Trio of Sisters--drawing and coloring Post 2

Vignette of the sisters

Supplies used to colorize the figures

This post is the second one regarding the project I'm stitching after reading the book, "Girl Waits With Gun." When Miss J and I completed our initial drawing, I figured that I needed to draw one more figure which I did. When I laid the drawings next to one another, I found that "Norma" was too small; "Fleurette" was too large and "Constance" was too small. I redrew "Norma." My friend, JoJo, reduced the size of the copy for Fleurette and she increased the size for Constance. Then I played with an arrangement of the three together. I was thinking of a vignette that would eventually be enclosed in an oval frame.

Colorizing the figures

I left Norma a bit outside the grouping because she was opinionated and often looked down on the others' decisions. I gave Fleurette a big hat and some emeralds as she loved being ostentatious and bling. I put Constance in the green dress the author described. I left her a little smaller than she was. In the book,  she didn't give herself credit for her skills and passed herself off as less than she really was. In life, she was six feet tall and Fleurette was just over five feet tall. What a pair the two of them must have been!

Once I had the figures arranged, I pulled a piece of muslin from my stash and lightly penciled the figures in place. Then it was time to colorize the figures.

I used color pencils, inktense pencils, acrylic paints and jacquard paints. This was my first experience with adding color. It was scary to start; but, I did! After getting past the fear of making a mistake, I had fun playing with various supplies. I liked the results.

I used a Clover type iron to set the color as I worked. For example, I set the purple lines in Fleurette's hat first. Then, I worked on filling in the color. I used aloe vera gel as a medium with the dye based paints. I found the medium helped me apply the color more evenly. As I completed a section, I heat set it with a small Clover brand iron.

All three figures colorized

It was fun to shade each figure's hair. I really had planned to make Norma's clothing red; but, decided that the orange went better with the clothing on the other figures! The lines on Constance's dress were supposed to represent her sleeping in her clothing at the jail. The lines in Norma's clothing, were drawn to represent what her coat might be like after wearing it day after day doing her outside chores.

I've been thinking about stamping a background around the figures. I've been thinking about adding machine embroidered words which would mean I MUST learn the ins and outs of that process. It isn't as simple as typing the words, selecting the font and pushing stitch!

On a side note, at the end of September when our Thread Tales group met for the reveal of quilts which were inspired by the book, the author, Amy Stewart joined us. Turns out, she moved from California and lives in the Portland area now. She had dinner with us and then we walked over to Powell's Books and listened to her speak about her latest book. It was a fun evening. She was impressed with the quilts that our group had completed.

There will be more posts to come with this project!