I thought I'd be quilting this on Saturday, but I was still working out the greens in the bottom half. I'd originally thought I'd make each area between the trunks a different green, but I quickly realized that would be too much movement in the piece. Still, I felt one green across the bottom wasn't doing it either. June and Emily Carr both had a definite shaft of light slashing through their work (see this post), but my light source is much subtler. I spent a lot of time studying the play of light in my sky, envisioning where it might logically fall upon the landscape. It wasn't an easy call, perhaps made more difficult by the greens available to me. I'm hoping to tone down and blend the light green with quilting.
Saturday morning found me trying to decide whether the triangle near the center bottom should be the medium green or the dark green. I felt the dark green as you see in the above picture, didn't make as much sense but it was a tough call. If I'd doubted the importance of negative space before, working with this section of the quilt made a believer out of me. In the line sketch version, they did not shout so loudly for my eye's attention. Now that color was being added, I wished those center ones were not so large, or at least shaped differently. It might not have been such an issue for me if I could have cubed the spaces like I did some of the sky spaces.
I had a wonderful conversation with a non-artist friend who'd seen the above picture of just the top half. I was at an impasse with the greens and needed to clear my head. She gave me a rejuvenating image I couldn't get out of my head which got me over the hump of that impasse. Being a retired teacher who had chaperoned many a Friday night dance, she said the trees reminded her of kids dancing to techno-pop in a darkened room, arms waving in the air, each picking up the "fizz" of the lights from the stage (my sky) slightly differently. Having done my own share of chaperoning, I knew just what she meant and agreed! This energized image made working out the rest of the kinks fun again.
Saturday morning found me trying to decide whether the triangle near the center bottom should be the medium green or the dark green. I felt the dark green as you see in the above picture, didn't make as much sense but it was a tough call. If I'd doubted the importance of negative space before, working with this section of the quilt made a believer out of me. In the line sketch version, they did not shout so loudly for my eye's attention. Now that color was being added, I wished those center ones were not so large, or at least shaped differently. It might not have been such an issue for me if I could have cubed the spaces like I did some of the sky spaces.
I had a wonderful conversation with a non-artist friend who'd seen the above picture of just the top half. I was at an impasse with the greens and needed to clear my head. She gave me a rejuvenating image I couldn't get out of my head which got me over the hump of that impasse. Being a retired teacher who had chaperoned many a Friday night dance, she said the trees reminded her of kids dancing to techno-pop in a darkened room, arms waving in the air, each picking up the "fizz" of the lights from the stage (my sky) slightly differently. Having done my own share of chaperoning, I knew just what she meant and agreed! This energized image made working out the rest of the kinks fun again.
1 comment:
As a painter, I would just tone down those larger green shapes with a bit of gray -- darker or lighter, depending on what I wanted to achieve. As a textile artist, oh my, what problems. Maybe a pointilist approach with dots that tone without loss of the space. Blue dots to pull the blue into the green -- colored pencils. I'd suggest adding a bits of blue fabric to the green, but you might hit me. I don't think even extensive quilting in blue would change the color enough, although it might. You see, I have all sorts of ideas, and am grateful I don't have to deal with the problem. And your friend was quite right about the tops of the trees which are Wonderful!
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