Quilt Square for the Fence Project

The Yellow Springs Fence Art Gallery Project

Yellow Springs is getting a new motel! While the project is going on, there will be a construction fence around the property. The owner decided he wanted it to also be an art gallery, so several local artists were asked to create 4' x 4' panels.

The panels will be on display at the corner of Xenia Ave. and Limestone St. starting the end of April and will be up through the end of this summer.

I'd been thinking of making a "barn quilt square" to hang at our house, and since the artists get to keep the panels when they come down, I decided to go for it.

I decided to use the Pinwheel Square, since it's pretty recognizable as a quilt square. Because the sponsor's name (in this case "For Quilts Sake") had to be in 4" tall letters, I offset the square by leaving 6" of space at the bottom for the letters, and decided to put smaller Pinwheels along the right side.

When I paint I usually use watercolors, where you have to think about layers and start with the lightest color and build up. For this I used house paint but my mind was still working in layers and lightest to darkest, so first I painted the lightest purple at the bottom and along the side. This way I only had to be careful about painting the blue letters and not around them. I also painted the purple parts of the large pinwheel.

I let them dry overnight then painted the medium purple on the small pinwheels then started on the letters. I printed them off on my computer, traced the outline of the letters on the back with pencil, placed them where I wanted then traced around the outside of the letters on the top which transferred the pencil marks to the board. Then I carefully filled them in with paint, using a small artist brush.

Then I painted the blue pinwheels, touched up a few spots, then added the two coats of polyurethane.