I stayed within my self imposed deadline of this Sunday to finalize the digital versions of the collages to print as art quilts. I’m glad I did this because I do love to play the “what if I did this??” game. Especially with digital art, so easy to copy and alter and try again. Art Brain seriously needs boundaries when it comes to projects like this.
I’m happy with how the final digital versions came out. There is a pretty drastic difference for the goose lady between the first digital draft and the final one but I love the way the color is so rich it hums. (I’m sort of obsessed with goose lady. I want her as a throw blanket.)
The primary goal with these final versions was to make them feel less flat. I feel like the watercolor layering helped to achieve that. The black borders were added to help me visualize where the edges of the quilts will be. That way I could run certain elements of the design past that point. I don’t know if the final printed art quilts will include the frame. I could go either way at this point. I left it in for the samples I had printed to see which fabric I like best. More on that further down this post.
And here are progression photos to show the original collage, draft 1 and then the final digital versions above.
I ordered test prints on fabric from a company called Contrado. They are based in the UK. I ordered sample pack swatches first and then chose the fabrics I was interested in and ordered test prints of the collages above.
The reason I chose them is because I want to explore working on fabrics other than cotton. I love cotton but I also love me something unusual. Contrado has around 90 fabrics – more if you count the leather they can print on – to choose from. That’s the biggest range I think I’ve ever found. I was a bit worried about ordering from overseas both in regards to shipping time as well as cost.
They use FedEx International. The cost is reasonable and there is a little bit of a delay in shipping but by only a couple days. My test prints will be here sometime this upcoming week. I think I’ll do a vlog for that because it might be too hard to show the different fabrics I chose with just photos. (Plus I need practice making videos so I can get my online classes going.)
But that’s where we are with this! So far so good! I can’t wait to see them printed on fabric!!!
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