SAQA Trunk Show

I made a little quilt for the SAQA Trunk Show. It's called Magpie.

Now that it's finished I see that it has the same basic color story as both Stellar Jay and California Dreaming. Hmmm, maybe I need to shake things up a bit!

New Work - Sunrise Serenade

Somehow I finished this piece, sent it to a show, and never shared it with you all. So here it  is:

Sunrise Serenade © 2013 Diane Rusin Doran

Unsurprisingly, it's a digital collage printed on fabric. I believe I printed it in the spring of 2011. It took me a while to decide on how to quilt it, plus other deadlines loomed, so it patiently waited for my attention. All of the imagery except for perhaps one bird is from photos taken in my yard. 

The quilting was done using mostly Aurifil cotton threads, with a little bit of rayon and silk thrown in. Much of the background quilting is overlapping to echo the transparency of the various background elements. The locust leaves and maple branches/buds were outlined, and then additional quilting was added on top. I originally planned to quilt the birds quite ornately, but thought better of it and went with a simpler approach. It was fun to use so many of my favorite colors (blues and greens) and quilting motifs (leaves and ferns).

P.S. Don't forget the Blog Hop going on until January 28! Both Candy and Sarah are accepting entries now.

Kaleidoscope Fun Part 3

Last week I shared some fun ways that I use kaleidoscopes in quilt designs. In Part 1 I showed how I create kaleidoscopes using Kaleidoscope Kreator, then import them back into the program to create a new look. In Part 2 I showed how to use a kaleidoscope with a simple layer to create a medallion center for a quilt.

As easy and fun as those two techniques are, what I most enjoy is using kaleidoscopes as part of digital collages. When I made my DVD, Digital Collage for Quilt Design, the one thing that I most wanted folks to take away from it was that you can use any image - photo, scanned documents or objects, drawings, paintings etc. - as part of a digital collage. If you look at my quilts (here and here) you'll see that I certainly use photographs in my collages, but also a variety of other image types.

Using a variety of image types in your digital collages can add texture, depth, and a more painterly looking result. It's really a way to personalize your art! In all the examples below I imported the kaleidoscopes into Photoshop and combined them with other images.

So how have I used kaleidoscopes in digital collages? Let's see

This background was created by heavily manipulating a feathered kaleidoscope, then copying it three times and arranging the images in a square.

Here the kaleidoscope has been cropped and used as a background for a silhouette. It's a very graphic look.

Again, a heavily manipulated kaleidoscope used as a background. Doesn't it remind you of a batik?

Using various transparencies for the kaleidoscope layers creates a fill for the butterfly, as well as the "frame" of feathers.

The "fancy" part of the background kaleidoscope was selectively removed, leaving a graphic, sun like design.

Yet another heavily manipulated kaleidoscope forms the background.

The "sprig" layer is placed on a kaleidoscope background. Because of the transparency of the "sprig" layer the background acts as a fill for the buds. I could easily extract the black background and use this design element on a different composition.

I love symmetry, but for my collages my focal point is generally not the kaleidoscope. As you can see I instead use them as  background elements, fills,  or textures. The framing effect a kaleidoscope can add to a composition is particularly appealing to me.

I hope you've enjoyed this series of posts - they were certainly fun for me! I'd love to hear how you use kaleidoscopes in your quilts too.