I get this question often.  –and it is not how I think about what I do. The starting point is still usually a photograph I have taken. It is how I record my world since I don’t like to take the time to draw when I am out walking or whatever. My photographs are how I pay attention to my world. So they are my source material. But most of my quilt designs involve much more digital work before they [...]]]>  

I get this question often.  –and it is not how I think about what I do. The starting point is still usually a photograph I have taken. It is how I record my world since I don’t like to take the time to draw when I am out walking or whatever. My photographs are how I pay attention to my world. So they are my source material. But most of my quilt designs involve much more digital work before they become ready to be printed, assembled, layered, and stitched.

More and more I think of myself as a digital artist who is exploring the interface between digital art and the textile, quilt, or fiber world.  In writing descriptions of my artwork I have begun to use the phrase “digital artwork printed on silk” rather than the ‘digitally manipulated photos’ I used to use.

Although there are often representational elements in my recent work, more and more they are painting-like as in the quilt shown below.

Sunsets, Trees, Windows #2, Charlotte Ziebarth

I often used black silk organza shapes fused and stitched onto the background print to achieve this boost of value. The two mini quilts [...]]]> In my book, Artistic Photo Quilts, (C&T Publishing, 2009) I talk about sometimes needing to augment the color black.  The inks don’t always print as dark or intense a black as one would like.  Using the matte black ink for the Epson printers helps, but additional measures are often needed for strong value contrast in a composition.

I often used black silk organza shapes fused and stitched onto the background print to achieve this boost of value. The two mini quilts shown here illustrate some of the ways I have done this, both overlapping shapes in the print and adding shapes not there in the original. There are also some white shapes fused and stitched onto the quilts.

Blades of Grass Quartet #1 Charlotte Ziebarth

Blades of Grass Quartet #2 Charlotte Ziebarth

This, of course, works for other intense or dark value colors.  You can use solid already dyed organzas, but interesting effects can be achieved using ink jet printed organza.  A lot of ink bleeds through to the freezer paper in the printing process, but –Oh well….the effect is worth doing and easier than trotting down to the fabric store.

Scarf by [...]]]> I print many of my digital art images on silk scarf blanks. It is a very finnicky technique with  frequent failures, but when it works the product is beautiful. I have sold a lot them. Currently they are available at the Blue Dome Gallery in Silver City, New Mexico and Show of Hands Gallery in Denver, Colorado, and the Visions Art Museum gift shop in San Diego.

Scarf by Charlotte Ziebarth

We took a hike in the mountains last week wearing our yaktrax over the snow.  I took advantage of the opportunity to photograph the bare branches and trunks of the aspen trees.  Usually known for their gold leaf fall display the are eloquently beautiful in the winter as well.

Most people think of their bark as white, but with the bright snow and without the leaves they show their many true colors. As in much of colorwork contrast is everything.  Against the greens and sky blues they look [...]]]>  

We took a hike in the mountains last week wearing our yaktrax over the snow.  I took advantage of the opportunity to photograph the bare branches and trunks of the aspen trees.  Usually known for their gold leaf fall display the are eloquently beautiful in the winter as well.

Most people think of their bark as white, but with the bright snow and without the leaves they show their many true colors. As in much of colorwork contrast is everything.  Against the greens and sky blues they look whiter, against the snow they look tan, green, even have orange bits. 

I like to play with overlapping copies of several different aspen tree branch photos and make a composition which changes all colors dramatically leaving the crooked line qualities as the important element.  The dramatic color differences come from changing the layer blending modes (my favorite for color drama is the difference blend) and adding gradient fill layers. The tree branches do not need any filters to achieve an other worldly look.  I have yet to do any quilts from these designs.

Aspen Fantasy quilt design

My very modest entry into the world of digitizing embroidery is featured today at Mr. X Stitch   Check out their other featured artists and their unique embroidery possibilities.  I know there are others out there using digitized embroidery in interesting ways.  Stay tuned for future posts.

This time of year with one of the first flowers of spring in our region being the humble crocus I am reminded of the quilt I made some years ago.  Liking the close in view I made a composition by repeating the prints, rotating some and flipping others to create a pleasing symmetry. The photo was put through the CutOut filter in Photoshop to simplify the lines and colors a bit. These prints were done on cotton prepared with InkAid before printing, [...]]]>  

This time of year with one of the first flowers of spring in our region being the humble crocus I am reminded of the quilt I made some years ago.  Liking the close in view I made a composition by repeating the prints, rotating some and flipping others to create a pleasing symmetry. The photo was put through the CutOut filter in Photoshop to simplify the lines and colors a bit. These prints were done on cotton prepared with InkAid before printing, and yielded a very crisp print.

