Aullwood Art Quilt Show 2013 Ann Diller

Ann Diller, Yellowstone Hotspot, 20.5 x 39" NFS

Tonight I fear, I am going to have to keep this a little short....I'm a little bushed after working too hard in the garden! So while I intended to cover more than one artist, tonight you are just going to have to settle for one, and come back tomorrow for more!

Ann Diller is another fellow Miami Valley Art Quilt Network member who lives just south of Dayton, OH.  This last winter she went on a ski trip in Yellowstone and this is one of the scenes she saw....not only humans seeking the geothermal area, but bison (buffalo) foraging where they might be able to find grass under the snow cover.
Ann called this piece "Yellowstone Hot Spot" which just tickles me for the play on words...hot spot becuase of the geyser, and hot spot for the mammals..human and otherwise.

Ann really handled getting the atmosphere down well, and this is not something I would say she has a lot of experience with....Ann tends to do a lot of flora, so this wonderful play of mists/gases/ etc. is a step beyond....at least from what I have seen of her work, and to be fair, I haven't seen a lot lately as I have been missing meetings.

Just look at how the geyser shimmers.  She used layers of sheers.  Her trees were done with perle cotton with bobbin drawing (putting the perle cotton on the bobbin and working upside down---from the back so that the perle cotton lays on the front), and paint.

The trees are called "bobby sock trees" and I had to look that one up.  The lodge pole pines have shallow root systems and take up a lot of the minerals which then stay under the bark. As the pines die, the bark at the bottom peels away revealing the minerals which have deposited right under the bark, looking white, as if the tree were wearing bobby socks.  Apparently, the National Park Service  doesn't use this term anymore, but it is still really fun.