A “Daily Arting” by Billy Tackett, used with permission.
At the beginning of 2014, Mr. Tackett decided he was going to do “daily arting”. This meant that he was going to draw something new every day. This is one of those pieces.
Given that it’s so close to Valentine’s Day, what would seem more appropriate? I was enchanted with Frankenheart the first time I saw it. It was a little bit quirky, a little bit serious, and spoke volumes to me.
The toughest choice I’d ever made, with this image, was whether or not to stay with the original black and white version or add some color. I could get so many different looks, should I start ‘frankensteining’ colors in. I’d printed out several copies and started playing with crayons and coloring pencils, just to see how colors would look.
However, it wasn’t going to get made if I didn’t start cutting fabric. 
There’s something pretty cool about working with Mr. Tackett’s artwork. I trust the artist. I trust the art. I have no doubts that whenever I work with a Tackett piece, I’m going to get some pretty amazing results.
After a couple of days of cutting, I had my main outline done. Since I was changing up how I wanted the overall piece to look, I started with completely different sort of background fabric. My ‘goal’ was to make this piece seem more like graffiti. This meant I could bring in whatever colors I wanted, wherever I wanted. I knew I had one main problem to overcome – the background fabric. Given how bold the design is, I needed to make sure whatever fabrics I chose would have to keep it from ‘shadowing’ into the main design. 
Piece by piece, each color/fabric was added. It felt like I was sitting at my table with crayons again. 
At this point, I needed to reconfigure my color scheme. The fabrics I’d originally chosen weren’t going to work. Thinking of the graffiti I’d seen on train cars, I went back to my fabric stash to see what I could come up with. 
That was workable. I still had more details to add, and a bit more fine-tuning of the overall image. 
Better, but was still missing the last of the details Mr. Tackett had included with the original design. 
It was at this point I’d stopped. I wasn’t sure how Mr. Tackett was going to feel about my “modifying” his design, as I’d always tried to stay within the parameters of the original art piece. I could still take it back to the original black & white without too many hassles.
The next morning, I fused all the pieces into place and took the fabric off my design wall. A little bit of trimming, and it’d be ready for either borders or quilting. While trying to go through my fabric stash, I’d figured out I don’t have any plain black fabric. (It’s been my chuckle for the day.)
I decided to forego the borders. As busy as this design is, as well as the fabrics, a border would be overkill. I like the simplicity of the uneven black binding.
Frankenheart
Original art work by Billy Tackett
(used with permission)
Cotton fabrics, cotton/wool batting
Raw edge applique, machine quilted
Finished size 22 3/4 x 19 1/2 inches
Completed February 5, 2015
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