Portrait Warmup

I'm getting ready for next weeks week-long Painted Quilt Art class in Phoenix, Az. with "Quilting In The Desert!"   This length of class affords me time to do a demo portrait and I am always looking for a new challenge rather than relying on past fabric ink portraits.  A throwaway local magazine carried a photo of an adorable young girl.  As long as I am merely using this image for a personal refinement/ learning opportunity, it should be fine to use. Lest I contact the photo owner for permission, what I would NOT do is use this image in a finished portrait piece for public sale or competition.

 So I did a 30 minute unfinished portrait to to bring human portrait skills back in focus ( I often paint wildlife)   I like to  go for soft... almost  pastel chalk-look paintings of people... all using ink on fabric.

This is certainly a cute little girl.... I loved her happy eyes in dark shadow and 'am always challenged painting an open mouth. An open mouth generally calls for emphasis on the opening rather than the lips... the open area of the mouth would be the darkest area. As to teeth... you may hint at edge shape, but may not want to define each tooth ( alas the Dracula effect is easily achieved).  

Click on photo for enlarged view

Exploring a White Knight!

Okay... so I haven't posted since just before Christmas. A fifteen day cruise gift from hubby  occupied my would be creative time but for 2 small pieces painted on the small desk in my stateroom.  I've been wanting to take on another equine piece as horses are such beautiful art on legs!
 The black and white contour drawing put down flat with fabric atop and here we go. I try to get the eyes in right away so the animal comes alive.  Some basic facial features are all that's painted here. The rest you see is the under fabric contour drawing. I will sometimes do a small version of a piece ( to work out the kinks) and then a larger version...likely to be done on this image.

Now a bit more detail starts to creep in:

and finally a breathtaking mane.   This is a white horse on white fabric and I wanted to keep this soft and monochromatic.... so the lightest of grays was introduced into the background. Values are relative to what's around them so even this light gray is darker  than the horse thus the white horse looks more white than if the background were left  pure white.

                                                (C) copyright Patt Blair
Finally home to quilt and finish.  Mostly white threads , some taupe, and light gray.. all 40 wts.
Quilting the horse  motifs came pretty natural... sweeping slightly curved lines with graceful beginnings and endings wherever possible.  The background brought a new challenge. I needed something more than a knock down filler.... it would be boring to do that. So I settled on an alternate fill/no fill pattern on parallel wavy lines moving horizontally.  Sometimes things work out!  Click on photos for enlarged view.

                                                        (C) copyright Patt Blair