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Friday, February 21, 2014

In the Beginning there were Ginkgoes

Isn't this amazing?  Here is the background for my most recent piece, the above masterpiece was about 25 x 25 inches. 

Here's my vision for this small piece: a blue ginkgo leaf would become a pond for several mallard ducks. I thought the green would make a soft background for the blue leaf, with a simple pieced rectangle border added. The border would add some interest but not conflict with the central scene.

So I cut a large leaf 18 inches wide and placed it in the center of the background.
So far, so good, there is nothing to dislike about what I had done, so I painstakingly fabricated the two ducks out of multiple brown fabrics.
But I'm not happy with the relationship of the leaf to the background, it looks to small.  So I removed two edges of the border and made it smaller. It is now 22 x 22 inches.  I wanted the blue piece to overlap the border.
Then I decided I didn't like the first blue leaf, and cut a new one out of Frieda Anderson's hand dyed fabric.  I like this better because of the subtle shifts of color.
Now with the ducks resting in their new pond, I like the relationship of all the parts.  But it looks very empty.  What do I add next?
Cattails seemed to be a good addition and would work with my watery theme.  I cut them out of a piece of paper to decide on size and scale.  Their verticality was a nice contrast to the horizontal feeling of the large leaf and ducks.
Using a bright green for the leaves and tan for the cattails, I carefully cut out 3 clumps of cattails.  And I think this is good.  At this point, all the elements are only pinned in place.  I never fuse until the entire quilt top is all laid out, and I am sure it is good. I'm not sure what will happen next. It's not quite complete.

Tune in next week to learn more about this wall quilt.

Ann Fahl








2 comments:

Sally said...

Love watching your process and your reasoning behind the changes. Looking forward to what comes next….

Jackie said...

Love that you share your process of selecting and placing items. I have to agree the second leaf is so much better. Thanks so much for sharing your gift.