I have recently been dabbling in a whole new way to give a voice to the wild animals I have photographed, by framing their images in a way that may be meaningful to them. The technique is an extension of what I have been doing for the past 6 or so years: using thickened dyes and heavy thread painting to create realistic animal portraits.
What’s new is that I’m adding a frame to the portrait. The frame is created with metallic fabric paint, quilted, then closely carved (trimmed) close to the stitching lines. The edges are then finished with matching paint to create an integral frame that’s a reasonable imitation of a real one. Using this technique I can create whimsical, meaningful or slightly wacky frames, each one unique and matching the character of the portrait.
The portrait starts with a photograph, from which I have created a line drawing. The line drawing is then traced onto fabric treated with soda ash, and then coloured with thickened dye applied with paintbrushes, to create a face as realistic as possible.
After the dye has worked its magic and has been washed out, the frame is outlined onto the fabric and painted with metallic fabric paints. For a 3D look, I usually include some shading and highlights in the paintwork.
For the cardinal's frame, I created a natural looking design by tracing actual maple leaves that had fallen from the tree in my backyard. I then painted them using a mixture of gold, brass, bronze and copper metallic paints for a natural looking mix of colours, reflecting the way the leaves looked on the tree in October.
After quilting, I trim the edges very close to the stitching and then finish the edge with more fabric paint. If you look at the below picture you can see that the loop of chains on the left has its edges finished, but the edges of the loop on the right are still white fabric. This step is just a small detail, but it makes a big difference to the finished artwork: it stops the edges from fraying, it covers up the remaining bits of white fabric, and it stiffens the piece just a little more (which helps it hang nice and flat). After this step, it is usually necessary to trim off some remaining frayed edges.
The whole process takes a long time to complete and is very
finicky but I’m very happy with the results.
Here are a few examples of finished pieces using this technique:
For this king penguin, I thought its regal name
deserved a regal looking frame. This is
a smaller quilt than the others (only 12”x12”), and it was made for the 2024 SAQA Benefit Auction.
Here’s a hornbill photographed in Kenya. The most notable thing about him is his spectacular beak, so I wanted to make sure it was the most attention-grabbing part of the piece. The best way I could think of expressing this was to have it be just too big to fit into the frame.
The emu has so much attitude, it just needed a punk frame featuring chains, skulls and spikes, around a studded black leather band.
The puffin is framed with tiny sand eels, their favourite food! The silvery eels worked out very well in silver and gold metallic paint.
The cardinal’s frame is a reflection of my association of this beautiful bird, photographed in our backyard, with the maple tree where it spends a lot of time. It’s the most natural-looking "quilted and carved" portrait I’ve done so far, and definitely the most complicated. I really enjoyed making him!
This is becoming a whole new avenue of fibre and stitching creativity. I have so many ideas for the future!
You can see any future pieces in this series by following me on Facebook or Instagram (sueshermanquilts). If you don't do social media, you could email me at sue@sueshermanquilts.com and ask to be added to my newsletter list.
by Sue Sherman
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