Monday, August 31, 2015

Dawn patrol

My ideas for extreme fencing settled on the most unfriendly fencing you can get, razor wire. I was able to get a few source photos to give me ideas, and this one had a strong idea of Notan, so I used dark wire on the light half of the background and light wire on the dark half. I wasn't sure if the quantity of wire would seem overwhelming, but it turned out fine.


I played with the idea of just having an abstract based on the coils of wire, but it seemed to need a context.  I  made up a silhouette of a soldier, but I didn't want him to look threatening, so I put the gun onto his back. The metallic black thread really catches the light, which you can see in the close up.















 I was really fortunate to have a small piece of surface designed fabric in the right colours that turned out really convincingly for the soldier, conveying his face and camouflage clothes.



The background fabric was painted with thickened dyes, as illustrated by Laura Kemshall in a recent DMTV show.
After I had completed the barbs, which took many hours, I felt the lack of colour made it seem more dismal than I intended, so I added a turquoise thread inside the border, and some Inktense pencils gave me the dawn glow.

Without this challenge idea, I would not have thought of this interpretation of fencing, as it seemed initially very negative. However, I am really pleased with how it turned out.

5 comments:

  1. Wow! Really extremely extreme! The implementation is great!

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  2. This is a very arresting piece. The contrast of the wire against the background is clever. It makes me think of a soldier being sucked into war against his will through the vortex of the razor wire.

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  3. Sensitively and thoughtfully portrayed -- and the barbed wire stitching is wonderful!

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  4. I think you should be very pleased how your quilt turned out.
    The way you have made the wire black upon white and vice versa (Notan idea) is very striking and the soldier on his post, waiting?
    This quilt awakes a lot of emotions.

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  5. Julia, this is an amazing quilt. So different from the other two. The fabric choice for your soldier is perfect, the quilting matches the topic and the spiral of razor wire is meticulous. Love the composition and colours, especially that watery sun. Brilliant quilt

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