Sandi was already a capable and prolific art quilter when she tried a new method of making art quilt portraits. Now it's been a few months, maybe a year, and holy cow, she's already made almost twenty.
Look at that work, and look at Sandi! If that were my work, I'd be smiling too.
Sandi, who is a member of one of my quilting groups, Women Against the Grain, showed us what she does. She started with a book and a computer program called Sew Art, both by a woman named Tammi Bowser.
The other day, at the November meeting of Women Against the Grain, Sandi mounted a show of the portraits that she's created since she discovered the Sew-Art. Then she demonstrated her technique to members of the group. I can tell you it involves a skazillion pieces of fabric.
Here's a group member admiring her work.
The Sew-Art computer program starts with a photo portrait image and reduces it, dividing it by color value, to something like this:
Sandi chooses to work in seven values of fabric, darkest to lightest. It's funny how, even though she may be working in colors like purple or green, the photos still "read" as if they were black and white.
Like the two young women in the top center row, below.
I'm especially fascinated by the image below. Up close, it's kind of disorganized,
...but from a distance it makes much more sense.
Also, check out the bottom left portrait. You can see the man's glasses clearly from this distance, but up close you can't see them. It's a trick of the optics of this technique.
I had to share this with the blogosphere because I'm so taken with Sandi's work and this technique in geeral. Besides, the guy on the lower left in the photo above looks exactly like my father.
I also have to tell you that Sandi works full-time.
Pretty impressive, huh?
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