On my design wall – dog portrait finished – 2013.04.13

My art quilt portrait of Courtenay is finished, except for the binding.  If you’d like to see the beginning steps of this project, check this post and this one.

I constructed the dog in units – head, paws, neck/collar, body – then fused them all together.  Then I decided on the background.  I really like the slanted lines of the deck she’s lying on, and I liked the teal-green color of the pillow behind her in the original photo, so I used that color for the deck.  Even more important than the color, was to find the right values.  The background is more subdued gray-blue.  Here is Courtenay’s portrait with all the fabrics fused.

The way I quilt my dog portraits is to do all the thread sketching on the dog before I layer the quilt batting and backing.  This has three advantages:

1. I’m free motion quilting through fewer layers – which is good because I usually have several layers of fabric and fusible web to sew through.
2. I don’t have to be concerned about any messy thread ends on the back of my work – so I can use my machine’s thread cutter button, and don’t have to bury the thread ends.
3. It also gives a dimensional quality to the dog’s head – when I quilt the background after layering the batting and backing, the area surrounding the dog is flattened and the dog’s face and body are slightly raised.

I draw my thread sketching lines first to make sure they will give the correct impression of dog fur.  I used Picasa’s pencil sketch feature to get a good look at the direction of Courtenay’s fur.  I printed the pencil sketch image and drew my thread sketching lines in marker pen.  I referred to the drawing while stitching.

Then I layered the quilt with batting and backing and stitched the background.  I had lots of fun stitching the wood grain on the deck boards (which showed up nicely in the Picasa pencil sketch image).  The final step is to outline key areas of the dog’s head and body to add even more dimension.  Because of the many layers, I stitch these lines with my walking foot.  The blue lines on the photo below show my stitching plan, and the back of the quilt shows the stitching lines.

And here’s the finished quilt.  It’s approximately 15 x 15 inches.  [Updated 2013.04.17 – added photo of quilt with binding.]

Linking up to:

• Richard & Tanya Quilts – Link a Finish Friday
• Nina-Marie’s Off the Wall Friday
• Design Wall Weekend at Christina’s Fiber Artist Journey