100 Days of Dice Compositions: Week 14 - Stardust & Wonder

 

Over the past 14 weeks, I set an ambitious goal of starting and finishing 14 compositions in 14 weeks. This week, I'll be reaching for the stars to complete my 14th Dice Composition. Read on to learn more about my inspiration, process, and daily progress...

92/100: Dice and Initial Fabric Pull

"A certain blue enters your soul."
-Henri Matisse, French Artist

Delighted to play with these blue fabrics and One Amazing Line for this week's Dice Composition.

93/100: Doodling Lines and Stamping

"I've always been in love with the stars and view the cosmos as the ultimate adventure."
-Emily Calandrelli, American science communicator, former MIT engineer, and the TV host/executive producer

This evening kicked off by doodling a variety of Amazing Lines, which may not be all that amazing, but led to a design idea. Looking up to the cosmos for design inspiration this week!

The rest of the evening was spent stamping celestial prints with DecoArt Dazzling Metallics and FolkArt Color Shift acrylic paints.

What fun to play with an assortment of stamps:

• new stamps from ArtFoamies
• other commercial stamps in my collection
• homemade stamps using game pieces and foam star stickers!

94/100: Audition and Fuse Fabrics and a Few Other Experiments

"We people of the Earth exist because our potential was there in the Big Bang, 13.7 billion years ago, as the universe exploded into being."

-Bob Brown, former Australian politician, medical doctor and environmentalist

It looks like the Big Bang exploded here in my studio as lots of stash fabrics were auditioned for this week's stellar composition! There is certainly plenty of potential within this palette of mostly fused fabrics, but I don't have 13.7 billion years to wait for inspiration to strike! Hoping for a big burst of creativity tomorrow...

In addition to pulling out lots of fabrics, I experimented with applying inks, paints, and markers over the stamped fabrics to reduce some of the stark white background. I liked the darkness of the ink, but it changed the hand of the fabric. The Dye-Na-Flow wasn't as dark as I had hoped. And the markers didn't help either. Oh well--I tried!

95/100: Begin Composing

"If people looked at the stars each night, they'd live a lot differently. When you look into infinity, you realize that there are more important things than what people do all day."

--Bill Watterson, American cartoonist and the author of the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes

Prior to today, I had envisioned one shooting star for my Amazing Line but had difficulty figuring out the placement and scale of other celestial objects. Things started to look up as I studied the blue/purple fabric in the previous day's post. I thought about cutting it into a nebula or planet, and as I was tidying up the cutting board, it made me think about the Northern Lights. So instead of starting with shooting stars or a nebula, I started with One Amazing Line: the Northern Lights using a piece of Fauxbori!

A second line was added and cut into a more amazing line...which technically might be taking me closer to a landscape layout...but it all started with One Amazing Line, so it works. Scissors were used to cut more edges and angles to transform the rolling hills into mountains along the foreground. Will play more with the addition and placement of the various celestial elements tomorrow before fusing everything into place. I am finally feeling more excited about this week's Dice Composition!

96/100: Refine Layout

"When you wish upon a star

Makes no difference who you are"

-Songwriters Harline Leigh / Washington Ned

I confess that I had so much fun with the stamped elements that I wasn't to pack them all in but I kept trying to edit, edit, edit. Another change was swapping out the fabric and shapes of the shooting star tails. The tails on the right were less stark and tied in with the Northern Lights as they used the same fabric. Almost done fine-tuning this week's layout so I can fuse it down and get to stitching!!

97/100: Finalize Composition, Fuse, Topstitch, and Audition Embellishments

"Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious."

-Stephen Hawking, English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

 A number of edits were made before fusing everything into place (and a few more edits even after the initial fusing as I pulled off the Northern Lights and recut the edges to add more dimension!) The topstitching took a bit longer as my machine was being a bit temperamental. A good cleaning, oiling, needle replacement, and adjusting the tension had everything in working order so I could switch easily from King Tut 40wt to a cool blue metallic thread. 

Prepped for tomorrow's hand embroidery including taped outline, along with initial auditions for thread and embellishments. In fact as I was getting ready for bed, I started thinking about beads, so I pulled out my small collection and found some sparkly beads that might just work!

98/100: Embellish, Hand Embroider, Trim, and Face

"For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream."

-Vincent van Gogh, Dutch post-impressionist painter

A wide variety of threads were used including metallic threads, 40 and 50wt threads, and a variegated 8wt Perle Cotton.

My starry sky sparkles with sequins, beads, and hand embroidery stars. 

A fabulous celestial batik made for the perfect backing and facing, although an extra day was needed to finalize the title and add a quilt label. 

And here is my finished "Stardust & Wonder"...

"Stardust & Wonder" Finishes 12" x 12"

Personal Critique:

• This week's project features a cool blue monochromatic color palette with black and white accents. A range of blues are achieved through the fabrics, stamping, and hand embroidery.
• A variety of scale and sizes are included from the large mountain range and focal Northern Lights, medium-sized stars and spirals, to the smaller spirals, sequins, beads, and hand-stitched stars. At first I worried that the stamped stars might be too large, but in my research, I discovered that blue stars are more than 3xs the mass of our sun and are much hotter (as compared to red stars that are much cooler). That's my story and I am sticking to it!
• This composition is packed with textures including the sunprinted mountains, fauxbori stripes in the Northern Lights, tiny polkadots in the background fabric, metallic paints in the stamped stars and spirals, shiny sequins and beads, and hand-embroidered stars.
• The diagonal Northern Lights and tails stemming out from the three stars creates a sense of movement.
• This piece recreates the experience of stargazing. As you first go outside, your eyes lock focus on the larger stars that shine brightly in the sky. As your eyes adjust to the darkness, you start to see the smaller, fainter stars. Together they create an amazing vista as your eye travels around hoping to spot a shooting star to make a wish. 

Technically I have 2 days left until I hit the big 100 Days. We'll see if the stars align for me to carry out one last design wish for this series...