Leni Wiener

I thank you all for your comments (most came through email and are not on the site).  The opinions were mixed about equally between the photo and the quilt.  I decided that what I didn’t like about the quilt was that it got puffy with the batting inside, so I spent three hours pulling out every single stitch so that I could redo it without batting.  (Yes, I am crazy!).

Having done that this morning (while baking for thanksgiving) I still didn’t like it.  It just didn’t look like me. The jaw and chin didn’t look right.  The answer, as it almost always is–VALUE.  Although there was a difference in value between the fabrics I used, their relation to each other was wrong.  So I started again (I told you I am crazy).

Look at this photo and you will see the problem.  The finished (first) quilt on the right, the photo in the center, and the new piece (in work) on the left.  Even without the eyes, the new one looks more like me than the finished one.

Looking at the finished one, there is a difference in the values of the skin tones and shadows but not enough.  So even though the pieces are the right shape, the chin and jaw don’t show up enough.  The face was redone using six different values, #1 and #2 being fairly close to each other (in fact, #1 is the back of #2) and then a bigger jump in value to #3.  That means that the jaw and chin are more well defined.

On the other hand, the lips were too dark, lightening them looks more natural.  And the hair in the first quilt is too contrasty–my real hair has only subtle highlights.

The point?  Value is often more important than color in creating the image.  Just look at these portraits I did a while back in completely non-naturalistic colors:

So that is my thought on value and their importance in the final product.  I hope to have this finished by tomorrow, and will post the finished quilt for your opinions again.

Have a wonderful thanksgiving.  Thank you for supporting my little blog!

Some of you may know that I have a book coming out this spring entitled “photo inspired art quilts” in which I describe my method and techniques for creating the photo realistic quilts seen here, and on my site.  Writing a book, well mostly getting it published, is a very interesting process, and this fall I went (with all my quilts and each individual step for instructions) to Cincinnati to have the book photographed.  At the time, the photographer also did my “author portrait” which was the part I most dreaded.  We came up with two or three possibilities, and called it done.

Two weeks ago I emailed asking for that photo and the one that came back made me wince.   Either he saved one I hadn’t liked (he deleted all the others) or I was more tired than I thought when I made the decision, but I didn’t want it to see the light of day (although, I will share it with you).

With the book deadline approaching, and the thought of another “sitting” I decided to “make lemonade” as the expression goes.  I took the photo, created a “pattern” for it in photoshop, and made an art quilt of myself as the author portrait.

This is a very interesting exercise.  I have done more conceptual self portraits before, but never one that I wanted to be an accurate depiction of me.  At times I thought I looked like my mother, at others I looked like a cousin (I never thought we resembled each other in any way).  It is so strange to focus so much attention on the face I see every day in the mirror, the face I thought I knew so well.

Try it some time when you aren’t inspired to do anything in particular.  Mine isn’t large–about 14″ square.  It took me only a weekend.

here I am looking older, fatter, and paler than I saw myself in real life!

The pattern I created for myself in photoshop (using the cutout filter set to 8 levels)

Finally, me done in fabric.  I am not sure about it.  What do you think–is it better than the original photo, or should I suck it up and use that?  Comments welcomed!

After a few busy days, it was back to work.  I wanted to combine the strip of the staircase with some traditional quilting, done in an untraditional way.  I have a trick for marking intricate designs–I print them and pin to the quilt, sew on the lines and then (this is the messy part) tear the paper out.

One of the problems with this technique is that inevitably some areas are missed, and others pull out a bit, but here is the basic quilting:

I am not loving this yet, it seems to be too much of a return to traditional quilting, but it is all about the process, so I will re-evaluate and see where I go from here.  It is important to keep in mind, when you try to break out of your box and try something new–sometimes it works and that sometimes it is just a bridge to something that works.

I have not posted for a few days, because, frankly I wasn’t accomplishing anything.  Often when I feel blocked it is a message that I need to evolve, need to find a new expression that excites me and makes me want to go into the studio and work.

Prior to the flamenco piece (which is still on the design wall waiting to be completed) I did two pieces that I felt marked the end of something for me.  One was “Market Day, Sarlat” (based on a photo my friend Peggy took in France).

As much as I enjoyed working on the woman, I found myself bored by having to create the environment around her.  The other was Tourist Season:

I loved working on all the people in the piece, but when I had to create the environment, I kept it very simple, in part so as not to detract from the people, but the truth is, I felt I wanted to move away from photo realism and towards abstraction–something I have always wanted to explore.

Flamenco was a piece that I wanted to make, and again, kept the background to a minimum.  I felt while I was working on it that it marked the end of something, and I needed to enter another phase.

It is important to continue to grow as an artist, or it becomes too boring, too routine.  I have found that the exploration of how to evolve and where to go is as much a function of establishing what I love to do as it is an admission of what I no longer enjoy.  In this case, much reflection has led me to understand that I am still interested in the human element, but want to move away from the buildings and and the background–towards a more abstract presentation.  As I am still influenced by (and want to work from) photography, pure abstractionism is not for me–not now, anyway.

Having said that, a photo I took of a window revealing a staircase at the Museum of Modern Art has been in my head.

This photo offered me the opportunity to focus my attention on the staircase and figures without a lot of stuff going on in the environment.

The gorgeous hand-dyed fabric I have been holding onto for some time now (I purchased it, I did not make it) becomes the perfect environment for the more stylized depiction of the photo.  This is still very rough, but I like where it is going.

Remember, if you feel blocked artistically, it may be a message from your subconscious that you aren’t challenging yourself, or growing.

I would love to hear your comments!

Now that I am only a week away from the silent auction donation to benefit the United Way, I decided to finish the two thread painted pillows.  The first you saw in development in this blog:

You can see what the right fabric can do to complement and complete the thread painting,  here is a detail:

The second pillow I made is from a beautiful fabric I used for a pillow in my thread painting book:

By thread painting one of the motifs and then fussy cutting it and doing a machine applique onto the pillow, I get a nice effect.  Here is a detail of the thread painting: