We received so many fun and interesting Let Out Your Inner Animal Challenge quilts from readers that the Quilting Arts editors decided we had to play, too.
You might recall my experiments in frog mutations (art quilt-style) on my editor's blog. I enjoyed reading all the feedback to my outlandish ideas. People really seemed to like that Thread-sketched Frog on Acid!
I find that it's helpful sometimes to go way out over the edge when you're in the designing-sketching stages, then pull it back a bit. I opted to go for a wholecloth quilt painted with water-based disperse dyes and thread sketched (left). I still need to put a few more thread, free-motion touches on him, but this is what I have so far.
Assistant Editor Pippa Eccles took her cue from our very tongue-in-cheek nickname for her, Pippapotomus. (It's a play on her name, only; Pippa actually looks more like a gazelle.) Pippa used appliqué and hand embroidery to create her animal alter ego (right).
Helen Gregory, our managing editor, sees herself as a free-spirited, fun-loving Labrador (below).
Helen says she was influenced by the fabric portrait techniques demonstrated by Maria Elkins in her Making Faces: Beginning & Advanced Portraits Quilting Arts Workshop and by Leni Levenson Wiener in the February/March issue of Quilting Arts Magazine.
Both artists use photos and tracing paper to break down an image into values so it can easily be made into a fabric portrait.
Helen added details with thread sketching and plans to add a few more touches, plus a binding.
You can see many of our reader entries to this Let Out Your Inner Animal challenge in the Reader Challenge Gallery on the Quilting Arts Community.
Be sure to leave your comments!
