trunk show piece by Betsy Abbott

I love it when I reach into my mailbox and find a piece for our regions trunk show!

 “Volcán de Fuego” by Betsy Abbott

 Inspired by my photograph in February 2014 of an active stratovolcano in Guatemala’s Central Highlands, taken just at dawn from a vantage point high above Finca los Andes.

Techniques:  Layered machine appliqué using a) “Skydye” fabrics by Mickey Lawler, b) purchased hand-dyed cottons, c) commercial cotton prints, and d) touches of acrylic fabric paint.Free-motion quilted on my home machine.

Submission details for the trunk show:
Each piece must be 9”x 11” - unbound please as the edges will not be visible and the piece will be mounted on matboard.  Please keep any dimensional embellishments at least 1" from the edges.  Include a one page ( 8 1/2” x 11” sheet of paper) artist statement that has your name, the title of the piece, materials and techniques used and any contact information or other information about the piece you wish to include.   Please also email a copy of this statement to Sue at sue@suebleiweiss.com

Send the artwork Sue Bleiweiss to (or bring it to a future SAQA regional meeting) Please include $5.00 (make checks payable to SAQA) to cover the supplies needed to mount and frame the artwork.

Note that this is an open ongoing call for SAQA MA/RI members and there is no deadline to submit a piece for it.

member news - Valerie Maser-Flanagan

Valerie Maser-Flanagan's quilt Cave Murmurs #1 has been accepted into the Quilt=Art=Quilt exhibit at the Schweinfurth Art Center.

and her quilt Cave Murmurs #2 has been accepted into the "The Sky's the Limit exhibit at the Visions Art Museum in San Deigo California.

RISD Art of Business Conference

RISD is holding a conference on art and business on Saturday November 8th from 10:30am to 4:30pm at the Renaissance Hotel in Providence. The cost is only $25 for the general public.

http://www.artofbusiness.risd.edu/

etsy shop spotlight - Cheryl Rezendes

Cheryl Rezendes is a dedicated and passionate artist with a strong commitment to teach and assist others with their own personal artistic growth, pursuit of creative expression and appreciation of art.

In Cheryl Rezendes' etsy shop you'll find gorgeous hand dyed silk for nuno felting and scarf making, as well as her fat quarters, wearable art, accessories and most recently some home decor items made from her dyed and painted fabric.

Click here to visit Cheryl's Etsy Shop

member news - Janis Doucette

 SAQA  member Janis Doucette's quilt "Views from a Road Well Travelled" has been accepted into theMODERN SPIN: CONtemporary TEXTiles in an Historic Mill exhibit at the Narrows Center for the Arts – 16 Anawan Street, Fall River, MA November 7 – December 27, 2014

 

 

 

detail of  "Views From A Road Well Travelled"

Hand painted, hand printed, hand dyed shibori and batik, burlap, beads;machine pieced, machine quilted, hand embroidered.

etsy shop spotlight - Ann Brauer

Ann Brauer's work is based on the wonderful vistas looking across the Deerfield River to the nearby mountain as eagles catch fish, the arches of the Bridge of Flowers reflect in the water and the village of Shelburne Falls beckons.

Ann Brauer's Etsy shop

Click over to Ann Brauer's Etsy shop and you'll find a wonderful array of items ranging from gorgeous wall hangings to personal accessory items such as eyeglass cases and purses.  

Add a burst of color to your kitchen with one of her potholders, table runners or tea cozies:

 click here to visit Ann's Etsy shop

lighting makes a difference

In my last post about taking photographs I talked a little bit about lighting, using a tripod and that it's important it is to photograph your quilt standing directly in front of it.  I also mentioned that you don't need a really expensive fancy camera to take a good photograph of your quilt and in this post I'm going to show you an actual example...

But first I want to show you where I photograph and how I light my quilts.  Unfortunately I don't have any room in my studio for a design wall and I don't have any walls in my house that are good for photographing my quilts against.  But I do have a large finished basement with a nice big wall that's perfect for using for photographs so I had my husband cover the wall with some foam board from the hardware store:

I covered the foam board with some canvas fabric to cover the bolts and the seams and then covered that with some white cotton stretched over the surface.

This gives me a nice neutral background to shoot against.   You can see in the next photo that I've got my quilt pinned against the background and I've set up my photo lights to light the surface of the quilt.  I'm using photo lights because there is no natural light at all in my basement.  These lights are very inexpensive (less than $50 for the pair of table top ones but I use the larger stand ones like the ones here) and they make a huge difference in the quality of my photos.  I also have a set with an umbrella diffuser that do a nice job lighting objects with diffused light.

 My camera is on the tripod and I'm ready to shoot...

and the resulting photograph:

Not a bad photo but can you see the shadowing along the left and right edges?    That was easily fixed by adjusting the position of the lights and pulling them further away from the surface of the quilt.  The new photo:

Much better!  no shadows and the picture is nice and clear and the colors bright and vivid.  The right lighting is so important.  Take a look at this next photo.  I turned the photo lights off and took this with just the overhead lights in the room on:

Yikes!   The colors are dull and flat and it's really not a good representation of what the quilt actually looks like in person.


I took all of the photos above with my Canon Rebel t2i camera which is a great camera but it's an expensive investment that I know not everybody can or wants to make.  So the question remains can you take a good jury ready shot of a quilt without an expensive camera?  You certainly can!  Take a look at this next photo:

 I took this with my inexpensive Canon Powershot camera (a great camera for traveling with by the way) which goes to show that with a tripod and good lighting that you don't need an expensive camera to take a good photo of your quilts.

See all my previous posts on the subject of photography here.