Thursday, June 25, 2009

Follow the black and white road

There will be a patchwork path running through the LIQ project (a series of related whimsical wall hangings) so I’ve been trying out some possibilities. I considered various options, but was attracted to the myriad of black and white prints available. The first few images below are rough mock-ups of raw pieces of fabric glue-basted together to see the effect. The first one has a touch of violet...... while the one below has some added red. While I like these, it seemed like the maximum contrast would be obtained if the main image had the color while the road/path was only black and white.The one below has some sections with gray tones that lend an elegant touch.However, the more stark black and white one below looked best against the land and sky sample seen in this previous post. It helped to show it to some artist friends... they all liked the bold effect of this one.Today I pieced the first official path, which will run along the bottom, about 22" wide. It’ll probably be wrapped around some fusible stabilizer to give a firm outline. Will test the technique first though, to make sure it looks good.By some odd coincidence, I painted this a couple of days ago. I’ve been fooling around for some months with a painting of one of my nieces. It probably looks like she has a bathing cap on, but I just feel like experimenting so it may end up being a picture of a girl that doesn't look anything like my niece. I might paint patterns all over her face, for example. Poor kid!

5 comments:

Dolores said...

I'm currently working with a b&w quilt that has 3 other colours added. I think black and white is so effective. I like the painting you did. It looks like the girl has a scarf on her head.

Beena said...

Love the painting, and the black and white patterned hair. And it's funny that you also have black and white fabrics on the mind! Creative people are prone to such proclivities at times!

Barbara Strobel Lardon said...

Beautiful painting. Love all the black and whites. I enjoy working with them too. Seems the colors just explode when used with black and whites.

Diane J. Evans said...

Gosh, I love that picture of your niece! To me, it looks as though her head is full of thoughts of flowers -- it's gorgeous! What a talent you are!

Diane

Unknown said...

That’s a nice interpretation, that she’s thinking of flowers. In that case I need to put some ballet shoes in there, too.