Living This Creative Life

I have two favorite quotes. The first one is by Emile Zola, "If you asked me what I came into this world to do, I would tell you that I came to live out loud". I don't know who the second one is by, but it goes like this, "If you're not living on the edge then you might as well jump". Both of these sentiments sum up my personal philosophy of this experience we call life on earth. Enjoy!

Saturday, June 22, 2013


Art Every Day, Friday June 21/Saturday, June 22,

Good Morning,
I actually made this yesterday and ran out of time before my private student arrived then as soon as I was done with her I had to set up and host our 3rd Friday event at the gallery.  Then, I told myself I would just take it home at the end of the evening (9:30) and get it uploaded then.  Well, I forgot both it and my camera at the gallery and was not going back for it.  So here it is now!

I began by laying yellow green and blue strips of hand dyed fabric down on a violet batting.  Both fabrics have jacquard circles on them.  Then I ripped squares in solid white, orange, watermelon, blue violet and a scrap of hand painted.  I layered those every-which-way on top of the strips of fabric and stitched it all down using a light, bright very yellow, yellow green. I used wiggle, horizontal lines in the blue background and stitched around the circles and stippled in the green background.  Both the blue violet and white squares got a stitched fan-like treatment and the warm colored squares were just top stitched.  I top stitched around the painted square and outlined the swirl.

My goal here was to see how the piece would react to just one color of thread, one that contrasted with all of the colors and how using colors that were somewhat disparate from each other would look in such a simple construct. I really like the whole thing.  It's got great depth and the circles in the green background just pop and help you see the small polka dots in the center painted square. The white acts as a great mid ground, strongly pushing the squares on top of it forward.

Till later today,
Heather

1 comment:

me said...

It is very interesting to see how all of the colors are reacting to the thread color.

Had I not read the description of the piece, I would not have known that the mid ground was solid white at all because it looks like a very light tint of yellow, taking on the thread color. I didn't even know that could happen!

I think the watermelon color is also looking more orange because of the thread, and the blue in the background looks more blue green.

So I surmise that the thread color was really able to bring unity to the piece as a whole, bringing out their common colors, or their complementary ones. It's a very cool trick!

I also love how the dots all pop out so well. I would never have thought that going around the big dots, emphasizing them just that extra bit would make the ones in the painted middle square really sing like that.

This has great texture with the frayed edges, the different quilting stitches, and the patterns on the fabrics.

There is good variety in size too, with the quilting and the fabric patterns, providing a lot of interest yet keeping things balanced and flowing.

What surprises me most is the fact there is so little repetition of color, yet the piece seems so harmonious!