A small local museum about birds turns 30 this summer and is having an art show with numbers as the theme. This is my art quilt for the show. The tree's branches are in a heart shape and there are 30 birds, one for each year of " bird love" that has gone into this gem of a place for bird lovers. It is situated on a dirt road near camels hump in Huntington vermont with loads of trails to go bird watching, a viewing window where you can see birds and frogs and a large collection of handmade carved birds with lots of educational material to learn about the different birds.
Anyway this is how I went about making " for the love of birds"
I had no idea what I was doing so am pleased that it came out so well
Started with this really cool suede like mottled fabric that had that eerie glow in it already. But I wanted the glow concentrated in the middle of the tree so needed to add white paint.
The only white paint I had on hand was regular house paint but figured what the heck, let's try it!
I took an old kitchen brush and stabbed and swirled.
Nice texture but I'm going for eerie.
Time for the big guns. Found this old huge paintbrush in the basement.
I wet down my fabric with a spray bottle of water first.
Yes!
I pounced and swirled that old paintbrush and ended up with this. Love it!
Unfortunately it did dry a lot lighter but still kept enough of the effect to work.
The tree and the birds were added using fusible web, then appliquéd by machine with monofilament thread.
The quilting is sort of a McTavishing style (McDowelling)
I was surprised that I had no trouble whatsoever with the quilting using the house paint. I'm sure if I had laid it on thick there would have been issues but just changing the color to be lighter it was fine.
Have you ever tried house paint on fabric?
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