Tableau quilt, begun at last
At long last, I started the stitching! PHEW! Last week I sketched before I got too sick to do much of anything. This past weekend, I pinned up the background (dark sky, ground) and mountains (formerly a winter uniform skirt from San Domenico):
Then yesterday, I cut out the sketches and pinned them to the background:
Today, after some serious avoidance issues (the I-don’t-know-what-I’m-doing -why-didn’t-I-just-do-simple-piecing-instead-of-trying-to-make-art kind of avoidance) I traced the faces onto white PFD (Prepared For Dyeing) fabric and began coloring them in. I intended to use Tsukinenko Inks to do the faces, but I just couldn’t get the detail I needed in the applicators–the faces are about 1 1/2 to 2 inches tall, so it’s mighty small geography to do a face…even with sharp pencils!
So I used a combination of Tsukinenkos and Prismacolor pencils. Since I have no idea how I’m really going to do this and am making it up as I go along, I cut some fusible interfacing to “back” (and add an opaque layer) each face, spray-basted the faces to some wash-away paper stabilizer, and stitched hair today. Am about halfway done…have the angel, Mary, one of the kings, and a spare angel–the faces that is. Tomorrow need to do the other two kings, Joseph and the shepherds. When done, I’ll take pics of a couple of the faces and upload…..think I’ll use Spray Fixative (the stuff folks use to “set” pastels) on the faces to help “set” the pencils. Sure hope I don’t ruin ’em!
Once the faces are done, I’ll start constructing the individual figures…..in the meantime, here’s a cropped part of one of Fra Angelico’s madonnas. I made my Virgin Mary and baby a composite of three different images, including this one. I LOVE the Madonna della Stella, holding that little baby—just like a newborn looks cuddled next to his mama, but like the face (and get a better view) from other images:
And here’s the basic sketch I’m using for my piece:
I’ve never done foiling before, but plan to do that for the halos, and add beads and sequins…why not go over the top?!! All I can do is fail miserably, succeed, or end up somewhere in between….the question is where (lost in the space inside my mind?????)……