January: It's Still Raining

"January: It's Still Raining" '08          

Bead Embellished Quilt                    9" x 13"

 
"January:
It's Still Raining"
by
Thom Atkins

This piece was based on photographs I took of a California Live Oak in the rain. I worked over the image in Photoshop™, bent the skyline so the oak stood alone on a hill, put in the dark gray clouds and removed the cyclone fence at the base of the slope. Then I printed it, and printed it, had someone else print it. I must have made ten copies of the image before I got the color right in an ink that wouldn’t run. Finally I could add the diagonal lines of machine stitching (over binding and all) and actually put beads on it. I wanted the viewer to be out in the rain so it drips off the edge of the picture. The rain drops are hand-carved Labradorite beads, with no two the same size of shape.