Looking into the crocus

repeat, rotate, flip

Saffron Symmetry detail

Saffron Symmetry quilt 21" X 49"

My quilt, Autumnal Equinox #2: Hints of Frost,  is in the exhibit and is featured on the cover of the member newsletter.

Hints of Frost 22″ X 27″

Detail 1

Detail 2

Summer Heat #1

Here is the quilt from which the cover was composed:

–and its companion piece:

Summer [...]]]> I discovered today by way of my Google Alerts a lovely review of my book, “Artistic Photo Quilts” on the blog, Uncommon Threads.  Many thanks to the author.  The book has been out for two and half years and it is still so gratifying to know people are liking and learning from the book. 

Summer Heat #1

Here is the quilt from which the cover was composed:

–and its companion piece:

Summer Heat #2

detail of the birds

Every day I get excited about some new digital idea that might be used in a quilt and I am sure there must be lots of others who do also.  –and I would love to receive more emails with photos of quilts people have done using digital alteration of their photos. Email me at: cziebarth@aol.com

 Isolating a few blades of grass and cropping the image yields something that can be turned into a black and white drawing, cleaned [...]]]> Although you can digitize any drawing for the purpose of embroidering, I really like the drawings that result from my photographs. Another example is shown below.  A photo was taken on a crisp cold walk along Lake Granby in the mountains of Colorado. Zeroing in on the details of the grasses revealed interesting silhouettes. Wouldn’t it be great to embroider grasses?

 Isolating a few blades of grass and cropping the image yields something that can be turned into a black and white drawing, cleaned up a little, saved as a bitmap file. I like to use the stamp filter from the Photoshop Elements sketch filters to create my drawings. Then the drawing can be digitized with the auto digitize function of the embroidery software and the Bernina 730 embroidery module can embroider those lovely realistic blades of grass.

I embroidered different components of the grass drawings onto a collage of digital prints of the original photo on silk.  Size changes, color changes, variegated threads, and overlapping layers of stitches create a dense embroidered surface.

original photo of grasses against the lake

one of the cropped images isolated from that photo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

black and white bitmap 'drawing"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Embroidered grasses on a collage of digital prints using original photo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Detail of embroidered grasses on a digital print collage of the original photo

Blue Leaves, White Trees 16" X 18"

For the past couple of years I have been learning how to digitize my drawings using the Bernina Embroidery software for a Bernina artista 730 with embroidery module. The software is often used for embroidering logos, teddybears, or exotic embroidery from times past.  I have thought there were untapped possibilities for using digitzed embroidery on my stitched digital art quilts.

I start with a photo that has simple lines, as [...]]]>

Blue Leaves, White Trees 16" X 18"

For the past couple of years I have been learning how to digitize my drawings using the Bernina Embroidery software for a Bernina artista 730 with embroidery module. The software is often used for embroidering logos, teddybears, or exotic embroidery from times past.  I have thought there were untapped possibilities for using digitzed embroidery on my stitched digital art quilts.

I start with a photo that has simple lines, as in the tree branch shown below. I turn it into a black and white drawing using one of the sketch filters in Photoshop Elements. I edit it, mostly erasing unwanted lines an details, in the Corel drawing software that is included with the Bernina software.

Then I start the software’s automatic digitizing process. When I take this digitized instruction to the sewing machine (or as Bernina calls it, the sewing computer), the embroidery module can now automaticly stitch this tree design.  I can make lots of changes–like lengthening or shortening, mirror imaging and rotating, as well as changing charateristics of the stitching.

photo of tree

turned into B&W drawing

This embroidered tree appears in two of the Autumnal Equinox Series quilts discussed in previous posts (January 18th, Lime Trees) as well as some smaller quilts.

Shown below is the “test” quilt called Lost in the Forest, which I did to see how much I could embroider over the top of previously embroidered trees–as well as pushing the limits in size changes. The Bernina guidelines say not to reduce or enlarge designs over specified amounts.

 Much of this embroidery was done on the finished quilt sandwich put into the hoop that is actually the moving part of the embroidery module. I was able to layer several trees overlapping each other without causing the machine any trouble–no broken needles or anything–only occasional thread breaks. In the detail you can see several black trees, some white ones and the little red one showing a range of sizes. This particular embroidery design did not suffer from dramatic size changes.