Matise blocks update

Remember way back, we worked on Matisse Challenge blocks? Well, I was looking for something in my studio, pulling things out left and right, and I came across my three Blocks I had made and never finished... My "Quilter's A.D.D.", took over, I pulled them out, forgot what was I was ACTUALLY looking for... and, since I didn't have any solids, jumped on Photoshop(see the options here) and played with some ideas...

BELOW was my Final layout... and ABOVE, I'm working my way 15 Minutes at a time, trying to make it a finished top.   I have many other projects I need to be working on, but taking just a few minutes to try to get this finished, is like eating desert first!  It feels good and get's me to my creative space! I'm ready to ROCK now...

So, for today, I added the Matisse Letters, and now I must get back to work...  My CHALLENGE fabric blocks are still in progress too, but I want to finish this first!  Because I've found my MOJO!  I Don't want to lose it!  What do you think?

Revisiting some of the old Matisse posts...
Please do check these out, we had some really lovely works going on at this challenge...
http://www.15minutesplay.com/search?q=Matisse


How about the other's who have CHALLENGE FABRIC?
Please show your process here. We want to be inspired by your work & play!
Or Old projects... Have you finished your BEE quilts?
Have you oldMatisse projects to share?

I show you mine, you show me yours! ;-)

Solid do-over

Remember this block I drafted for the Matisse challenge?

I never liked it just as it was, so I took two seams loose and started playing around with different solids. 

I'm more or less staying with the solids, the pieced strip in the middle was something I found in my parts department so I threw it in. I want to stay with a limited color palette -  maybe I'll throw in a deeper blue, some off white, a dark-dark green.

I want it to be an attractive wall hanging, not too large.  I've got some work to do... all I can see right now is yellow!

Linda

Katherine's swap arrived

Laura's swap quilt  arrived.

She chose Henri Matisse Tulips and Oysters on a Black Background, 1943.

The sewing details pull it all together.  I love it.  Thank you, Laura.

Miss Matisse

I received my mini-quilt from Victoria for the solids swap and I couldn't be happier.  Just look at her lips!  I love her!  Thanks so much Victoria, both for this marvelous piece and also for this super fun challenge.

Deb

Kathy's solid swap

In the beginning, I made a pretty straight forward interpretation of the painting,

 but I wasn't happy with it.  This is part of the cannibalized  first effort.




Then I made this.... still not what I wanted



I decided that I really wanted an abstract... out of the box representation..

 so I came up with this... I call it Fragments of Matisse, or Views from a window.
It was hand pieced, hand quilted and sent to Laura.


Hope she likes it!

Kathy

Inspired ...

... by Matisse

& a lot of the Matisse quilts you've seen posted here.

At the beginning of July when Victoria suggested a Matisse quilt along,

my gut feeling was 'I don't think so' ...

I hadn't finished my Kandinsky Solids Swap

which was labor intensive.

But then when it was done, I was ready

& here are my inspiration paintings ...

& at the top is what I've done the past couple of days ...

It's been challenging but

FUN~FUN~FUN

ready to swap

I
I'm ready to swap one of two 15 inch quilts from the Segmented Solids Challenge.

inspired by Paul Klee's Heroic Roses

I quilted it using straight lines in angles -- I tried twice to free motion it, but the quilt kept saying no, so I tore out the stitches and did this instead. I think it suits the mood of the original.

inspired by Henri Matisse's Creole Dancer and and his cutout artwork

This one has lots of heavy stitching, attempting to mimic the cutouts of Matisse, with meander quilting in the background. I like them both, but for different reasons. I'm happy to hear from my swap partner Kathleen which one she prefers and I'll get it off in the mail.

