Karen Kamenetzky Fiber Art

Here’s step 3 of the creation of ” The Spaces Between V” :

The Spaces Between V in progress Step 3

Not a great picture- sorry.

I began by couching  purple and dark blue pearl cotton and embroidery thread down to  create the organic vertical curvy lines. I had a chaotic pile of fabric  generally in the gold to orange to rust to copper range and began cutting and fusing on the cellular shapes. I love this part of the process. I tried to pay attention to value balance.  I auditioned different blues and greens to use as small areas of complimentary color to liven things up and green won. In this shot I had only begun to add it.

I made what for me was a bold decision and fused the red/orange shapes onto the purple organza. I wasn’t happy with the texture of the fused organza and wanted to downplay it. This was the first of many major deviations from the original sketch. It always happens!

The Background

Here’s step 2 of the creation of ” The Spaces Between V” :

The Spaces Between V -in process 1

I started with a piece of Warm and Natural thin batting cut to the approximate finished size. I then fused onto that a beautiful orangey piece of silk I had dyed- cut about an extra 2 inches on all sides. This will facilitate my edge finishing at the end.

With chalk, I then drew in the outline of the darker shape from the original sketch and cut it out of purple organza and fused it on. This was after auditioning many other ideas. The purple organza over the orange produced the neutral quiet color I wanted.

This defines the overall composition. I’m trying to be more thoughtful with this early step so I don’t later regret being locked into a composition that doesn’t feel right to me.

I just completed my newest piece ” The Spaces Between V”.

This time I remembered to take more photos of the steps along the way by leaving the camera next to my sewing machine. I need visual cues!

The Sketch

I made this pencil sketch this past August sitting next to Sebec Lake in Maine.

The Spaces Between V-sketch

I had a lot of fun drawing it which is always a good sign that I’ll end up loving it enough to use it for a piece. As I was drawing I got into gradually increasing the complexity, paying attention to positive/negative space created with each line and different textures (dots, horizontal lines, dotted lines, shading…).

At this point I can really start to visualize how I would make this with fabric although I have no idea about color or size yet.