Quilting & Learning - What a Combo!: Morning has broken

Welcome to Art with Fabric, Spring 2018 edition!

Morning has broken

What if surrealists created happy, colourful art? That's the premise of my art piece today.

Morning has broken

Alida, our amazing host and organiser, chose the theme of 1+1=3. I did some research and while I'm intrigued by surrealism, I find the lack of colour rather depressing. There is enough harshness in the world without my contributing to it. However, when I found a painting featuring an egg as the sunrise, my imagination went into overdrive. I love the concept of the egg as sun and harbinger of life. So, I took the egg concept and ran with it.

Vladimir Kush - Sunrise by the Ocean, 2000

Vladimir Kush was born and grew up in Russia where he attended art school. He now lives in Hawaii and owns 4 art galleries. Many of his work are based on mythology and symbolism. While some of his pieces have vivid colours, I find that as a surrealist, there is usually something evocative and sometimes disturbing in his work.

When I first saw Sunrise by the Ocean on the internet, it was attributed to Salavador Dali and called L'Aurora, 1948. It was my daughter, who is studying art history, who researched the piece and found that it was actually a work by Vladimir Kush. Apparently misattribution on the internet is quite rampant.

Creating a background

The first step was to find fabric for the background. Both larger pieces are hand dyed fabric. I bought the sky fabric but the bottom fabric comes from last summer's experiment with hand dying. The egg shell is from a commercial fabric with a very light paisley pattern. It was perfect for free motion quilting (FMQ). I didn't cut the ragged edges of the eggshell until later, when I was sure that it was what I wanted.

I experimented with three different suns. The first was a bright yellow fabric but was too small. Then, somewhere on the internet, I saw an amazing looking moon that had been pieced. My first pieced attempt was too symmetrical but the next one made it into the piece.

Creating the background

You can see a little bit of pink fabric peaking behind the sky. I didn't want to use interfacing so I used some thin cotton fabric to make it a little sturdier, since I knew that I would be attaching a lot of fabric to the background.

Auditioning the foreground

I cut out many flowers, leaves, trees, animals etc. (can you spot some of Tula Pink's amazing fabric?) but wasn't sure how I wanted these together. On my new design boards, I auditioned three different "looks".

I can't exactly say why I chose the foreground that I did, except that it was somehow lighter and more vibrant (Foreground #2).

Foreground #1

Foreground #2

Foreground #3

After examining the photos of the three foregrounds, I chose to go with the lighter one and then played with the placement, using fabrics from all three to come up with this almost final version.

The almost final foreground

I sewed the fabric to the background, using a lot of thread sketching to highlight some of the fabrics and colours.

Details: the sun and water

Shimmering sun and water

Now it was time to make the sun and water shimmer. I knew that this would be the highlight of the piece and that made me quite nervous. I took out my box of shinny transparent fabrics (gauze, tulle, silk, etc) and started playing with colours. It's not a very big box and my variety is rather limited but I really wanted to make it work without going to get more fabric.

I have a very light silk scarf that I bought in China that has the most amazing colours. The scarf is too delicate to wear but is perfect for using in art. I did a lot of fussy cutting to get the yellow/pink/orange for the sun. The fraying added the perfect look around the sun.

For the reflection of the sun in the water, I already had a yellow hand-dyed fabric to work with. Using some gauze and more silk, I managed to get the colours that I wanted. Over all that went a sparkling tulle that just makes the water sparkle and shimmer.

Putting it all together

I always find it hard to decide when to stop thread sketching and when to add the batting to quilt. I actually sandwiched this piece before I started playing with the sun and the water.

Details: the sun and eggshells

For the eggshells, I FMQ the design on the fabric before sandwiching the piece. Only the outline of the eggshells are quilted, making them really pop out.

After the sun and water were finished, it was time to start quilting the foreground and finally the sky. I played around with the quilting of the flowers, sometimes quilting the actual flowers, while at other times quilting around the flowers to make them pop. There were many lessons to be learned 😊

I decided to use a facing to finish the quilt. I like how it finishes it and at the same time it will let me finish working on the quilt while making it look good on this post. I still have a little bit of quilting left to do on the background.

