"Mystery" Reveal Day

Today was the reveal day for the next theme for the Material Mavens blog which was  mystery.  I chose to portray a "Mystery Lady" using Billy Ocean's song of that name as inspiration.  I found a painting called "Goddess of the Sea" which showed a beautiful woman with flowing locks and down-turned eyes.  I was amazed to find this gorgeous beauty as that was almost exactly what I pictured in my mind for my mysterious woman.  She had a few additional creatures from the sea surrounding her than I envisioned but I decided I would recreate this painting in fabric as my challenge.  Ronnie Biccard is the artist and I was able to contact her through the internet and received her permission to post my rendition. of her painting which is below.  

I had recently viewed an on-line tutorial using white crayons as a resist in fabric dying and I thought I could use that technique to recreate the look of the painting.  I did try the technique and it worked, well sort of.  I made the mistake of ironing the piece and the crayon lines became gray instead of white.  I redrew them many times before the piece was finished.  However, when I layered the tulle over the sky and hair to try to get the right colors, the lines disappeared.  I used the satin stitch to emphasize them.  I am pleased with the overall effect and look of the piece.  I do think it is better seen in person as the lighting in the photo is unbalanced despite trying many different lighting options.

It was a great learning experience though as I used several new materials and techniques; crayons, thread, tulle, paint and crystals were used to complete the look.  I started with one piece of fabric which I painted with setacolor to make the blue background.  The face is done on a separate piece of fabric which I detailed and shaded.  When I was satisfied with both, I cut an opening for the face  and neck and machine stitched the background piece on top of the face.  I shaded the background as needed with more setacolor and opalescent paint was used to emphasize the designs on the lower part.  I could not get the sky and hair dark enough so I layered tulle in navy and burgundy op top to get the color and effect I wanted.  Satin stitching was used for the hair embellishment and the entire piece is machine quilted.  I added crystals for the twinkle of the stars.

Per usual, I doubted that this was "good enough" and started working on another mystery lady.  This time I wanted her to be wearing a hat and veil covering her eyes. 

 This is my "Mysterious Senorita".  I used fusing, beads, lace and black veil to create this version.  The background is machine quilted and was supposed to look smoky. When completed, I decided to go with my original piece once again!   

You may be able to see the beading and veil better in this close up.

The MM blog has caused me to be prolifiic with 12 X 12's.  They are so much easier to do than large quilts.