Quilt Museum Project, 8-29-11

It's been about a week since I updated, so here's some more. I spent a few hours this evening painting and painting, while listening to music, silence, and the audiobook of The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood.

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Quilt Museum Project, 8-21-11

Here are some progression pics, while I have a bit of down time before I continue. These were taken a few days ago, before my brief presentation to the Museum, but I've been away from the computer since then.

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Above is my checklist for the project's progress. I think today I'll have at least two more panels sketched out and inked in, and more paint on the Hotel Planter.

Quilt Museum Project, Night of Painting

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I got a good 3 hours of painting done on the project. And "reading" a book. I've been stuck halfway in Elizabeth Kostova's The Swan Thieves--about a painter, of course--and I decided to check out the local library's audiobook version to listen to while I paint. I was surprised how well I could follow the story and focus on my painting. I recommend you at least attempt it.

Anyways, here are shots from this evening's progress.

Quilt Museum Project, 8-12-11

Alright, here's another update on my Quilt Museum Project (see related links at bottom of post), for those of you wanting to keep up.

Link to all related posts here.

I was going to post some of my explanations and almost-ranting on this project, but I've decided to save that for later. Here is a gallery of behind-the-scenes work happening so far.

Stitch in Time

Here is a sneak peak at my yet-unannounced piece for an upcoming show I'm hoping to be in. More info will be available as I receive it. In the mean time, enjoy these snippits and start thinking what it may be.

 

 

 

 

 

Quilt Museum Project, Supplies

In my last post about the Quilt Museum Project, I forgot to mention the supplies I have been using. I guess I'll just start this post about supplies, and I'll continue to update it as I progress each section.

Link to all related posts here.

• Drafting / Roughing
• Pencils (wood and mechanical)
• Rulers (wood and metal)
• Calculator
• Watercolor paper
• Right-angle triangle
• White-nylon eraser-pen
• Reference photos
• Computer
• Patience
• Inking
• Medium-sized dish
• Container for water
• Small dishes for mixing ink
• Bottle of India ink
• Brushes
• Syringe for water
• Calligraphy pen with nibs
• Blotting tissue
• Paper towels for messes
• Steady hand
• White-nylon eraser pen (after ink dries completely)
• Patience
• Painting 
• Brushes
• Acrylic paints
• Blotting tissues / paper towels
• Syringe for water
• Steady hand
• Plastic palette
• Dishes to mix water
• Painter's knife
• Forgiveness
• Patience 

Music (alphabetical):

• Binarpilot - B-Sides
• Binarpilot - Nordland
• Chameleon Circuit - Chameleon Circuit
• Chameleon Circuit - Still Got Legs
• Charlie McDonnell - This Is Me
• The Classic Crime - Vagabonds
• Elizabeth Kostova's The Swan Thieves (audiobook)
• Margaret Atwood's The Year of the Flood (audiobook)

Quilt Museum Project, The Basics

Link to all related posts here.

I will explain my current project (as revealed here) as the process goes, as well as share some of the behind-the-scenes pictures.

For a big project, what you first need is a space to do your work and supplies. I just happened to have a large table, and a drawer-set full of art supplies.

[Yes, those are chalkboard walls]

From the beginning, I knew I needed to stock up on paper. For the last project, my supply budget was pricier, so I ended up using huge sheets of 300-lb. watercolor paper. This time, I figured I could scale it down on the costs and be more careful with the paints. I just had to figure out how many sheets to get--and this required measurements of the space in the museum, as well as those of the rendered buildings.

One problem with this was, even though I photographed progress on my last street-view project, I forgot to take / save meticulous notes on dimensions within the art. So, I had to do some sleuthing: I knew the painter's tape I used was 1" wide, so I measured, and did calculations from there.

[Resized the images on screen to match and calculated dimensions--this took a while]

Next, one needs reference pictures to work from. Since this current project is basically larger version of one I had done before, the reference photos and sketches still work.

[Rough sketches with pen and some notes]

Once I got the paper and figured out the "work space" on the sheets, then came the fun part of sketching guidelines, and then actually roughing out the buildings from references. This is what is taking a lot of time--some buildings are wider than one sheet, so drawing between two pieces I have to make sure everything will line up in the end result.

In reality, these two buildings are no where near each other. While saving paper, though, these two were the perfect size to fit on the same panel without encroaching on the margins to help with painting in the future.

Essentially, this is where I am in the project. Once I have all the pencil roughing done for all the panels, then I will ink each one, and finally paint. Keep an eye out for updates--I hope to really get creating in the next week or two.