The Sacred Tree

At a playdate in June we used different techniques with a view to creating our personal talisman.   I had no trouble choosing mine.   This is a negative image of my ash tree, which symbolizes so much for me.  I tore bits of tissue and used a medium to stick it to a piece of hand made paper (not made by me - I purchased it in the Gaspe).  I really liked the result and decided to work on a fabric piece.

First I painted several colours of fabric for the background bits.  It gave me a chance to try out my new Stewart Gill paints and my newish Derwent inktense colours.   They gave me some lovely colours.   I added fusible (mistyfuse) to the back of the fabric.

Tiny Bits

 Then came the tedious work of cutting tiny bits of colour and arranging them on the back ground.

More bits

First mistake.  I should have painted the background first.  I thought I could cover every inch but it would have been too thick.   To compensate I dabbed a little lime green in between the coloured bits.   Then I covered it all with lime green tulle.

I drew my tree on good white fabric and painted it with opaque white setacolour, added fusible to the back of it and fused it down to the background.

So that's where I am for now.   I really want to applique the tree and quilt the background by hand but I'm not sure if I can because it is a little thick.......so I may need to tackle the dreaded machine and free motion stitch the tree and machine quilt the background.   I will use white thread for the tree to keep the negative image.   I created this ghost tree for good reason:  I'm not sure if my tree will survive.  It has been treated for the ash borer and time will tell if it makes it.  And I love this tree!

I have made some progress on my second swamp piece adding hand cut and stitched water lilies and lily pads.  I need to do more stitching over the pads to blend more with the background - and add some reflections which also need to be stitched over.

Lastly, I painted a dawn sky for a new piece I am working on.  I used setasilk colours and watered down derwent inktense blocks on satin then heat set it.   I have two shows in mind for the piece - both having to do with big skies.

And speaking of big skies,  the other day I noticed that the sun was shining out front while it was still pouring rain.   I knew there would be a rainbow and ran from one window to the next to see where it was.   Out back it was still dark with rain but there in the middle of the sky was my rainbow......I ran outside and got these shots just as it was starting to disappear.

The Sacred Threads exhibition finished on the weekend and my Kuan Yin piece is on her way home.   The folks at Sacred Threads have published a book of the exhibition and CDs which include the artists' statements and audio recordings from each artist.   They are available at the  Sacred Threads website.  It's the next best thing to being there for those of us who were not able to attend.

This post is linked up to Off the Wall Fridays.   Have a look at what fibre artists are up to this week.