TAKING IT TO THE BORDER

Creating artwork with painted fabric provides opportunity for mixing and matching the parts. I created a quilt, “Classic” based on a beach memory. The character at the beach is the actual subject. But it provided plenty of room for playing with pattern and color in the borders too.

Classic

Colors – same as what is in the quilt, but more intense. Opacity – deeper than most of the quilt because I’ll use muslin instead of the watercolor-like sheers in the rest of the quilt. I want a playful graphic, not something representational. The informal quality of glue resist seems like just the right solution.

(Just a digression for a moment: Artists are problem-solvers. That’s what the whole artmaking process is about. How can I make this work? What can I try next if it doesn’t work? So, pursuing artmaking is not frivolous at all. There’s a lot of cognitive stuff going on in a studio practice!) 

OK. Back to the story. All the supplies are gathered: Paint, water, the strips of muslin, my little painting sponge.

First I created a pale base color: one in pale orange, one in pale teal. I let those dry.

Then I free-form stamped some circle shapes with washable glue.

Every resist medium has its own character. Using glue as a resist creates loosely defined shapes. And the occasional drip and blop add interest. After the stamping, the glue has to dry.

Step three is an over-print in a different color. For these pieces I kept it in the same hue. Deeper orange over lighter orange and deeper teal over lighter teal. Let that dry.

Then I dunk the strips in water for a while to let the glue soften up so I can scrape it off.

I wanted a little more depth on these pieces. So I added a layer of spatter to each and then some additional small shapes stamped in the same color family.

Here’s a corner of the quilt. I am only going to have the strips visible on two sides to create a corner and an anchor for the whole piece. The teal bottom strip is a little wider than the side strip in orange.

I enjoy using corner accents on large quilts. I did something similar in these two quilts.

As you look back through the quilts in this gallery, I hope you’ll take time to look all the way to the borders. What artists do at the edges can provide interesting surprises.

See more of Bobbi’s work on her page https://www.gallerytextileartsaqafl.com/bobbi-baugh-artwork