When you aren’t an illustrator, you develop workarounds to show figurative work. I have a strong sense of narrative, and that comes first. Ummm, that means if you can’t draw, you better have a good story to tell with color, design and texture.
I’m working on a series of loose-leaf journal pages. The idea for this one is about the ability to change–opinions, colors, emotions–any kind of change. The butterfly, a figure I like very much, represents change. Colors, shapes, number of legs. From something that crawls to something that flies. From something that chomps to something that sips. A huge change.
Two fine, see-through, jersey-like fabrics.
I found a swatch of blue and greeny butterfly-print fabric. Perfect. I found another swatch in a sort of paisley in a darker blue and green. Both were very lightweight and elusive.
Cut-out butterfly
First, I cut out a piece containing a butterfly. Using fusible webbing, I ironed the butterfly onto a soft, firm paper. This gave it enough body to cut out the shape without worrying about the silky fabric crawling away under my scissors. I discarded the antennae–I’ll add those back in later.
Butterfly on paisley background.
Using more fusible webbing, I iron the silky blue-green sheer fabric to a journal page, in this case, Strathmore pre-cut watercolor paper. I attach the butterfly with another patch of fusible webbing. Since I’m going to sew the butterfly, I just need to hold the butterfly in place, so there are just four spots of adhesive.
Glue would pucker the fabric, bleed through to the watercolor paper, or stain.
Using a sewing machine, I zig-zag stitch around the postcard using an intense blue.This finishes the edge and gives the piece a frame. I also sew the edge of the butterfly with a variegated thread to add textural interest. The antennae get put back on with glitter glue. I also edge the wings in glue to create a big separation from the background, and yes, to hide a few wobbly stitches.
The butterfly doesn’t quite read “change” yet. I want to show that this butterfly had ambition–so she stole her colors, not from her background, but from another winged creature–a peacock.
Butterfly takes wing--from peacock.
Using Misty-Fuse (thanks Rosaland, for showing me that trick!), I attach a peacock feather to the journal page. The Misty-Fuse creates hold without glue-marks.
The other side will carry the story. And that’s another blog post.
–Quinn McDonald is completely enchanted with the idea of loose journal pages and the covers that will hold them.
lovely!! thanks for sharing! I love both butterflies and feathers! and often use them in my work!
How do you attach the feathers? It’s always dicey for me.
I love this idea of using fabrics! I have to try this. Thank you for sharing this wonderful idea!
It’s very useful, and it works on more complicated projects as well.
Beautiful piece Quinn. Love the added peacock feather. And I’m glad you used the Misty fuse. That is a wonderful product. Very lightweight and easy to use and will adhere almost anything.
And it comes in black and white–so it can be used with lots of colors!
Lovely! You’ll get me into creative journalling yet. I resist only because I don’t have space to store any new materials which SURELY I will gather for a such a passion.
I’d like to lie to you, but yes, you start to gather items. Even if you just do what I do–start to keep interesting papers. It does expand. But I love it.
Beautiful! Thanks for sharing. I’ve not used Misty fuse but have seen it. Now I may have to get some and play, though, I’m really trying to stick to paper projects so I can use up the mountains that I have before I get too carried away with fabrics! Maybe this will be the year that I use the sewing machine more than twice! Haha!!!!
Misty Fuse does a great job of sticking a lightweight paper to something heavier as well. You know, just tempting you!
This is beautiful Quinn. I seem to remember you saying that you could not sew! I had not heard of Misty Fuse before, and now I will have to add it to my collection.
I still can’t sew, but I’m getting better at figuring out what I want my sewing machine to do and getting there.