14 ½ x 10I did the surface design part of this challenge right away. I took hand dyed and commercial fabrics I was not overly thrilled with and discharged, stamped and painted them.
I had taken underwater pictures of the water lilys through the glass wall they have at one edge of a lily pond. My fabrics kept screaming at me to use these pictures for this quilt, but I wasn’t sure they were telling me the right thing. Or maybe I was afraid of doing it wrong. So I procrastinated for six days, and then decided I had better just do it and see what happens.
I spent Thursday afternoon creating the quilt top, and quilted it this morning. I mostly like how it turned out. I need to learn to trust my instincts more.
The quilt seems to lack depth. It isn’t apparent which leaves are closer. They all seem to be on the same plane. Perhaps I could have remedied this by lightening the color of the further away leaves. But I like it the way it is also.
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6 comments:
This is a lovely piece, and you are right, it lacks depth. If you darkened the foreground leaves with paint, watercolor pencils, tulle, etc. it would cause the background to recede like you want. Your choice of fabrics is wonderful, and the texture you added with the discharge and over-dye went a long way in making them even better.
Ann In walnut, CA
Linda.... you certainly have a knack.....
It looks just like Lily pads and stems below the water. They look 'floaty' like maybe there, maybe not, just drifting softly and aimlessly.
I was surprised to hear you say you may have been afraid of doing it wrong. That was exactly what I di with my Poppies, so quit too soon. Thanks to Cynthia, I went on ahead.
You are an inspiration.
Carole
I like it very much. When I look at it I can see past the leaves and see the water behind them that looks very, very calm.
Betty
Hi Linda - I really like this piece. The single thing I think does the most in this work is the cropping. You have given the impression of looking at just a small piece of a much larger picture. The lily pads also seem to be floating which adds a nice dimension. Your quilting adds to the motion of the piece.
I also really like the holes in the large lily pad - they add dimension. Nice work.
Roberta
Hi Linda,
Oh, this is beautiful...love the colors you got..an analogous color scheme is perfect for this calming little scene. I think you did get alot of depth with the larger lily pads. Perhaps the smaller ones aren't as successful because of the color like you said or it could be the shapes of them aren't as varied as the larger ones.
The quilting lines are very effective in emphasizing the vertical orientation as well as mild movement like the barely moving water you'd see in a lily pond.
Cynthia
I agree wholeheartedly with the others that this is indeed a beautiful piece. My feeling however is that if I were under water looking up, I would surely see light filtering down through the water and playing off of the stems etc. What if you added a little sparkle with something like pearlex powders or something???
Just thinking how plants looked when I used to scuba dive...
Cherie
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