Each member of the Art 1016 challenge gets an opportunity to propose the word for the next challenge and this time it was my turn. After much thought and many rejected words I decided on "Reflection." I had a couple of possible directions in mind shortly after I chose it but thought I would have plenty of time to reflect on and develop my ideas. But of course life didn't work out like that.
Instead I found myself choosing a rather literal interpretation and seeing if I could create the feeling of objects reflected in some kind of watery surface.
The objects I left a little amorphous--are they trees? are they people? are they just shapes?
I began with my hand-dyes, which allowed me some color variation to suggest watery reflections. The upper background is an oatmeal resist that makes great texture. I added some perle cotton patterned stitching and finally hand stitched the straight lines because I felt that it needed more line variation with all the curves of the objects, and the varied colors of those lines connect the varied colors of the objects.
I tried one final experiment with this piece: the frame lines of heavy perle cotton were bobbin stitched. This is certainly not a new discovery; people have been doing it for years. But it is the first time I have tried it and I was amazed how easy it was--and it did not destroy my bobbin case or my sewing machine!
And if you are still with me, thanks for the company!
1 comment:
That piece is gorgeous, Madalene! I love the colors and you certainly nailed the "reflection" concept. Great job!
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