A Small Finish – Fantasy Landscape

While awaiting a packet of fabric to arrive in the mail (surprised?) I finished off a small fused project that had been on my design wall for quite a while.

Remember what it looked like last time you saw it??Something was just not jelling, so I set it aside for several months in order to get a handle on what exactly was bugging me.

I arrived at two problems:  proportion and color.

My sight line (the orange and pink lump) was too high.  It needed to be lower so that about 1/3 of the image was below it and about 2/3 above.  Sitting smack dab in the middle was making me unhappy.  Fairly easy to fix – chop it off at the bottom and add more fused to the top.

The colors?  Yeah, well those combinations weren’t doing anything for me either.  I was trying to integrate some experiments from my other fused projects and I ended up with – meh.

For this problem, adding more fabric and more layers seemed a lot like overkill.  Taking off the entire lower part didn’t seem to fix it.

So what do I do?  I looked for some ways that I could get the color blending that I want without adding more fused fabric.

I already have great fabric paints but they are either very thin and don’t hold a line or they are really opaque and don’t blend well.

For a long time I’ve wanted to try ink on fabric – ala Judy Coates Perez.  Her colors and artistry – the layers of images that give so much depth . . . too amazing for words.

However, I really really really don’t want to buy more supplies.  Seriously, I have a room full of crap that I kinda sorta use.  I need to batten down the hatches a bit on my discretionary fabric and supplies purchases – which are by definition discretionary already.

Adding inks to my little starter piece would be the ticket – and I don’t have a huge emotional investment in it so if it flops, oh well.    However, inks need special everything as far as I can tell and I must have a selection of colors to work with – all for an experiment that could end up under the TV as a pad.  Cha-ching.

I read about a product called Derwent Inktense pencils.  And with a 40% off coupon, I decided to give it a try.

I scoured the web for good instructions and jumped right in.  Scribble, blend (with water or aloe vera gel) scribble, blend – and I improved the flow of color.  Kinda.

There are sections where it still looks like colored pencil scribbles no matter how much aloe vera gel I used or how hard I scrubbed with the brush.  (hope no one gets a sunburn for a while because I think we’re out now.)  I touched up the colors with my beloved Dye-Na-Flo paints – thin and spread-y.

I like the piece much much better and I’m glad to have a little start on my collection of smaller works.  It still has the waves and curves that I want (I quilted with coordinating rayon thread) and the proportion and color is better.

All the best -

Chris