Junkyard Dawg

This was a fun piece I never intended to make.

Junkyard Dawg - 36"x36"- 2004

It was made to meet our guild's challenge for the AQS Ultimate Guild Challenge in Nashville. The set requirements were the 36"x36" dimension and the key word for the theme was "yard". I had thought I was too busy to enter this contest and didn't begin it until the week before it was due.

I dumped a bag of scraps out on my work table and built the scrap piles over a sky and ground background. Elvis is hiding back there. All those bits and pieces are trapped under tulle netting by the machine quilting with clear smoke thread.

Then I composed the "dawg", his chain, and dish on top of the quilted background. He is made from one of my paint clean-up rag ... one of the dreary, muddy looking ones was perfect. There is shading done with oil stick pastels to accentuate areas ... especially his tongue. Another layer of tulle netting was laid over these elements. The excess was trimmed away after the quilting with a heavy dark thread was finished. That same thread is knotted as whiskers to his muzzle. Brass bones embellish the bottom edge.

It was gifted to my nephew and his bride as a wedding present. This was more appropriate than my usual gift of a hand-quilted bed quilt to my nieces and nephews. Two very large dogs were the focus of their lives up until a baby boy recently arrived.

This quilt plus seven others was awarded 2nd Place by AQS. It also received a 3rd Place ribbon in the Smoky Mountain Quilt Show at the 2004 Dogwood Arts Festival.

Special Note: Paula at Self-taught Artist has a call out for photos of studios. She's already posted pictures of several artists studios, including Lisa Call's and mine.

Also, I'm requesting my nephew to send me a digital photo close-up of Elvis in the scrapyard. I cannot find him in these digital copies of regular photos.

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