice Paine Dawes December 2014 Challenge Architecture

This was constructed by first strip piecing hand painted and hand dyed scraps for the background. Then I added scraps from my Seashore themed artist trading cards from this month. Those were positioned on the background and wonky machine stitching  holds it all together. I have a Styrofoam block I made and I printed this all over in black for depth. A few wonky hand stitches to go with my commitment to adding slow stitching to my work and I called it done.

A4 Challenge Art Quilt

| janicepd

Lay down my Burden_JPaineDawes

One of my all time favorites that Elvis Presley sang is “Down by the Riverside”. And one of my favorite places to be is the calm and peace of the White River at sunrise and sunset. The light reflects on the water and the woods reflect back onto themselves. It is a great place to ‘lay your burden down’ and reflect on your life.

This is a hand dyed piece of textured cotton in browns and yellow on white. It was a perfect reflection. Trees and grasses are free form stitched in browns and colors. Accents of orange leaves, blue water and sky were done with Prismacolor pencils.

A4 Challenge Group Looky Looky!

| janicepd

This is a re- post since I wanted to introduce you to a new group that has come together from the QuiltArt List. We will do a challenge every 2 months. Here’s the address if you want to keep up with what we are doing.    http://challengeplaygrop.wordpress.com/  (Yes, it is misspelled, my doing I’m afraid.)  My post is the first but others should start showing up in the next week,

Jeannie Sredl came up with our theme for the first challenge of “Off To The Races”. That could be interpreted many ways by the diverse group of artists in this group.  I think this quote says it all and should be the mantra of this new group.

The Race was on, the souls of the racers were in it. ~~ Lew Wallace, Ben Hur

Here is my offering in A4 size and a little about it. I wanted to challenge myself to use the mountains of hand dyed fabrics and threads I’ve been making. I started with only the fabrics in mind and no particular composition. That’s the way I work most of the time. I tell people I am seduced by the cloth as I let it morph into what it wants to be when it grows up.

I cut and pin, stitch, look at, stitch some more. When it starts taking on a shape I can see the meaning and how it relates to a theme I’m working from.  The quote on the piece is from Aditya Chandra:

Life is one race I never want to win, I’d rather stroll around enjoying the scenery.

Here it is, I hope you enjoy my scenery.

offtothe races copy
Janice Paine Dawes