My series will consist of "tribalesque" motifs I have been playing with this year. I also seem to be doing a lot of long skinny pieces lately; not sure why, but I suppose that could be considered a series as well.
I highly recommend Joen Wolfram's book "Colorplay", which I refer to often. I chose to work with the orange-yellow/blue complementary color scheme. Oddly enough, for someone who thought she had every batik in the world, I do not have any orange-yellow batiks, and even stranger, for someone who rarely buys commercial prints (except Asians), I do have these colors in my relatively small stash of prints. Weird!, but I digress...
This piece is fused, machine quilted and machine bound. I tried to use as wide a variety of values as possible in the orange-yellows, and even threw the lighter blue in, hoping to make the composition pop more. I intend to add beads or something in the centers of those light blue diamonds. I really like the square motifs, but I think the problem with the piece is that the gold logs are too closely spaced together, or maybe that the overall shape of each is just TOO square. I'm not sure I'm crazy about the light blue either. I welcome any comments or suggestions.
Thanks, Cynthia; this will surely be a great year of challenges.
Brenda Jennings
Hi Brenda - It sounds as if you are "what iffing" youself to pieces. I think your work has a definite tribal feel. I see nothing wrong with the squares being pretty much square. They are composed of pieces that are not uniform and have a primitive look because of that. I also think the use of the light blue was a good choice. It does pop from the dark background. Some beading or other embellishment might make it please you more but I find it very attractive as it is.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't appear to me that you have quilted most of the dark background - on my monitor it just looks like you quilted around the blue motifs. If so, you might think about quilting some aboriginal symbols with perhaps an orange thread. It wouldn't be seen from a distance and could be a nice surprise up close. Just a thought.
I don't think your 'logs' are too close together at all...I had to do the closeup before I could tell it wasn't printed that way! It has a very Aboriginal feel to it.
ReplyDeleteWhat sort of beads would you add?
I really like it a lot!
Cherie
Brenda, this is very dramatic. I like the light blue, it makes the piece "pop"
ReplyDeletethe logs are just right, they look like woven squares.
I look forward to seeing more of your tribalesque pieces
very nice piece. Your use of color percentages is just right to me and I like the light blue contrast.
ReplyDeleteBrenda, I find this to be a lovely piece. You have aced the challenge.
ReplyDeleteI love your choice of a series. This piece has a tribal feel to it. I think it stands very well as it is. Regarding your concern about the light blue - I like the contrast. Perhaps you will like it more in a couple of days.
ReplyDeleteBrenda, this is so special.It is very effective in its length alone.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your thought in making it 'tribalesque' and the execution of same. Thank you for sharing the process.
I really am looking forward to seeing more of these!
Well done!.
You must keep the light blue in - it's really prefect - I also really like your logs. I can't quite figure out how you did them.
ReplyDeleteHi Brenda, so glad you chose this as your series...I loved your piece from last year that had the tribal feel, too. I love this piece...I like the square look of the logs. Are you thinking you'd rather have them less perfect, more wonky? I'm not sure that would make the piece better..it's pretty darn good now. The light blue adds a glowing quality along with some of the golds. Maybe an orangy bead in the middle of the open squares would satisfy your wanting to do something with the blue squares?
ReplyDeleteGreat job! Really!
Cynthia
Brenda, I love love love this piece. I've used blue and orange in lots of pieces.... the tribal feel is very strong and so effective. I love the logs!
ReplyDeleteWhat would happen if you quilted the whole background? Continuing the echo would be fabulous!
Thanks everyone for the comments. The background is actually all quilted with stippling. You can kinda see it in the detail shot, but it didn't show up in the full shot. I definitely think adding tribal motifs in the quilting would be a great idea; I guess I was just trying to make the deadline LOL. I do actually like the piece, I just felt that something was "off". I have it hanging on the wall horizontally instead of vertically, and I think I might like it better that way.
ReplyDeleteBrenda