Elk in the Aspens is my latest art quilt project. Each fall I am inspired by all of the colors that are around me and aspens in the countryside is particularly stunning to me. Living in the Idaho mountains for many years I looked forward to their spectacular color not only on their branches but also the ones covering the ground. 
While categorizing some of my fall pictures I came upon one that captured the white of the aspen and the fallen colors and decided to use it for inspiration. This art quilt started with a 36 inch by 75 inch piece of white cotton fabric on the design board. I then drew with a pencil the three aspen tree trunks. Then the mountains in the background, the sky and a birdhouse hanging off the middle tree. After painting the first panel it didn’t seem finished so I added a second 36 inch by 75 inch piece of fabric next to it on the design wall. On the second piece more aspen trees and a river that ran through them, an owl in one of the trees and of course the mountain in the background and the sky. At first the idea was to have two art pieces hang side by side. But as most of my art pieces progress well they change and change and then they are done. Believe it or not the horizon line was one of the last things I added. So here is the process from start to finish. My intent for the aspen trees was the contrast between the white bark and the black marks against them. How to get the dark and grey variations on the aspen bark. I had been wanting to try a new technique using watercolor pencils and then painting water and a fixative over them to let the color run out. After trial and error the aspen bark came to life literally growing up from the ground to the sky. All of the aspen trees were done with black watercolor pencils.
I painted the red birdhouse using one of the inspiration photos for the pattern. Now what to do with the background color? Warm fall colors seemed right to me and so I painted the back with a brilliant yellow. So brilliant that it jumped out of the fabric and took over the aspen trees.
After many applications of applied colors, like raw sienna, alizarin crimson, vermillion, chrome oxide green and several others I couldn’t subdue the yellow. My husband would make visits to see my progress and would comment “Still too bright”. Then I remembered an old trick we would use when painting ceramics called “antiquing” to age a piece. Using a rag and walnut stain you cover the whole piece and it tones down all the colors. Well what the heck maybe if I use a couple of dark brown paints, make a wash and paint over the whole thing it would do the trick and as you can see it worked. Then I painted the mountains and the grass at the base of the tree.
It was time to straighten up the project to have a good reference for the next piece that was suppose to hang next to it. I did that by using a 48 in metal ruler and a metal square for the corners. Part of my straightening process includes a 48 inch level when the piece is hanging on the design wall to make sure the tree trunks are standing straight.
When I moved on to start the second piece I realized that I wanted the quilt to be one big piece instead of two separate pieces. After going through the same process for the second piece as the I then had to take care to adjust them beside each other to make them seem to be one piece. I did this by painting the first aspen tree as the connecting edge so as to use a straight line and then paint over it the edge of the tree. 
The next step was putting in the horizon line. There are many layers to this quilt because eventually I took out a birdhouse, owl and river by layering more fabric over them and repainting. The Elk was the last item added to the art project and I painted it separate and then appliqued it onto the quilt top. I actually quilted both sections separate and then sewed them together. The curved bottom edge was shaped at the end before I put an edge of canvas on the back side of the quilt instead of binding. It helps the quilt to hang straighter. This quilt measures 60″ x 60″. 
Elk in the Aspens is now hanging in my new art gallery/gift shop in front part of my art studio. I am very proud of it…
I have showed it to most of my kids and they all commented that it reminds them of where they grew up. What do you think?
