Monday, August 30, 2010

SELF PORTRAIT

self portrait 003
self portrait 006











Here we go on another journal quilt. This was really fun.
I’m not sure what little bird of an idea flew into my head one night, but it all started with wanting to try a continuous line drawing of myself and then coloring it in. I also was encouraged by Shawna’s painting she did (her son flying over the ramp on his bike) and Dawn’s comment on the class she took where she stitched first, painted later.  Thanks ladies! (These are fellow journalers.)
I went to the bathroom mirror with paper and pencil and did a quick two step (line) drawing, first my face and then the hair. It was a bit congested around the nose, but other than that, I could live with it.
I prepared my sandwich of white cotton on both sides with batting in between, and proceeded to reproduce my self-portrait that I had previously done on paper. So far, so good! (I actually took pictures of all these steps but somehow lost them when I was messing around with my camera last night.) And I realized that this was now reversible.
The next step was to soak my sandwich in soda ash, dry it, and press it. I mixed my dyes and thickened them with alginate. I first started with the portrait of my coastal B.C. self in the cool colors, and then flipped it over to paint my southern, Mexican self in the warm colors. I loved being able to try two completely different palettes of color on the same drawing.
As far as how I am connected to these pictures, these facts are true: 1) I have been wearing the same blue, round earrings for the whole summer!, 2) although I don’t have red hair, I have a ton of it in my genes, 3) I do not have blue eyes, 4) my hair is multi-color these days – brown, gold, reddish, gray, white, and 5) I was surprised about all those lumps and bumps and folds and furrows in the neck, chin and forehead areas. Oh well!

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