Our new, to us, house has a creek running through the property. As we have worked on renovating the house through the winter and spring I have watched it rise and fall and listened to the peaceful sound it makes as it burbles along. It is hypnotizing to stand on the little bridge and look down and watch how it swirls past the rocks and carries leaves and bits along. The curves it moves in are graceful and graphic and those are what drew my attention and I decided to focus on.I started with a piece of hand-dyed fabric that I discharged the reflective "sparkles" from, using powdered dishwashing detergent. I then painted in the green shades and other blues. It was fused to a dark blue background to create the lines. The rocks started as a particularly hideous commercial print that I overpainted. I considered putting a frog or dragonfly on the rocks. I thought about floating a few leaves in the water. In the end I decided it was all about the water and the pattern it made and let the design stand.
PS I don't use blue much. I don't care for blue particularly, but I have really loved working on this very blue piece of work!
13 comments:
I look at this and a sense of peacefulness washes over me. You are very fortunate to have such a calming influence in your own backyard
Oh, Terry, I love this.
I love the way you've done the water -- those discharged sparkles are perfect, as are the shades of color in the water fabric. Your rocks are great too, hard to believe they were once "hideous"!!
This has a very peaceful sense to it, and it's a wonderful sense of the creek at your new place.
Ditto what Karen and Diane said. I also love the simple, off center compositions that you and Karen have this time around (and Diane's and Kirsten's "Chocolate" pieces). They are very effective.
Oooo this is so lovely. The colors in the dyed fabric are so rich and beautiful. Lucky you to have such inspiration right outside.
Yep, you hit the sweet spot with the composition. I love it. I really love the feel of the concentric ripples of water washing away from the rocks - just wonderful. Of course, Mr C says this is his favorite - he loves your work. Can't wait to see it in person.
Terry,To me your works always have such a zen feel to them. I love how so few elements when blended with the texture of quilted lines turn into such a beautiful musical quilt.
Beautiful. I think you were exactly right in using just the rocks and the water. I love the spare composition. I'm glad you enjoyed the blue. Funny that some of us chose to use blue and others tried to avoid it.
Such a beautiful blue! I love the touches of green and purple.
I see a hike in the woods, the calm of being surrounded by towering evergreens, the sun flickering through the branches onto the water. What a wonderful, meditative place to stop for a spell.
What a wonderful and peaceful image. To have this inspiration around you must be magic! I would love to live by water.
Lorna.
I like blue, although I didn't use it this time.
Your piece is very peaceful, contemplative. Beautiful!
I echo the zen comments above and am pleased that you resisted the temptation to add more to this wonderful composition. The texture, light and colour says it all.
yes, the clarity of the pice is what attracts me too. I am curious as to why you overpainted fabric rater than using one you liked or painting from scratch and how you do the discharing in such a controlled way. Are the darker lines painted or stitched?
Helen asked why I overpainted painted fabric rather than using something I liked or starting from scratch. The short answer is because that's what I do! The longer answer is that the hand-dye was the basic color I wanted and the texture was watery, so my overpainting consisted of adding bits of green and purple to the underlying blue. I got the discharged dots by wetting the fabric and sprinkling some dishwasher detergent (powdered) on it. The individual little bits of detergent, which contain bleach, discharge just the spot they are sitting on. Neat technique for speckled patterns and makes wonderful starry skies!
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