Sunday, January 15, 2012

Find, Search, Discover

 My first inclination was to use leaves in some way to signify the theme. In the fall, while driving home from town, I am constantly looking up at the leaves and admiring the changing colors from shades of green to golden yellows, intense reds and coppery oranges. 




My husband suggested clouds as an appropriate theme.  When I spoke about the challenge with my daughter, she said Mother, you were a librarian, you have to use the term the way it was used in your job. After thinking about these options for a while, I decided my daughter was right. 


My first step was to create a list of words related to looking up books or doing research in a library or doing a search on the web. After compiling the list, I typed the words into Tagxedo (http://www.tagxedo.com) and had fun playing with different shapes and fonts. After saving a number of word cloud possibilities, I took them into Photoshop Elements and changed font colors, backgrounds, sizes of the clouds, erased some words and moved others until I had five or six word clouds that I was pleased with.


The last step before construction could take place was to print the words on fabric. Ironing fabric onto freezer paper works well if the bond between the fabric and the freezer paper is very tight.
  
The fabric was then cut into strips of varying widths, was sewn together, cut apart and was sewn together again. After playing with various arrangements piecing and rearranging began. A simple grid pattern was machine quilted and luckily, I found some fabric in my stash which was suitable for a binding.





Additional details can be found in my blog.

8 comments:

  1. What a tribute to the challenge Judy! The first picture is amazing. It took a moment to realize the words were in the shape of a leaf. However your final arrangement has me going in close to see what words you chose to keep. Love the piece!

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  2. Judy, such a wonderful execution of the theme! You know me, being a (graphic) designer, I looooooove words and text. I also love the words in the leaf shape! Congratulations on a wonderful piece!

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  3. amazing! I love everything about this - the research - looking up of "look up" - the tie back to you, the implementation, all perfect. I love the word clouds. Just wonderful!

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  4. This is super cool, wonderful interpretation and great execution, love it!

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  5. Oh Judy, you are woman after my own heart! I looove, loove text on fabric. This is wonderful!!!!

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  6. Judy, there is nothing I don't like about this piece! Love the way you included text, your process- just wonderful!!

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  7. Deborah Boschert was talking about how the 12x12 helped her to develop her own style and I think we are beginning to do the same. I think your distinctive style is about using text and multimedia in creative ways and you are becoming a master of interpreting themes in this way. I love it.

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  8. I really like seeing and hearing about the evolution of your ideas. It looks like you learned a lot and came up with a terrific response to the theme!

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