Morning has broken, Art with Fabric, Spring 2018

What I learned

This was the first time that I've taken the time to create various parts of the quilt to audition it, like the sun and the different foregrounds. It really didn't take that long, and was so worth it in the end. I feel like this project was much more deliberately constructed than my other work.
I've never quite fallen in love with one of my pieces as I have with this one. Last week I was higher than a kite....on art!
However, after that euphoria, it was a hard drop! I think most of it was due to having worked so much on this. I was exhausted. I actually did almost nothing except read two books. It was also difficult to go back to actually finish the piece, but once I started, everything was fine.
As I mentioned, I learned some interesting lessons while doing all of this FMQ. It's probably because I was bored that I started experimenting with two fabrics that are similar - they both have smaller flowers with lots of leaves, and I had already thread sketched the leaves. For one of the fabrics, I quilted the flowers and some of the leaves, while for the other, I quilted the white space between the flowers and the leaves. I must admit that I would not usually have thought to FMQ in the white background but it was very effective.
I had a really hard time deciding what to do with the sky. Finally I just FMQ some lines and added a few clouds. It was hard to keep it simple after having quilted so much in the foreground. I think that keeping it simple was probably a good idea. (I have to finish quilting a few of the lines to the edge since the piece ended up being bigger than I originally thought!)
I still want to do a little bit of quilting of the background fabric that shows around the foreground. I did some of it, and it does look better when it's flattened and lets the flowers in the foreground pop.
I also considered adding some seed beads, but I really don't want to distract from the shimmering water and sun - so I think I'll skip the beading. I'll just have to find another project to bead :-)

Project Details

Morning has broken

14" x 20"

Material: hand-dyed fabrics, commercial fabrics, tulle, silk, gauze.

Techniques: applique, free motion quilting, improv piecing

34 comments:

Dione Gardner-Stephen21 May 2018 at 04:25
I like your idea of surrealism with all the negativity removed! :) I'm glad you have fallen in love with your piece, it deserves to be admired.
Velda at the Freckled Fox Quiltery21 May 2018 at 05:48
I love the art you used for inspiration and your project is wonderful.
Ariane21 May 2018 at 07:18
Your art quilt is beautiful!!
piecefulwendy21 May 2018 at 09:32
What a neat quilt, and fun to read your thought process as you worked through it!
Bernie Kringel21 May 2018 at 10:51
I agree with Wendy. It is always interesting to me when the maker takes me through her thought process as the project develops. I love that and it is helpful as well. Great job on this - it is lovely.
Tu-Na Quilts21 May 2018 at 13:18
Great interpretation of the artwork. I was unfamiliar with it and learned a lot reading your post. Your quilt came out lovely.
Tami Von Zalez21 May 2018 at 14:25
What does using facing to finish the quilt mean? I'm one of the co-participants in the hop (tvonzalez at gmail dot com).
Lisa J.21 May 2018 at 15:44
This is beautiful. I love all the colour that you added to the sun/egg.
quiltedfabricart21 May 2018 at 16:41
It came out great! I really like surrealist paintings. They are so bizarre. You licked a good one .

I must not have gotten the memo about a 1+1=3 theme. I’m not sure what it means but looking forward to seeing what people do with the theme.
Claire21 May 2018 at 19:17
I like the making something literal out of a figurative phrase. Daylight breaking now has new meaning. And I like what you did to brighten the original.
AlidaP22 May 2018 at 07:13
Absolutely amazing interpretation of the theme! Thank you for sharing so many details of the creation process... it is fascinating to follow you through this journey and you shared so many interesting lessons!!! Thanks for being part of this blog hop and for inspiring!!
Marian23 May 2018 at 17:29
A really lovely project, definitely worth all the work. I think you did an amazing job for a first time effort at creating a landscape. Lord knows, they are not easy to do. :)
Heather Pregger24 May 2018 at 09:47
Great concept, and wonderful idea!
Brenda @ Songbird Designs24 May 2018 at 11:11
Beautiful interpretation!!
allthingzsewn26 May 2018 at 08:27
This is a beautiful take on the original piece, and definitely a piece of art. This is inspiring me to try and branch out more. I don't think outside of the box far enough I generally just take off the lid and peek over the edge. I joined a blogging group call the "Endeavourers" to try and remedy this, but still have not stretched much. You have helped me for this quarter's entry in Aug I think. Thanks.
Marianne26 May 2018 at 11:00
Sujet bien maitrisé bravo beau quilt
Muv1 June 2018 at 04:04
Good Morning Andrée,

This is so gloriously nuts! Is it a landscape or breakfast? Your bright and cheerful interpretation of the theme is wonderful.

Thank you for linking up with Free Motion Mavericks. Your quilt is project of the week!

Love Muv