In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing,
the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.
Theodore Roosevelt
Should I play with my octopus or my smiley face????
I am so grateful to everyone who offered feedback through email or this blog on my current “Morning Walk” art quilt. It was wonderful to receive your thoughts and appreciate that there were many options to consider. After a quick trip over last weekend to Missoula to run a 5k with my family, I got back to work on “Morning Walk.”
Wish I could say that I can offer a finished piece and resolution of all my indecisiveness but that is just not the case. I spent hours experimenting – a very good thing. And, I did make decisions. And, I did actually start fusing elements!
Starting from the draft above, I experimented with a number of choices and finally decided that the blocks were not necessary.
Next I focused on the tree, some angulation issues that were bothering me, and the placement of the woman relative to the tree. She had been much further to the left of the tree in earlier drafts.
This is the background that I actually fused to my muslin backing. Only the woman and the tree trunk are currently unfused. I then began to play with shadowing and adding some vague interest to the ground that the tree sits in. I still have a stash of organza that I dyed several years ago and that I love using for shadow effects. This draft below shows a first stab at adding it. It will be changing into a much more amorphous shape on the brown area. I played with sketches last night…
You may be wondering about ‘the fence’. I haven’t decided! 😈 The suggestion to play with adding fence in an iPad app is tempting me, as well as the suggestion to add in some strips of fabric to simulate a fence. Plus a friend in my stitching class with Karen Ruanne just posted a beautifully stitched window grate that really tempts me as a possibility. At this point, I like the direction of the piece enough to devote time in the next week to exploring these possibilities along with finishing off my shadow work.
Hopefully there will be another update next week!
Linking as always to Nina Marie’s Off the Wall Friday.
I am eager to see what you decide. You have such a great start! Have fun playing!
I think part of the wonderful part of being an artist is the indecision and trying out different choices. That’s where your voice comes out. I don’t look at it as a pressure thing. I look at it as play. And I’m always surprised by how the fabric and the work speaks to me and tells me what to do and how it works out in the end. It’s a magic process no matter what method you choose to help you decide.
oh wow….it’s fabulous Judy. The shading is so perfectly placed……your skill in the composition and execution of this is fantastic.
Lovely to see the little princess too!!