I recently started the “Working in A Series” course with Lisa Call. Last week we officially made the first piece in the series.

I presented three ideas to the group for my series: faces, improv circles or bugs. The group was overwhelmingly in favor of the bugs. So I started a deep dive research into bugs.

I have narrowed it down to Beetles specifically, because I just love all the shiny iridescent colors they come in. I have really been enjoying all the research, sketching and hunting for fabrics that will work for this series.

I checked out several kids books from the library that have bright colorful pictures, saved tons of images on a pinterest board, including actual bug photos, artist illustrations and paintings as well as fiber collage art of bugs. (Mostly collages from Susan Carlson’s classes)

I organized my fusibles and decided to buy some new to me different brands and weights due to the different types of fabrics I might be using. My current steam a seam is too thick and gums up my needle causing skipped stitches, if I have too many layers of fabric.  I went shopping and got 4 different costume fabrics that gave off bug vibes to me. More tule and a few other sewing notions. I collected and sorted the fabric bits that I have that already have fusible on and organized them into some new clear envelopes.  

I started sketching bugs from my collected images. I will scan them in to make patterns for future bugs. My first bug is from a coloring page I enlarged, printed and redrew.

I am super happy with how this came out, especially since I was experimenting with new fabrics. I do want to figure out more ways to include a background that adds to the meaning or some kind of framing to highlight the bug’s shape. 

I got stuck a bit with the background and played with a few different compositions.  I tried a bunch of different colored back grounds with different layouts and numbers of flowers. This is usually my process. I make the main subject collage, then try to figure out what type of background to put it in. Overall I am not entirely happy with the flowers, but I am moving on to the next one. 

After this piece was done, I got the brainstorm to make it look like a field journal page with writing about the bug and maybe some call out details. So now I will try to figure out how to do that in fabric!

Do you have a favorite beetle? which ones should I include in this series?