Quilting The Jaguar

The painting at the start shown here....    First things first, I  pinned... then secured major areas with monofilament.  Out with the pins then quilting can begin.   I normally quilt from inside ( center of quilt ) outward. This is a strangely integrated image ( one area to another) so the pre securing ( .004 monofilament) permits me to move around a bit as long as I refrain from seriously dense quilting.

 

This background area is pretty much there to support the central image so I minimized the quilting density.

The tree in which this guy is hanging out... has interesting structure. The photographers photo showed both  a rough dark greyed large horizontal limb and trunk structure and some lighter warmer colored snake-shaped  broken limbs which doesn't seem to fit w/ the former structure... BUT .. I found it interesting and painted them without trying to understand. I'll tackle the rough greyed limbs first.  How to QUILT?

Sometimes the fabric can give you a clue ... i.e.... just play up the fabric message. Gotta start somewhere.... I used a dark brown/black twist for this. Here's a start.

Slow quilting but basically a general outlining of the  somewhat out of focus pattern beneath.

I'm thinking I like it . 

A few more days hiding in Sedona, and I'll get it done.