Monday 20 May 2013

Painting planets

I researched images of the planets to get an idea of textures and colours. I already had an ideal commercial print for the moon, and an over-painted print which will work well for Mars, but the rest I painted myself today. Earth is going to be the hardest with the details; I'm undecided yet how to achieve it; probably raw-edge applique on top of the circle prior to adding it to the quilt top.

 Top - Saturn; bottom left - Venus, bottom right - Jupiter

I'll create the planets and insert a layer of batting to work as trapunto and give them a little fullness, then I think I'll applique them by machine as invisibly as possible, but I'm undecided just yet, so am having an early night while  I mull it over..

Top, L-R: Neptune, Uranus, Moon (commercial print)
Bottom, L-R: Earth, Mars (over-painted commercial print), Mercury

After that, there are just a few details to add before quilting - at which stage I'll be adding a lot more details. I want to add in some of Jupiter's moons, a pair of green martians, the ISS, Saturn's rings, a comet and tail, the Southern Cross....

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

What about FMQing the land shapes with green thread onto the earth before appliquing it to the quilt, to add a bit of texture, but not taking away from the trapunto look?