Blog - Carol Ann Waugh

Commission — Part 2

8/30/2020

Here's the first panel. I will leave all the rows unsewn until the final weeks of putting everything together since I might move rows around from one panel to another. Also, I might find a miss-spelling that I will need to correct (yes, this happened before!) There are two words that can't be easily read (gold and Neal) so I will probably replace these and not use pink or tan fabric in any other panels going forward. On an artistic note, I find it valuable to photograph my work so I can see the value and make any corrections I need before finishing the piece.

So where was I in my story. Oh, right. I promised to tell you about my approach to telling Denver's history.

Initially, I started researching by buying books about Denver's history but soon realized didn't have time to read them all and make the commission deadline. So, I turned to the Internet (wikipedia) to start with an outline.

But I also wanted to get some information that is not widely known so I contacted a noted historian, Tom Noel, and he graciously offered to help me. Emboldened, I also contacted Sam Bock, a historian with History Colorado and he gave me some great tips. I tried to contact Phil Goodstein (who hung up on me!) and that's another story. But, this project put me in touch with local people I would have never met otherwise.

So. One panel almost finished and on the second. I now know how much time I will spend on this project. I can make 2 rows per day, working 5-6 hours per day. There is a lot of handwork and stitching in this piece. So each panel will take a week to get to this stage. Check in next week to see panel #2!

Sneak Preview of New Commission

8/25/2020

Thought I would take you on my journey to create a new fiber art piece for the Denver Health commission so here is where I am today.

My mission is to complete a piece measuring 3 feet high by 12 feet wide by November 1, 2020.

The first step was deciding how to do this. I decided to make 4 mounted pieces, each measuring 36" x 36". I thought making one piece this size in fabric would be difficult to mount (fabric is heavy!) and also difficult to quite and square up since I don't have a table that size.

Once I had the size, I could figure out how many squares would fit into the square. the easy choice was 3" squares but I though only having 12 letters in each row would hinder my ability to add a many words and phrases as possible so I settled on 2-1/2" squares and that gave me 15 letters to work with on each row.

Then came the researching of the history of Denver. More on that next week but here are the first 6 rows of the first piece.

Watercolor

8/9/2020

After taking a class with Judith Cassel-Mamet this August, I've gotten back into watercolor painting.

It reminded me of a process I practiced several years ago that helped me to "see" different hues and how to mix them to get just the right color.

I chose a page from a magazine and tried to see all the colors in the picture and then, reproduced them in watercolor. It helped me have confidence that I could replicate a specific color and not to rely just on the colors in my watercolor palette.

But there are some paints that are so unique, that I had to add them to my palette this week. I can't wait to get delivery of some Daniel Smith colors: Quinacridone Deep Gold and Quinacridone Violet. Actually, anything that starts with Quinacridone is a favorite of mine!

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CAROL ANN WAUGH
2030 E 11th Ave, Studio 806
Denver, CO 80206