Art Quilt Forest: Ruth Treon's Tree

 I have been madly trying to get three quilts done to submit to the Studio Art Quilt Associations Ohio regional show...and quite frankly, have been too tuckered out to write! As I just got two of them pinned to the carpet and blocked, I'm going to take a little break and post this. :)

One of the things I think which was difficult for our little art Quilt group is to figure out how much or how little to make our blanks.  
Compare Ruth Treon's branches which flow off the space, with Gwen's (Here on Feb. 1)which were well.....truncated!

Ruth also packed her quilt bits in a shoe box to pass around.

 Remember, the originator didn't get to see these until the reveal.  Here you see Ruth's surprise as Loraine looks on.

As I mentioned, Susan Pickrell decided that the boxes needed embellishment....and she really had a heyday with Ruth's box.  The cover was covered with some trapunto quilting.  Inside, Susan made a yarn cover (I don't know if she knitted it or crocheted it) for her camera and stuck in some other interesting things in case someone wanted to use them on Ruth's work.

 Here's Ruth's finished piece.  Susan did the first thing which was to work with a word (the assignment from the Art Quilt Workbook which was applied on her turn).  Her word was "shadow."  Susan wrote "shadow" repeatedly on her sewing machine over net stabilized with water soluble stabilizer. This became the tree's shadow.

I think, but I'm not sure, that Linnette Vagedes added the pieced quilt...Becky Goodwin added the angelina frost which I think turned out great, Gwen Brown the painted area in the sky, and Jo Heffner made the rabbit and the rabbit footprints.

Here you can see more closely the really cool bird that Loraine Smith added...it has a real feather tail, and it is really tiny.  The over all size of this piece is about 14" tall.....so the bird is about 1/2" long.

More Trees

Gwen Brown is another of our art quilt group.  Gwen made this rather simple tree.....and what people did with it was far from simple.

Ruth Treon added the sunset behind the tree by using water soluable pastels.  Linnette I think added the little tiny purple hexagons...Gwen's favorite color is purple and she has been working on Grandmother's flower gardens...The yoyos? I think Susan Pickrell added these....I think people were just having great fun adding lots and lots of stuff to her simple tree and giving it texture.

Loraine Smith is a very talented quilter in our group. Loraine is fond of bright colors and batiks.  Her "blank" was perfect for her...the tropical scene is Loraine through and through....

Here is Loraine looking at the outside of her box...Susan Pickrell (I think) found an advertisement for Goldfish crackers which showed the crackers arranged in a rainbow ..and colored similarly.









Loraine's finished piece turned out well....The little green dangly thingies on the palm tree Becky Goodwin added.  On a recent trip to Hawaii, Becky noticed incredible seed pods hanging from palm trees.  Becky recreated these with beaded bits.  Linette added the white and gold swirly thing over the round thing...in real life it is a dove with the words "Peace" written across it.  She made it out of "Shrinky Dink" which made us all laugh as we were all of an age to have played with the original rendition of "Shrinky Dink", a plastic which you colored then melted in the oven....I think Gwen made her the umbrella, and Jo Heffner added the metalic foiled sun (the round thingy on the right).  I can't remember who added the white....I think it was Linette, and it's real sand, held on with glue.  Ruth Treon creatively pieced the swirl in the water....and Susan Pickrell added the large jellyfish which drops off the edge.  Susan made it as a pin so it could be removed when it came time to quilt it.  I think Susan's favorite thing is to add texture.  The jellyfish is a great addition especially because it trails off the  edge.

  
This will really be fun to see quilted.  Loraine is an exceptionally prolific quilter, and her work is very very good.  I ribbed her pretty hard tonight at our meeting because she showed so many great pieces in show and tell and she's always finishing up something and sending it on as gifts for her grand children....

Art Quilt Trees: Becky Goodwin

 Here's Becky Goodwin and her tree "blank" for the Round Robin.  Becky's was really neat because everyone reacted to it in the same way.....We saw an acacia tree in Africa....

The background is a brown batik ....

When we were passing these around, the person who started the piece had to leave the room....they were kept in boxes , and we discovered we had to add paper to some of the boxes so you couldn't peep in and see your piece before "the reveal."

Here's Becky and her sister Jo Heffner as Becky looks at her piece for the first time in a year.

This turned out to be one of the best ones.  Linnette Vagedes added the eagle---and her husband and she kept on moving the eagle around the piece before it was positioned here.  She made it so that the wing would flip out and be dimensional.

Loraine Smith added the hut, which also had dimensions....I think...I don't remember who added the one lady with the burden...I think it was Ruth Treon who added the path as well.  Then the second lady was added by someone else...

The stamped giraffe in the background was really neat...as was the dimensional "bush" at the far right (Gwen Brown's addition?)....Jo Heffner made the really cool mask....in a really creative way.  She took a plastic baby spoon and cut the handle off..her husband smoothed it out for her.  She then made paper mache out of shredded paper to make the dimension of the mask. covering it with fabric.  She then painted the face marks on with paint pens as the fine elements of the mask were not noticeable unless you increased the contrast.


I'm really glad that they had the journals which accompanied this because I sure as heck can't remember who did what!
Well done!