"Last Blue Arctic"

[StephKunze]

"Last Blue Arctic" (12 x 12 inches, pastel pencils, graphite, and black pen on fabric)

I'm all done with this one! Unfortunately I opted out of sewing beads into the butterfly. I couldn't get the beads to look the way I wanted to. I also had concerns about the pastel smudging once I started sewing. Overall I'm ok with this being a straightforward drawing. Though I plan to use beads in future projects, for sure. I think next time I will do more advance planning of the bead placement so I'm feeling more confident about doing it.

The fabric I drew on was a blue/teal fabric with white speckles. I kept it visible in the sky and grass to help give the piece a nighttime feel.

This was inspired by the blue arctic butterfly, by the way. They are much more gray in real life, I made mine extra blue!

 

[snoball]

Could you sketch the outline of your project on the fabric and then sew on the beads before adding the pastels?

 

[Terri]

Beautiful work, Steph! These blues are divine.

 

[PaintBoss]

Well it’s gorgeous Steph!
You’re absolutely right, I think it would smudge if you tried handling it even if you were very careful trying to sew those beads on. I do like the effects of pastel, but it is very fragile that way.
I really like the combination of pastel and coloured pencil and charcoal, etc.

 

[Donna T]

Wow, this is just so beautiful and unique and truly artistic! I love how you incorporated the white speckles from the fabric. How will you frame it?

 

[StephKunze]

Could you sketch the outline of your project on the fabric and then sew on the beads before adding the pastels?

That's a good idea, I never thought of that. That would take the anxiety out of, "will I ruin this drawing if I start sewing beads into it?" Instead I could see the beads as a part of the initial sketch that I slowly build on top of. Definitely going to consider this

 

[StephKunze]

Beautiful work, Steph! These blues are divine.

Thanks

 

[StephKunze]

Well it’s gorgeous Steph!
You’re absolutely right, I think it would smudge if you tried handling it even if you were very careful trying to sew those beads on. I do like the effects of pastel, but it is very fragile that way.
I really like the combination of pastel and coloured pencil and charcoal, etc.

Yeah pastel's fragility is both its biggest pro and biggest con! I love that I could easily smudge away pastel here and there with an eraser to bring parts of the fabric's pattern back into the image. Though do too much of that and I'll lose too much of the pastel, haha. I'm going to feel a lot better when I have tucked this drawing away behind glass.

 

[StephKunze]

Wow, this is just so beautiful and unique and truly artistic! I love how you incorporated the white speckles from the fabric. How will you frame it?

Right now, it's two layers of the same fabric taped onto a large mat board. I sewed the two layers of fabric together so they wouldn't separate, and I want to take the tape off and adhere the very edges of the fabric onto the mat board. Since some of the pastel went through the fabric layers and onto the mat board itself, I don't want to move the drawing off the board. I'm going to cut the board down to its frame size (16 x 16 inches) and then place a mat on top of it with a 12 x 12 inch opening. I'm going to try framing it tonight, I can share a photo of it once it's done!

It looks like the more layers of fabric I have, the more pastel can be held, at least for 100% cotton, which isn't totally opaque. I think in the future I'll try doing 3-4 layers of the same fabric sewn together for a drawing done this way.

 

[Chaithram]

Lovely work. When working with inktense/ acrylic and beads on fabric, one way is to apply a dilute layer of color, then sew the beads and finally apply color again. Beads can also be stuck with fabric glue, but high precision needed.

 

[StephKunze]

Lovely work. When working with inktense/ acrylic and beads on fabric, one way is to apply a dilute layer of color, then sew the beads and finally apply color again. Beads can also be stuck with fabric glue, but high precision needed.

Oh I've never heard of inktense before. I'm going to look into this. Also, thank you for the tip! Maybe inktense or acrylic would be a better medium than pastel for when doing a lot of sewing into the image.

 

[StephKunze]

All framed! Now I plan to never remove this from the frame for the rest of its life haha

 

[Donna T]

That is just stunning! The black frame looks so classy - did you make it?

 

[StephKunze]

That is just stunning! The black frame looks so classy - did you make it?

Thanks And I wish! It's a store bought metal frame. I think I got it at Blick Arts but not totally sure, I bought it a loooong time ago, just had it sitting in my closet.