Sweet River Studios

After getting the rhino and grasses finished for the center panel, I started working on my tree.  I drew only one limb, a few branches and leaves and the tree trunk.  I quilted the outside lines first then I started in the center of the tree and stitched some curvy lines up and down the tree trunk. Then I continued with wavy lines out the branch. I plan on making some more branches so my tree will look more like a tree. I also want my tree branches to be outside the center panel and out into the sashing areas so that the tree will look much closes to the viewer and give it some "pop." After doing the initial quilting, I colored the tree with my Inktense pencils and the color goes on looking darker since its wet, which is fairly misleading as to what your going to wind up with. I felt the colors were too light and didn't vary in intensity at all, so I went back in with the Tsukineko inks and darkened some areas which really helped. My tree also looks pr...

All the 10x10" animal squares for the quilt are done. I just have to figure out how much/little to quilt them. I've been working on the center panel quilting/painting the tree and leaves but that's for another post. The borders of the quilt are 10" wide and I was going to paint them and include some plants, flowers, animals and maybe an insect or two. I wanted to include the Quetzal bird because he's really colorful and I doubt many people have even heard of it. So I went ahead and painted it. The painting looks okay but this little guy looks more iridescent and the paint just didn't capture his brilliant plumage. So, I decided to try to thread paint it using embroidery thread. I tried to match the colors to what I had in the way of thread and started with a zig zag line in the different areas to stabilize it a bit. I don't have any stabilizer ironed to the back of this and I probably should have.  I started with the yellow a...

I have to admit I really like how this one turned out.  I was thinking "oh good lord another gray blob to paint and have to make it look good" so needless to say I wasn't thinking this would turn out well. And since the manatee lives in tropical water, I went for aqua blues and greens for the background.  I started by roughly outlining the animal in gray and adding darker grays and some browns for shading. I kept adding darker colors to add shape to the animal and white to highlight skin folds and sunlight. The background looked kinda drab so I added some water leafy things to add interest. Overall, it definitely looks like a manatee enjoying a swim.

This painting came together fairly easily. I'm always leery of painting black animals. It can be really hard to distinguish the actual shape of the animal. All that black can lead to just one giant blob of mystery. But I made sure to leave a white highlight down the shoulder and arm which I think really helped. I added some gray/white to the body area and flicked my brush to leave the directional lines which took on the fur. I added gray to the face and white to the arm, head, chest to highlight the black fur. Since gorilla's live in the jungle, I added some tree shapes and greens to the background.

Well, I haven't painted any animals for a few weeks now. I got hung up and couldn't decide a few things. I decided to add a lowland gorilla and maybe a manatee but I haven't decided.  I did discover a cute bird called a Quetzal and I'm thinking I'll add that to the border but back to the harpy eagle. Since this bird lives in the deep jungle, I went for the darkest shade of green I had and painted the background and a branch and let this layer dry. I used gray, white and a dark midnight blue to initially rough in the bird. Finally, I used black to darken areas and white for additional highlighting.  I also added some leaf shapes and squiggly yellow. Not sure why but it needed something to break up all that green and yellow peaks through green in the jungle and it just seemed to work out. Its about the animal not the backgrounds and I think this eagle turned out pretty good.

I started with the elephant in this painting.  I put down a medium gray in the darkest areas and a light gray in the lightest areas. I darkened in the main body/legs area and trunk and put a layer of white down for the tusks. As you can see from the first picture the tusk on the right was fairly far out and I decided I didn't like it there so I moved it further in.  I added some dark wrinkles along the trunk, forehead and ear areas and then I let the whole picture dry. Next, I added the background in browns and yellows trying to mimic the African savannah. I was trying to go for an elephant stepping out of the dust. I added more highlights and darkened the shadows and I added a bit of brown. Elephants are pretty dirty after all. This one was fairly easy to get done and probably took me 4 hours which includes 2 hours of drying time.

This portrait of a baby leatherback turtle was really quite easy to get done. I guess because there's not that many colors.  Painting wet sand is not fun either. I had to use a dark brown with yellow and a darker brown. I applied the white and gray for the turtle first then added the yellow/brown for the sand. I then darkened the turtle with black and added some highlights with white.  I used white to add water reflections in the wet sand and that was pretty much it. Not the greatest painting I've done but not bad either.

