The eyes have it!!

The good news is that the eye activity in the type of creative needlework we do improves both our cognitive skills and our memory... Sharon referred often to eye tracking studies and someone wanted to know how it is done...

So here it is... The eyetracker is worn on a helmet with an eye camera recording the pupil position, and a scene camera recording the view in front of the subject. The head position monitor allowed calculation of the gaze position of the eye even during head movement.



There are many studies on artists creating and also on people observing art....This study was done on a portrait artist wearing the helmet and a similar monitor was attached to the artist's pencil. It's pretty technical but the illustrations show how often and where the artist looks at the model and how he puts what he sees on his canvas...


So the information Sharon shared was based on such studies. Her main point was that if the block is too busy or congested the eye doesn't know where to land... Likewise it needs quiet areas to pause and take in even more detail.... And that is really all we need to remember... So this is probably way more information that anyone wants or needs but I find the fact that they can do this kind of research is interesting.

Contrast in seams

Those of you who follow will remember I outed myself in February and made my big confession on how I make all my blocks.... (http://olderrose.blogspot.com/2011/02/i-confess.html) The only drawback to this method is that due to the assembly of sections I always end up with this extremely long diagonal seam.. (see white line).. This is always something that has to be address with strategically place motifs and buttons and sometimes I extend another seam visually to break it up...

Of course Sharon saw this immediately and wondered how I was going to handle the problem... I loved the first day but the second day was even better because it was all about seams...all eight hours..

Not only did we talk about building seams (stacking, combining stitches etc.) and seam variations. She spent a great deal of time discussing "expanding seams" and "condensing seams." She urged stitchers to create contrast in and with their seams a on every piece.

Seam treatments 1.2 and 3 are the pesky long seam. On 1 and 3 I did an expanded treatment which draws the eye outward and away from the seam...which keeps your eye from following down the seam... On seam 2 I did a very condensed treatment which hold it in place. She was also emphatic on letting seam treatment leave the seam line and wander across seam lines into other patches... again moving the eye and creating interest...

Seams 4, 5 and 6 are treatments to use to embellish quiet areas... Seam 4 is a valour rick rack (discovered in the barn) finished with ribbon and beads... Seam 5 is my favorite on the whole block... It is stacked herringbones laced with variegated silk ribbon and finished with bead.. quiet but elegant... Since it is such a bright and busy block I chose to keep the lower corner quiet... but not empty... I used gold thread to stitch the pattern under the lace motif and a tiny gold braid embellished with single row of beads for the seam.... If I have to choose one thing that will influence my stitching the most from now on, it is attention to creating interesting quiet areas on blocks...

The last day was spent on motifs, flower sprays and trims etc.... I will get to that also using some of her blocks... Although I will do a bit more on this block I am very tired of it.. Rushing through is not my style... I like to plod and think and rethink and rethink.. so a rest from this block is due.

Block for Sharon's class - motif issue

This is the block I stitched to embellish in Sharon Boggon's 3-day workshop.. I did this much in 3 long days and am kinda tired of it right now so it is a good time to evaluate it before I go any further with it. As usual when I gather things for a block there are items that HAVE to be on it for one reason or another. Most often because I am emotionally attached to them as gifts from a friend. Here it was the purple rose made by Theresa Rapstine, pink motifs and trim from Janet Popish and the lace in the lower right from a friend at my senior center...



Immediately there is a problem in that the flowers are almost the same size... I could have placed them together to quickly solve the problem... Since I didn't.... no matter where I placed them the eye would just jump from one to the other no matter how strong your path.. This often a design problem I see on blocks... There will be 2 strong focal points competing with each other... The solution is an easy one... make them unequal by building one up and reducing the effect of the other. Adding additional embellishing to the purple rose and giving it a prime position nearer the center makes it the dominant focal point...With the magic of photoshop you could see that I could even build it up even more. By removing some embellishment (not shown) and placing the other focal point at the lowest right (almost off the block) it is diminished in importance. Doing these two things increased the contrast between the two focal points.



Next is this block really needed stronger elements to draw the eye away the the diagonally path between the two focal points so I ruched the ribbon seam mid center bottom to draw the eye to the left and then back up to the other focal point...likewise the trim and dragonfly on the upper right... The path really need some tweaking yet... but I'd like to point out some points of interest on the seams from the second day of the workshop.... tomorrow...

Maureen B and Cathy K. are both posting great pictures of the adventure... Most of mine were quilt shots and most of the people shots were out of focus..

Sharon Boggon's quilts

Sharon not only brought this quilt but two other large ones, many smaller pieces, and her famous 75' long stitch sampler which stretched around the room.. They were all laid out on tables and she encouraged us to handle them, take photos and study them up close... This is her famous "I dropped the button box" quilt and what amazed me is how small the squares are...about 5-6 inches and each one is a lesson...all 100 of them..

Now that I've inundated you with information on contrast, take a few minutes and go to the site of this quilt..... Click on individual squares and look for the paths she creates for the eye to follow and start identifying all the various examples of contrasts in her blocks...especially the busy and quiet areas... My class block and more soon....

I finally am getting settled in... unpacked, taxes finished (nothing like the last minute), and house in order... Today is a "mother needs" day, getting groceries, and baking... as DH has only 4 sour cream rolls left..

THEN I can attend to getting buttons uploaded on Etsy and start painting again.... I had many special requests in CT including one from Marilyn for a painting of her grandson on a button... Is he cute or what? I've done watercolor portraits over the years but this will be my first attempt at a miniature on a 1 1/2" button..

More on the CT workshops so don't go away now and I hope you're enjoying my memories of this event..

And Why Is Contrast So Important????

And why is contrast so important?.....it affects how your eye sees the block and especially how your eye moves around the block!!! Since this is a favorite subject of mine I'll be able to use all Sharon's information on contrast..

First this is my "Hearts to Sendai" block which I took with me and finished on planes and off hours... There is some color contrast but it is primarily a red-on-red block. There is contrast in texture, scale and shape in the fabric as well as the embellishments but Sharon has some other areas of contrast that you can look for and include in your work.

1. Sheen vs. matte (in both fabric and embellishments

2 Structured elements ( buttons all round) vs. free form elements (daises that that are irregular

3. Single focus elements ( fan) vs. repetitive elements (hearts)

And my very favorite.....busy areas vs.quiet area. Quiet does not mean empty. An area can be heavily embellished and still be quiet....( the lower right corner which is covered in a rich red Venetian lace...) In all the examples of her fabulous work she pointed out the paths she created for the eye to follow but emphasized the necessity of quiet areas for the eye to rest. Over and over she stated that if a block is too busy the eye just flits about and doesn't really see the beauty of it.... Which is exactly how there can be two blocks heavily encrusted and one is beautiful and the other is just junky.... It will be hard not to get ahead of myself but I'll keep referencing these points as I go along...

Now I will get just a bit ahead because I will be sending this block off... The second day we immersed ourselves totally in seam work, which I loved being newly converted seam obsessive... But Sharon didn't always do every seam and some seams were quite simply done and some were rich and textured.. So there was even contrast in her seam treatments. She used all three techniques as part of the design of a block... As you can see I immediately embraced the very embellished seam... (more later) I can't even count the layers on the first seam but it was for an exercise in expanding seams (more later).

I'm including this second example because it is a rick rack seam... but the rick rack is glitzy red stuff underneath... What looks like blue rick rack on top is actually a needle weaving of a zigzag chain stitch. We did a LOT of needle weaving which was something I did very little of before so watch for it now in my work.... great fun and interesting!

Next post I will show the block I actually did during the workshop.. Sorry for some reason blogger is messing with my paragraph divisions...