Week 35: Adobe Illustrator

Starburst Spiral 1 © Karen Thiessen 2012

It took nine weeks of Adobe Illustrator practice to figure out how to make a starburst pattern and another eight weeks to learn how to create Ziggy Zag. Now I've discovered the twist filter and it is fun to play with. The above Starburst Spiral 1 is my take on a large lollipop except with a softer colour palette. Up until recently I've created most of my patterns using the basic colours offered in AI, but now I'm beginning to play with a broader range of tints and saturations.

Starburst Spiral 3 © Karen Thiessen 2012

Starbust Spiral 3 is my current favourite pattern (for now). I've layered two colour-ways of the pattern at a reduced opacity and I love how it shimmers. Lately I've made progress in subtle ways: colour palette, dotted lines, reduced opacity, the twist filter. There's so much more to explore and I'm eager to see how my designs will evolve and improve. Now I just need to consult the manual a few times a week to fuel the progress.

Svava Juliusson @ Supercrawl 2012

Svava Thordis Juliusson @ Supercrawl 2012; Photo credit: Karen Thiessen, 2012

In a previous post about Svava Thordis Juliusson's exhibit at b contemporary, I mentioned that she was cooking up a grand installation for Supercrawl 2012. The above image of Avalanche/Corral is misleading: it looks like a knitting project still on the needles and mounted on a chequered wall. 

Svava Thordis Juliusson @ Supercrawl 2012; Photo credit: Karen Thiessen, 2012

Nope. The "yarn" is braided nylon rope, the "stitches" are held together with plastic cable ties, and the "needles" are a metal rod acting as a hanging device. It's an impressive piece. To give you some context, the building is huge. I'm curious to know what the dimensions of Avalanche/Corral are, how much rope she used, and the weight of the piece. Looking at the people, I'd guess that the piece is about 12 feet high by about 24 feet wide. Update: Svava informed me that her piece is 40 feet wide by 30 feet high and that she used 2500 feet of 3/4" braided nylon rope and about 3000 cable ties. I love those sort of details!

Svava Thordis Juliusson @ Supercrawl 2012; Photo credit: Karen Thiessen, 2012

Her statement for Avalanche/Corral reads as follows: "Lines that entwine a topographical map with weather systems are drawn by industrial ropes and cable ties that speak to the ubiquity of plastic in our natural and domestic environments. The bright orange of the safety ropes alert the viewer to the unpredictability of this landscape, one prone to avalanches and other disasters."

Studio Series: Fire 1 quilt

Fire 1 © Karen Thiessen, 2012

Fire 1 has a modernist feel. It was as if Anni Albers' spirit was in the studio with me while I was designing this quilt. What do you imagine when I say "design?" Do you visualize me with pencil and paper, or sitting at a computer? I do neither. When I design a quilt like this, my "paints" are dyed fabrics that I have on hand. Often I'll have a few pieced modules to choose from. My "canvas" is my cotton flannel covered homosote wall on which I place the fabric pieces. There's no need for pins: the fabric sticks to the flannel. If you are older or went to a low-tech church or school, you may remember flannel board stories. Once I find the right combination of fabrics, I piece them together with the sewing machine. After a good ironing, I place the larger pieces or the quilt top back on the wall and then I look at them/it while riding my exercise bike. It's all very physical, especially with large quilt tops, as I stretch on tippy toes or climb a step ladder to put the top on and take it off the flannel wall. Beyond the physical aspects, designing quilt tops is mentally strenuous, like a chess match. It involves active focussed looking and testing numerous options. When I'm designing, I need complete silence so that I can fully concentrate.

Fire 1 is part of the Tangents series and I made it using fabrics that I dyed with onion skins or Procion dyes and printed (silk-screen & block) with dyes or screen-printing textile inks. Jacqueline Harris machine quilted Fire 1 with wandering grid, a pattern that I designed. Later I went in and adding some hand-stitching. The quilt measures 58.25 inches by 77 inches and was quilted with cotton quilt batting.

Modular Beauty @ Supercrawl 2012

Modular Beauty @ Supercrawl; Photo credit: Karen Thiessen, 2012

Supercrawl 2012 is over but the great memories live on. When I look at this image of one of the Beehive Collective's Modular Beauty installations I realize that this section of James Street North in Hamilton, Ontario could pass for a street in Brooklyn or San Francisco or London, UK. It's remarkable that this street has undergone such a transformation in the last five years and it is thanks to young entrepreneurs who are buying and renovating the shabby buildings and starting businesses in them. 

Modular Beauty @ Supercrawl; Photo credit: Karen Thiessen, 2012

Back to Modular Beauty... the red and white cluster has got me thinking even more about hexagons. At this rate, my addiction with English paper piecing sees no sign of dissipating.

Modular Beauty @ Supercrawl; Photo credit: Karen Thiessen, 2012

Modular Beauty @ Supercrawl; Photo credit: Karen Thiessen, 2012

The Bees did a fine job of installing the modules and no one fell off a ladder in the process! In the bottom image, hexagon clusters adorn Mixed Media, owned and operated by Dave Kuruc, one of the leaders of the rejuvenation of James Street North.

Quotes: Clarissa Pinkola Estés

"New seed is faithful. It roots deepest in the places that are most empty."

–– Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés (b. 1945), American author and psychoanalyst

Week 34: Adobe Illustrator

Dotty Zigzag Balustrade © Karen Thiessen 2012

I finally surpassed the one hundred hour mark in my Adobe Illustrator practice! It's clear that I'm not pursuing this in my usual Type-A manner and this is good. Practice feels more like play than work and I usually quit while I'm still curious and having fun. This gives me a motivation to continue the next day. I do the same with my yoga practice: I stop before I've done everything that I want to do. The result is that I've practiced yoga more than 575 days in a row. Yoga is another day in & day out activity.

That I finally figured out how to make a dotted line shows that I haven't been reading my manual closely enough and this is okay. Just when I thought I was running out of interesting things to do, I discovered a new technique. You'll see more dotty patterns in the near future. Zigzag Balustrade was dull until I converted the stroke to a dotted line and Dotty Zigzag Balustrade saved the pattern from deletion. I'll return to old patterns to see how they look with dots instead of strokes and fills. Stay tuned for more fun.

Sandra Brownlee meets India Flint: Notebook

Sandra Brownlee Notebook; Photo credit © Karen Thiessen, 2012

In August 2011 Sandra Brownlee braved hurricane Irene and scurried down to Haystack to take a workshop with India Flint. 

Sandra Brownlee Notebook; Photo credit © Karen Thiessen, 2012

Sandra made an accordion book with fabrics that she dyed during the workshop. The off-white pieced fabrics with subtle impressions of leaves are beautiful.

Sandra Brownlee Notebook; Photo credit © Karen Thiessen, 2012

I don't know if the other workshop participants sewed the used plant material into their sketchbooks, but to me this is a true "Sandra approach." Here is the front of the notebook page with the plant material. Lovely isn't it? 

Sandra Brownlee Notebook; Photo credit © Karen Thiessen, 2012

On the back of the page we see the fabric that was bundled and dyed with the plant material.