A Matisse Mess - Help

Okay people...I was attempting to practice the solid segments challenge...with the picture inspiration...and hit a stumbling block.  See, I am not great, good, or even novice at curved piecing...i thought i figured it out...but clearly not...i want to try to get more curves, versus angles...i.e. a curved coife...but alas...its not working.  So, because i know me, and didn't want to jump in and starting chopping my newly acquired Kona solids, "just yet", I decided to practice with some other bits and pieces...Thankfully I started with an easier piece...before jumping into the one i truly desire...smiles

I am asking if anyone has any suggestions on how to curve tiny pieces, etc.  as you would in a challenge of this sort... to avoid the folds and buckling of fabric.....

This is what I intend to do in solids, after some practice.

Jacob Lawerence

1965 Dreams

As it ought to be

First Solids Challenge Completed

My Kandinsky inspired quilt is finished

(except for a few little threads I'm noticing) ...

It was more difficult than I thought it would be

but I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge!

Next I think I'll try a Matisse ...

segment solids X2

After waffling over art and hesitating about starting, I finally jumped feet first into the solids challenge. First up is a Matisse-influenced square, which I plan to embellish with thread painting.

Here's the inspiration painting: The Creole Dancer. I decided to go with the idea of blocks of colour and I will embellish it in the quilting process.

My other attempt is more literal interpretation/adaptaion of Paul Klee's Heroic Roses:

I used a more limited colour palette here. I have a good start, now on to the quilting. If you're my partner, which one do you like the best?

Solid swap completed

Well, my Matisse solid quilt is done; I hope you like it, BeeBee. 

I decided to keep the quilting simple, so I used a close-set almost-straight line quilting design, nothing elaborate. 

This was a fun project to do, it made me  s-t-r-e-t-c-h  in a whole new direction!  I had a number of solids in my stash, but I never deliberately set out to make them the main part of a project - a solid was just a no-never-mind part of my stash. 

I was a little brain-fazzled when I started out because I honestly had no idea how to approach this project.  But... it was after I realized I was to use the painting as an inspiration that my mind turned down another track.  What a wild ride; thanks V for the challenge!

Edited 7/11 to add more info: 

I made my hanging sleeve according to these instructions on the Alzheimers site, the first one.

Linda

Sandy's blocks and solid swap complete

Here's your two blocks Sandy!  I'm loving the look of your blocks! 

Can't wait to see this quilt together! I think I need a whole quilt in

these colors.... Thanks Sandy for inspiring me!

 I also finished my Segmented solid swap quilt!  Everyone here was trying to claim it,

so now I am going to make a WHOLE quilt out of blocks like this, all based on Matisse...

I have some details over at my Bumblebeans blog...If you want to play along. 

I had so much fun making these...

The quilting was even more fun!  Pulling details from his paintings for the quilting added a lot

to the quilt as a whole. Take the opportunity to PLAY with your quilting!

Did you find it challenging to use Just solids? 

I had to keep reminding myself,

no prints!  hehe!  fun stuff!

Miss Matisse

 I had a tough time deciding which image to use... 

But I finally jut CHOSE and dove right in...

 I've always loved this Matisse... Elegant, restful lady...

I build from the inside out... I started with her little head... 

I wonder how much I can squeeze into this 15X 15 size... 

It will be fun to find out!

ummm, edited a few hours later...
I couldn't stop working on her...
I can't wait to quilt her and add some details!

Love what you a have been doing!

The BOM's have been great fun!

How are you doing on your swap? send me pics if you can't post... 

We want to see what your working on

Happy 4th of July!

Solids exchange almost done

Solids quilt inspired by Matisse

I'm almost done with my solids challenge quilt, I made a few additions to the piece I started with.  To bring out the black zigzags on the red background, I made red-and-black wavy fabric pieces; I think it adds  something to the design.  

Next I'll join the blue piece with the red and black piece, add them to the right-hand side and do some trimming. 

I'm thinking of adding a plain red strip across the top... blue strip at the bottom?  That blue on the right sort of sticks out, how shall I corral it into the overall design?  all the gold seems to be bunched together in one spot... and what shall I do with the left side? Decisions, decisions...