The main centerpiece of my quilt is roughly 33x45" so it's fairly big, especially to be painting with inks.  I wanted my main animal to be the one that speaks to everyone. I chose the Black Rhino for the center since there is a very real possibility the animal will be extinct in the wild in the next decade or two and they will only exist in zoos. I'm thinking about the title of "Footprints" for my quilt but as of right now, I don't have any footprints in my centerpiece. I had thought about putting different animal footprints on the back of the quilt, but I haven't decided yet. I could always finish it and simply change the title. So I will continue working on this centerpiece. Even if I decide to make another one this one is still pretty good and deserves to be finished. I'll probably have to order more ink, though. I finished the rhino.  I'm pretty happy with it but I don't know if this will be in my quilt or not.  I'll have...

This little hummingbird lives in western Mexico and is losing its habitat. This isn't one of the typical animals you think of when you think "endangered." Most people think panda, rhino, tiger but there are others. Lots of others animals that are endangered and this little bird hasn't been studied all that much. I started with the background first. I had a lot of bleeding over even though I tried to control it. Next, I worked on the flower and adding color to the bird. After that dried, I added details such as the eyes, flower highlights and black, yellow and white dots to the bird. I thought the white highlights on the flowers would seep into the paint a little bit better and wouldn't be as harsh as they are now. I may try to fix it but I may not. You can also see a faint dark line around the birds belly and feet area. That's the original drawing using the Frixion pen. That line will disappear when I iron it.

I'm still having trouble controlling the bleeding of these inks.  As you can see, at the top of the shell, there was major bleeding. I've been blotting with paper towels trying to soak up any excess water or ink before it bleeds but it doesn't really work all that well.  I left this to dry and when I came back the inks had wicked out a lot. Its also really hard to get rid of those hard dry lines and if you want to put a lighter color on top of the darker ink it won't work. You'll have a dark ugly spot in your lighter area.  You have to paint over it with the more opaque white, let it dry then paint over it, which also has its problems. My first application of paint, is just to rough in the areas with a light wash of color, then I simply keep adding darker areas, until I'm happy. Apply highlights, white or light colors, after everything is dry. I added the blue and brown/yellow areas (water/sand) last. You can see how the dark bleed area looks after...

The next animal portrait is the a baby Rothschild Giraffe. This little painting came together quite quickly as well. I drew the little giraffe and applied the first layer of color of cream or a beige color to the face and neck. Then I applied a darker brown to the squares trying to avoid any bleeding.  Not sure why I started with the animal first instead of the background. I think I couldn't decide what I was going to do yet. Next, I roughed in facial features and darkened shadowed areas. I did this twice. Finally, I swirled blue around the background and added a tiny amount of black to the darkest areas, some gray and finally white highlights. I wasn't happy with how the eye on the left came out. It looks a little quizzical and slightly angry which is not the look I was going for but overall not a bad painting but I may have to redo it.

Oddly enough this little portrait came together fairly easily, much to my surprise.  Maybe I'm just getting better at using the inks?  Once again, I started with a rough outline of my animal. In this case a Golden Lion Tamarin. I roughed in his body with yellow and quickly applied an orange getting the colors to bleed together nicely. After letting the first application of color dry, I added more layers of darker orange and a deep red and roughed in the branch. The next layer, I applied a deep blue with hints of purple in the background. I thought this would contrast nicely with the orange/yellow of the tamarin. I also added a gray/tan face, added fur streaks and applied white highlights.

I've been playing around with the new paints I bought. My practice/learning piece is the Amur Leopard. Not that it matters what animal it is because I'm just learning how these paints work. I'm pleased to say that the fabric has remained soft even after using the paint and extender Ink Potion No. 9. so that's a win. The paints also go on MUCH darker and lighten as they dry. I can see where I'll have to go over some areas 2-3 times to get the right shade.  I'm also mixing colors a bit to get the right color hue so we'll see how that works out. I can also see where I maybe working on 2-3 pictures at one time. If you add another color or layer down and your fabric is still just slightly wet then it will bleed everywhere.  Not good. So there's going to have to be drying time accounted for during this process. My leopard is a nice golden beige but all the paints I have are no where near tan, golden or anything resembling the color of leopard fur...