Contemporary Expressions. Pt. 2

The second element to our exhibition was a body of work inspired by the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew. All these works were 20" deep but the width depended on the artist. These greeted our visitors as they entered the Gallery.

I had two pieces reflecting Kew, Fantasy Flowers summed up for me the hot house foliage and flowers. A dark piece, this was a whole cloth on cream velvet. I sprayed the velvet with Dye-na-flow dyes to create a pink, green and yellow background. When dry I over sprayed with black Quink Ink and allowed that too to dry. While it dried I cut stencils in freezer paper and using discharge paste, removed the black Ink where I wanted the see the underlying colours. Now overlaying voiles in black and pink I machine quilted and embroidered the surface and used some further stamps to create some texture in the background. Finally I added gold sweetie papers under voile to create golden leaves.

Although it took a long time to make this piece I so enjoyed letting my imagination rip!

My second Kew piece started off in my brain when I saw a hydranger plant in a friend's garden in France and I knew I wanted to try and create the leaves by colouring them myself.  The natural flowers looked like this:

I then created them on white cotton with oil paint sticks, applied them to a pieced background and then quilted the petals and the leaves.

It was such a challenge to get anything like the petals. I really liked the final piece and I was thrilled when it was bought at the show!
Next time I'll share some thoughts about other exhibitions I was struck by.