Playing with some new ideas

...and trying to figure out what works. A while back I'd picked up some canvases from AC Moore (craft supplies... think Michael's, or Hobby Lobby) with half-formed thoughts of mounting pieces on them. {Still in sketch phase... I should know better than to try to take a bite out of fruit mentally, so that'll need some reworking. Or maybe un-fusing, if I can manage it.}

Instead of mounting the pieces on them directly, though, I threw a little paint on some and have been chopping up fused fabrics again. I'm torn about whether I like the feel of "composing" on the canvas, which means I'll either have to forego any stitching or do it by hand **shudder**, or if I want to set it onto some sort of loose background (as these pears are) which can still go under the machine.... to be attached in some fashion later.

Maybe with glue.

Maybe thread.

But that would involve more hand stitching.

Don't get me wrong... handwork is lovely. I'm just impatient. And indecisive. Using the machine forces me to make choices quickly, and that's a good thing for me.

On this one, I used thinned Sobo glue and stuck those suckers straight to canvas... and now am playing with arranging the pieces of branch. I've seen people put fabric & painted canvas together and seal the whole thing, with laquer or shellac maybe... but I'm not sure I want to go that route. Seeing the individual threads might get lost then.

one layout for branches...

and another layout...

And then there's this guy, back to (nearly) the front again-- originally painted the piece of background fabric before the wedding, in a misguided but well-intentioned thought that I might be able to get the whole thing assembled and bring it to Chicago for the parents. Not that it would have fit in the car with everything else we had crammed in there.

Still in progress.... there's more detailed shots of how all the little pieces fit together if you go back several posts to the bit where I was working on the big willow last year.

But first! Need to finish off a few somewhat more utilitarian things to be sent off to their new homes...