I'm using my giant pattern for reference as I cut out and place the windows.
In the photo, the bomb bay door is open. I wanted a cleaner line for my plane, so I just traced through that section. By the way, Jeff is actually flying the P-3 in that image. He flew on a demo team at the 100th Anniversary of Powered Flight air show in Dayton, Ohio in 2003. There is some wonderful symmetry to be making a 100th Anniversary of Naval Aviation quilt using an image of my husband flying the in the 100th anniversary of flight air show. Pretty cool.Then I began playing around with creating propellers. Like all day Thursday, trying this and that.
Fabric, paint, organza, etc...
I wasn't sure I liked the individual propellers or the organza overlay meant to show some movement. So I tried an organza circle, as if they are moving so fast you can't even see the individual blades.
Blah. I wasn't happy. So did three loads of laundry, swept the kitchen floor, had a small bowl of ice cream, watched Project Runway and went to bed.Next steps:
Decide what to do about the propellers.
Then do it.
Think about additional compositional elements.
9 comments:
I love this piece so far Deborah! I'm wondering if the outside edge of the propellers should be a round circle, maybe flattening it to a bit of an oval may help the eye? I see the sample looks like a perfect circle, but if you look tooooo long, they don't look right either. Darn photo angles anyway!
Used to live in Cinci, and never made it to the Dayton show, it was always held in blistering, humid summer.
Don't get too close to this and too literal!! I think the individual propellers on the right. I see a sense of movement. More readable than the circle.
Interesting that someone else wondered about you working so literally!!
I like the idea and look of the organza, but like the first commenter, I think the perfect circles feel not quite right. I'd try cutting them more oval and see what that looks like. I think the static propellers seem a little stiff and as if the plane might fall out of the sky!
Don't you love all this advice? (not!) You will probably fool us all with something Deborah-clever that we would never have thought of.
Like where this is going! What about putting the individual propellers on top of the organza circles? So you see blades plus movement? Or individual blades plus some paint/crayon under to give circular shape/motion?
This is really coming along nicely! I think it's good to work in an opposite way than one normally does...at times. It stretches the skill level and you never know what you might discover along the way.
Just brainstorming...
How about a propeller that really spins? Made of fabric on a stiff interfacing...held away from the quilt with a button spacer...
Perspective is going to be the big thing here whether or not there's much detail -- the circle should be more ovoid so the propellors look like they're pointing forward rather than up; or if you use the individual props, the smallest should be the farthest away one and the largest should probably be the top one. Have you considered individual organza propellors so they don;t seem to have so much mass, and then machine quilting the movement with sort of scribbly ovals? Stitching might have more motion and be a little more forgiving than fabric.
Don't worry about the realistic approach! You're an artist and can take artistic license to do what you want. Don't over think why, just do the art and the why will resolve itself. Or not. I personally love this piece and even more love all of your commentary! Especially what you do when you get stuck, like the propellers, I just would have had a large bowl of ice cream! Now it doesn't make me so crazy to not get an immediate answer to my dilemmas! Thanks for sharing the behind the scenes action complete with the struggles! Loving it all!
Cool!! I bet you'd find lots of inspiration at the Air & Space museum for this - now you live just a hop skip and a jump away!
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