Saturday, September 17, 2011

Approaching Storm






I mulled over this challenge all week until the Friday night before the deadline. As I was falling asleep, this quilt came storming into my mind. I could even see the grass fabric that I had in my stash. It ruined a good nights sleep but in the end, I think it came out very close to what I wanted. Of course Hurricane Irene having blown through here (no damage to our house) made me thinking about storms anyway.

Everything is raw edge applique. The tree, leaves and woman are fused. I was trying to portray an atmosphere of threat and danger and helplessness. Almost a metaphor for our lives now a days with all the economic and political storms swirling around.

I also wanted to do this for our art quilt exhibit so made it larger than usual for a FFFC project.
It ended up 39" x 25 1/2".

Hopefully better late than never and worth the wait

The second photo is the quilt after changes that I made due to suggestions from a friend to make the woman's shirt purple so it showed up better and a suggestion here on the blog to shade the dark gray into the light gray. I tried it and decided that having more dark gray portrayed the menace of the storm more vividly.

Nancy Schlegel, Albany NY


4 comments:

Tobi said...

I love the sense of motion you achieved in this piece.

Julia in NZ said...

The storm, tree and woman totally convey the ideas you mention - a great black ball of malevolent energy is approaching. Without seeing the real thing, it feels like the contrast between the light grey clouds and the black clouds is a bit disturbing. I am wondering if a hint of colour in the light grey would connect the two halves more.

Nancy Schlegel said...

I meant the contrast between the dark and light clouds to be strong but maybe I overdid it. I will look at the quilt again and perhaps put a light wash of black paint over the light grey. Thanks for comment.

Nancy

Susan Ward said...

This is beautiful - the contrast gives a mystic feeling of the unknown. I like it just the way it is:) You never know what the storms are going to produce they creep up with their unknown danger.