Los Compañeros
2017
60″ x 48″
Materials:
Spoonflower printed linen, commercially available cotton fabrics, acrylic ink, textile paint, fusible web, thread, batting
Techniques:
Photoshop composition created from my own photos. Background printed by Spoonflower, enhanced with paint and thread. Stitched fabric collage, fusing, painting, machine and hand stitching.
Work Contents
Paint Usage?
Some of the facial details and skin tones on the collaged figures were painted. The flags were painted. I enhanced some of the contrast on the printed background with paint.
Computer Usage?
Using Photoshop, I created a corner in Cuba that doesn’t exist. I composited my photographs to get the setting I desired, adding graffiti that was similar to what I actually saw. I created a computer file that did not have the main characters to send to a fabric printing service.
Reliance on Reference Photos?
I relied on the many photographs I shot in Cuba, both for the photo background created in Photoshop, and to create the collaged figures.
Cuba is a land of wonderfully fantastic people, sights and stories! I wanted to portray a little of what I had seen and also touch on some of the political tension that is ever present in Cuban life.
Knots & Tangles
This was the first time I used Spoonflower Inc. to print a background photo onto fabric, The result was a little darker than I had expected, but it worked with the mood of the piece.
It took a few trials to paint the flags to not only look like they were hanging, but also to fit in with the general palette.
Painting skin tones is difficult. The separate body part colors must look as if they belong to the same person. So if, for example, the face did not come out quite right, the next face I painted needed to match the arms and legs I had already done – or I’d have to re-make them also.
2019 – Road to California
2018- Grace Chapel Art Gallery, Lexington, MA
2017 – Whistler House Museum of Art, Lowell, MA
2017- Visions Art Museum, San Diego, CA – Invitational Figurative Exhibit