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!

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

  

Art Every Day, Tuesday, June 25th, 2013

Good Afternoon,
Here is today's new piece.  In real life it's much more straight yellow and green.  The batting is green too.  Not sure why it photographed so blue and the yellow so, yellow orange.  Anyway, I wanted to manipulate white again and play with stitch motifs in contrasting color.   
I laid a piece of yellow dyed, mid-weight canvas down first and tucked the white down underneath it.  I topped the white with the five green squares then added the green (not blue) cotton lace which I topped with more white, some ripped yellow linen and a long strip of green velvet.
The squares are top stitched as is the green strip, small white rectangle and lace, each in a matching color.  I did the decorative leaf motif in bright green and quilted the white background with yellow thread, which you can barely see, in straghtish lines about 1/8" apart. 
The heavy stitching managed to push the white back and keep it behind the yellow where it physically is.  The big piece of yellow seems to sit on the same mid-ground as the green squares which is surprising to me, but it's probably doing that because of the heavyish green quilting.  
I like the piece, it's very spring like in it's coloration which pleases me.  
I've been playing with some very unusual compositions lately and coming up with some strange stuff.  This ones a bit off.  It's not really unbalanced, but it's got a strange balance.  I tried positioning it every which way and it looks best like this.
Well, I'm off at o'dark thirty tomorrow morning, flying to Cleveland to teach at the NQA show.  I've stitched up a bunch of daily pieces so I can keep up with this little project!
Till tomorrow,
Heather

1 comment:

me said...

This is a tricky one with the colors but at least this time it's not just my computer, lol.

I am also seeing the white as very light red violet, a color which is also coming through along with the blue in the batting.

When I look at this piece from far away, the balance is asymmetrical, but it does look nicely balanced, with the visual weight being carried by the green squares on the right.

The white surrounding it helps bring it out as a focal point I think, and does the same with the smaller inset where the green strip is. The white pops a bit more than the yellow and so is able to carry those areas as focal points better.

The heavy green stitching in the yellow seems to do a couple of things: first, it tones down the yellow so it's not competing too much with the white to come forward, and second, it gives a lot of visual and textural interest.

This is a very lush piece texturally, but not overwhelmingly so at all. It feels very organic on the left and then goes to a very clean and open feel as it finishes off to the right. I like all of the elements and I like it too, though I suspect I will like it even better when I see it's true colors.

I really want to see this one in person since the colors are so different from what you say they are and therefore made it kind of strange to "see" it the way you were. lol