Saturday, May 23, 2009

Back to Auditioning

I often get impatient with the creative process. At a certain point, I want to be done with the decision making, the influx of clever ideas, the laboring over final details. In short, I want to be done and dusted and moving on. But my pieces often don't agree with me. Case in point: Jungle. I'd already spent a lot of time pulling all kinds of possibilities to mount it on (see this post), narrowed it down to one, solved a new problem that cropped up demanding more auditioning and mulling, and was only waiting for a break in higher priority projects to quickly finish it up.


Wednesday, I squared it up and sewed on a narrow binding to create a little spark and delineation between it and the dark background I'd chosen. I placed it on that background and sighed...not at all sure that it was showing it off at all. Worse yet, I had this nagging feeling that it required some beads added to help jazz it up. It just looked a little boring and faded to me. Maybe the binding was a little too much pop? So much for finishing this up quickly. I'd already started pulling some fabric to audition for another piece, so started trying it out on some of those.


Greens looked awful. Purples looked awful. I even tried various tropical oranges and blues. Nothing made me pause and wonder for a second. Then I wondered if the burgundy crushed velvet I'd used on Twisted Tree might be just what I needed - rich and mysterious like the jungle itself. Uhhh, nope (the photo makes it look like it works better than it actually does). I was ready to resign myself to the black as the only answer.


This one was absolutely an afterthought. It was draped over the back of the chair next to the design wall. It was there only because I'd washed it a few weeks ago and hadn't gotten around to putting it away yet. It intrigues me the most, the way the bits of orange seem to balance the orange in the binding. It may be the solution to my dilemma. What do you think?

By the way, I used my Paintshop Pro software program to crop my photos so that you see approximately the amount of fabric that will extend beyond the binding, then added a border to represent the black metal frame I'll be mounting the finished piece into. I think it is critical to seeing which fabric will work best. It will finish at 13 x 11 inches. Click on any picture for a better view of the subtleties of each fabric

2 comments:

bj parady said...

I like the bottom one--it kind of echoes the stitching, contrasts with the main part of the work, and yet it blends it. I say stick a fork in it--it's done.

The Idaho Beauty said...

Yay!!!! I agree with your reasoning and will take your advice - After several days of it on the design wall on that background, I'd pretty much decided to go with it, but couldn't articulate exactly why. Hadn't thought about the link to the quilting. Thanks for sharing your insights!