During January’s Fly on the Wall series “Sunshine Oma,” in which I began a fanciful sun portrait of my mom, Meta, I invited watchers to create their own portraits using my sun portrait pattern as a base. Quite a few worked along with me as each week I added features to my portrait: nose, eyes, mouth and so on. Several were kind enough to share their (mostly still in-progress and definitely fantastic) work with us today, which you’ll get to see in Sun Portraits Special Treat: Student Work, below.
Fly on the Wall is a series of Zoom meetings where watchers tune in on certain Thursday evenings to observe me in my studio as I work on my latest projects—to be a figurative fly on the wall. The first two 4-week series featured my eight-foot tall lace polar bear “Winfrieda.” By the time those eight sessions, I had brought Winfrieda to the end of the first draft stage, meaning I had completed a first pass (draft) of the entire image, head to toe.
As this month of February progresses, and running into March, I’m working on Winfrieda’s second draft—fixing up what I’ve already put down. For those interested in learning how I approach fine-tuning my work once the first draft is complete, I’m offering two new Fly on the Wall sessions, on March 2 (second draft) and April 6 (third draft). During those sessions I will show photos, discuss, and demonstrate how I identify and address problem areas, as well as those parts that are working and I may want to accentuate. I do have a motto of “More is Better”—and I certainly will be adding more to Winfrieda’s first-draft. Click the link below for more information and to register.
Sunshine Oma: Considering First Drafts
The sun portrait I’m creating of my mom is currently at what I consider to be the end of the first draft stage.
A first draft is putting fabric pieces down onto a foundation fabric—much like one would put pen to paper in writing. You gotta get those ideas out and into a tangible form in order to step back and see what you’ve got—be it a fabric collage or an essay. It’s not expected to be perfect, it’s a first draft, you know there’s editing to come. But you can’t edit something that’s not there, so you just have to start with something.
At best, a first draft is playtime with your fabric. At worst, it’s hitting one creative wall after another. The key is to let your subject or “story” develop in an unexpected direction (if it wants to)—brainstorm by throwing fabric pieces around on the foundation fabric—see where it leads you, you can edit later. That’s what the second draft is all about.
This portrait started with finding a picture of my mom I wanted to use. Then I created a line drawing by tracing the photo image onto tracing vellum. The line drawing was then incorporated into the circle defined by my sun portrait pattern. This meant broadening her cheeks to fill the roundness of the sun. A video from my 2020 Thursday Night at My Studio Live presentations describes the process.
Choosing fabric to use is very enjoyable for me. It’s very easy to get carried away by pulling out many more fabrics than I can ever use. In this case I managed to narrow my choices down to 31 different fabrics (twice as much as I recommend to my students—ah well, no one’s perfect). Above left is a portion from which I created the fabric palette in the above right image. When I create a palette I am cutting down my fabrics into usable (hand-sized) pieces and in the process, previewing them to see how well they work together—how they blend from one to another in both color and value—which is one of the biggest considerations with how I approach fabric collage.
The first Fly on the Wall session dealt with fabric selection and getting started—the playing with your fabric part. I started with my mom’s nose and moving into her cheeks. This way I could familiarize myself with my fabrics before I got into the “serious” stuff—like her eyes—which happened during the second week. One eye was created during the Zoom demo, then forming the second eye during the week between sessions.
The last facial feature to tackle was the mouth. I avoided toothed portraits for years in my early years of fabric collage. Teeth can be tough. If a student shows up with two optional photos to work with on a portrait collage, one with teeth and one without, guess which I’ll guide them towards? But my mom’s smile, which pairs in such a lovely way with her laughing eyes, was imperative to include. And I figured she’d want to have her teeth “in” (though we think she’s adorable when they’re not).
Another video presentation from my 2020 Thursday Night at My Studio Live presentations describes the process of how to create a toothy smile.
I work well under deadlines, but even with the deadline of my mom’s 90th birthday as incentive, I couldn’t quite get the first draft completed for the big day. But I was able to get her chin almost done and worked into the borders along her cheeks. I was beginning to play with the idea of turning my mom into a sunflower as opposed to a sun.
At the end of my mom’s birthday, she said how much she had enjoyed the day. It was only six of us there with her, and that’s she wanted. She was a happy mama, and Oma (both her grandchildren were there). As to her portrait? She liked her eyes and mouth, but her nose was way too big. I’ll give her that. I did get a little playful with the round print batik on the tip of her nose—it was fun—but a woman’s nose is (obviously) a serious thing. Narrowing it a bit will be first on the list for the second draft.
A week later was the final Fly on the Wall. By then I had filled in the gaps of my mom’s round sun(flower) face and given her a wreath of trial sunflower prints, just to see how they’d look. It took the portrait to the point where I could audition potential background ideas and fabrics for the Zoom presentation.
I’m still not exactly sure if my mom’s portrait will be a sunflower or back to a sun or just a sweet face emerging from a background. I temporarily placed it onto on an overdyed print attached to a board and propped it in my mom’s house. After living with the piece for a couple weeks and seeing it from a little more distance, my mom assures me it’s growing on her. But the nose….
Guess I’ve gotta squeeze in some time to get going on the second draft!
And when I do get going on it again, I’ll remember not to leave it sitting flat on my worktable. In preparing for this post, I brought the portrait back to my studio for some photos and Djinni cat seemed happy to see it again. I admit she was so cute I let her enjoy the moment. I’ll just add “pick off cat hair” to that second draft list.
Sun Portraits Special Treat: Student Work
The following fabric collage pieces were made by my Fly on the Wall attendees. These women all did a remarkable—and fantastical— job. For a couple, it was their first try at a portrait. I think this project, where a familiar face is worked into a playful sun face outline, is a wonderful way to introduce fabric collage portraiture. While each of the subjects below are recognizable in the quilts, liberties have been taken, they are looser and more flowing than portraits tend to be when a perfect representation of the subject is the goal. These are all playful and fun, with plenty of places where the fabric is placed with whimsy rather than strict adherence to human anatomy.
Thank you, ladies—and congratulations! These are amazing! 🙂
Grace Crocker
From Grace:
Couldn’t resist trying my own sun face while I watched Susan’s Fly on the Wall. Playing with a background before I finish Draft Two. This is my grandson, Austin. I did his brother, Damon as my Man in the Moon.
Jackie Dalley
From Jackie:
The subject is my daughter-in-law, Beth, and I am making this for her 2 year old daughter (my granddaughter) who inadvertently provided me with the palette included below.
Sandra Koterba
From Sandra:
I chose this picture of my granddaughter Kai because she always says I love you to the moon and back! She is a very special youngster and I wanted her to have something created by me that she could keep to always remember me by. Kai also loves to do crafts and is now starting to take an interest in sewing. I hope that someday this piece will encourage her to delve into the art of collage.
Jenny Satterthwait
From Jenny:
My daughter in law‘s picture of Caroline captured my heart. I just fell in love with her all over again. When Susan offered the Sun portrait class, I knew immediately that I would do it and use this picture. It was also a unique opportunity to see Susan work because even though I’ve taken 2 of her classes, you don’t really get to know what thought processes she is going through. It was a great zoom demonstration and I’m so glad I did it. As a side note, I used pieces of Sari’s for the highlights in the Sun beams. My granddaughter loved them. She is only 3.
They are all great!!
All I can say is wow……..fabulous faces, quilty friends!
Such delightful suns and moons! Beautifully done by all! And thank you, Susan, for sharing a little bit of Oma’s birthday party with us. It seems like Djinni. wanted to be close to Oma, as well.