Any ideas??

Linda

Back where I started

I got back on track with my Solids Challenge after I remembered that I'm not trying to recreate  the painting as it appears - I'm being inspired  by it!  I'm not Matisse - Henri is!  After I realized that, I was able to move just a little bit out of the box I put myself into. 

For a reminder, here's the Matisse I'm using for inspiration:

Here's my first attempt:

It looks nothing like the painting, right? This little piece is the middle part you see through the doorway. Notice that, for my pieced version, I rotated it counter-clockwise; I like it better that way. I'm trying to use most of the original colors and generally picking up some of the shapes because they have a lot of potential. That black strip next to the two yellows is a bit wider than I meant, but that's okay, I get to take artistic license!

I'll add more blues, reds, maybe some orange and more black in there someplace.  Definitely some white and/or off-white too.

I thought about changing to a Kandinsky because his work has so much movement, but I'm going to stick with my original choice, and challenge myself to work it on out.  There's no "right" or "wrong" way for interpreting this challenge, right?  It'll help me grow. 

solids play

i'm in process, I didn't put in for the swap as i won't be quilting for july but wanted to have a play from my very limited solid scraps

My favourite solid pieced artwork is Matisse's "The Snail", when I saw it at Tate Modern it was amazing, I had no idea from prints of it, the edges are wavy and colouring in the that he did to complete it give a real texture and it jumps out at you and it is HUGE.

i am now debating whether to square up or leave as a kite shape. It just grew that way so I let it go, the shapes the scraps have made are beautiful.

Solids challenge prep

I wanted to get my materials sorted out for the solids swap challenge, so I can go ahead and complete two other projects I'm working on with a clear mind.  I'm using the Matisse painting that V posted, here it is with the 8 solids I intend to use:

I might readjust the colors later, but it's a start.

I have some translucent sheets I picked up from the Dollar store that are sold as veggie chopping mats... 

 

I used a dry erase marker to outline the areas of the painting that I want to bring out...

Here's a clearer look at the marks I made:

these marks can be wiped off with a paper towel. 

I haven't been to the dollar store lately to see if they have the dry erase markers, but I picked these up at the CVS drug store. 

That's my progress so far, baby steps baby steps...

Linda

solid segments SWAP challenge

 SEGMENTING... I love playing with fabrics this way... I look at things, I see Shapes... 

I want to play.

In one of the Bee's I am in, My friend Andrea send us a packet of solids 

and an inspiration

image to jump start our creative idea to  put some bits together 

free piecing...

I jumped right in, and then couldn't stop at one, and put all the scraps together

into a second block...

It reminding me of a challenge I did WAAAAY back on my

Bumble Beans Blog... (2009)

Based on a Matisse painting, looking at shapes structure, color,

balance,  and free piecing...

 It's one of my favorite ways to work... 

So I thought, wouldn't  a SOLID Challenge

based on the same ideas free piecing scraps or otherwise based on 

either

 A Diebenkorn painting ( click to see more)

or another Mattise.... I love the red yellow BLUE primary colors

in this with the black...

Or any other painting you you feel you can pull the segments from 

to build a small quilt based on?

The SOLIDS will be a great summer challenge!

 

I'm thinking that by August 1st, we have something Complete

to Share a pic of

Also show your inspiration image in your post.

And show as much process on the site here as possible...

THIS IS A NOW  A SWAP CHALLENGE

I will just match you up in pairs,

Not a secret swap, I leave wed. the 15th, 

so SIGN UP FOR THIS CHALLENGE

will end MONDAY JUNE 13 at 7pm.

So I have time to pair you up.

The Official size is now 15" X 15"
quilted and bound MINI quilt

MAILING DATE FOR YOUR FINISHED QUILT

is AUGUST 1st.

Participants at the end of the challenge

will have names 

put in for a drawing for special prize.

email me with any questions

bumblebeansinc at gmail dot com