First, the Background

Before I tell you about my design decisions, perhaps it would be helpful if you knew a little about the technical aspects of my process.  Construction starts on a design wall.  This is housing insulation covered with felt.  I pin up a piece of white background fabric, as a base.  Then, I begin to pin other fabrics into place.  I use my straight pins like push pins, pinning right through the fabrics and into the design wall.

In the photo below, I was well on my way to finishing the background.  I purposely selected fabrics that were rather dull and subdued, so the flowers would shine as the stars of the composition. 

You may be able to tell that I cut the fabrics with very jagged edges.  The speed of this technique, and the irregular shapes it produces help me to avoid over thinking.  Plus, it’s very appropriate for foliage.

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The next photo shows the background finished.  I temporarily placed two seed heads, to see if there was enough contrast between them and the background.

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Nope.  I had to add some lighter fabrics and to enlarge the lightest portion of the background.  Afterward, it provided the contrast that was needed.

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In the bottom two photos you can see that I was begining to consider fabrics for the flowers.  The first thing I noticed was that they all looked very similar.  Perhaps that would become an issue.

If you like seeing things in progress, you may enjoy reading a photo essay about the creation of Ti Plants A-Glow-Glow.

Ellen Lindner

One Comment

  1. Linda says:

    Yes! Another person who uses housing insulation for their design wall. Mine’s covered with a huge tablecloth (plastic side toward the insulation). I like your idea about using the wall to audition fabrics!