For the lst week I have been playing in the arena of Botanicals. Next month I have the pleasure of accepting an invitation to have a booth at the Best of Missouri Market at the Shaw Botanical Gardens. When I was doing shows regularly I would have given my eye teeth to get this invite.I've been trying to develop a new series based on four trees that grow in our region--Post Oak, Southern Magnolia, Osage Orange ( Bois D'arc), and Dogwood. My concept-- should this prove marketable, is to choose four species every year and feature them for the year-- exploring their elements-- leaves, silhouette, wood grain, seed pods, flowers, medicinal, culinary and industrial uses and even unusal history that involves that tree.
The first tree I began with is the Post oak- because we lost our 200 yr old post oak that shaded our entire backyard in 2007. What you see here is a very simple wreath made from block prints created with meat packing trays. I then went back and free motion stitched to highlight the vein structure. I think you can click each image and it'll blow up larger so you can see better. I'm starting with wreaths because they can be something of a smapler for the variosu stamps I am creating.
This next grouping is on black linen. You can see the various elements-- oak leaves, oak acorns, osage orange fruit, dogwood leaf and dogwood berries, magnolia seed pod. It looks very flat, I know. But my plan is to outline stitch to bring out details. The white lines are just chalk to make sure I keep it even-ish.
The same bunch of elements on dyed silk noil. I added some smaller dogwood leaves.
This piece is probably the closest to completion- all the elements are there and I've included more of the dogwood berries.
This one you can see the two tones of the magnolia seed pod.Where am I going with this? not sure. I'm sure they'll look quite different once I quilt them. But I could sure use some feedback. I don't wish to do boring, trite or cute.
2 comments:
These are wonderful! There is just no end to your creativity or innovation. You don't say how big these are but I'm guessing in the 15" range? Once they're quilted, why not just put them in a simple square frame? You could print a little history of the tree depicted to glue on the back. If ready to hang, they will be attractive to buyers, especially as gifts. Be sure to display them in groups of three (encouraging multiple purchases!). I think you'll do super well with them!
I think choosing some trees to explore in depth as a design basis is a terrific idea, looking forward to seeing more of this interesting work.
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