amalgam II

 

When I commenced the formal study of art in 2006, a year after I made the traditional blocks I posted for the last few days, my path took two directions. In studio classes,  I got to learn about the principles of art and design in the context of drawing and painting vignettes, nude models, and faces.  In digital art classes, I got to learn the machinations of Adobe's Photoshop and Illustrator programs, as well as Corel Painter software.

The image above was my first effort at digital imaging, creating a design solely with the computer. I wanted to reflect my textile heritage, so I created "stitches" in the piece -- one set in the body itself, and then others forming "echo stitches."

Perfect -- to depict my artistic evolution, I would try to incorporate this image with the traditional quilt blocks I posted earlier.  How would I do that? Digitally.

The negative space around the image beckoned. If I sewed the actual blocks to the form, I would be destroying the blocks. Not an option. I would take photos of my quilt blocks, and then form a border around the body with those photos by erasing part of the block. I would be creating a whole cloth piece that I could print on fabric and then quilt.

At first, I tried using the inserted photos of blocks at full opacity -- in the block on the left, you can see that is a less-than-satisfactory result.  It's too stark.

When I lowered the opacity of the block image, the result was much softer. The colors seemed to work in harmony, and the soft image gave the impression that the traditional quilt was beneath the surface of the more contemporary image. Sweeeet!  The computer is definitely my friend.