I was excited to work with the red and blue-green fabric I had recently died. I pulled out all my other dyed fabrics in those colors and began to explore my options.
This was the starting fabric.
As you can see above, it was missing a chunk on the bottom right corner. So I evened that up, giving me a nice horizontal slice from the bottom. I intermediately looked to see where I might use it. What if I joined it back into the larger fabric at an angle? I auditioned the idea, below, and liked it. (Can you see how the red areas taper together?)
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After a few more manipulations I was ready to see what happened on the design wall. Since I didn’t want to compose against a white background I put up a temporary red background and marked the proposed perimeter with tape. (The dimensions were determined by the width of my design wall, 4′, and the height of the primary fabric, about 42″.)
First “throw” at the design wall:
Then, with a little more intent:
I was liking the energy, but I thought the red was actually disappearing. To confirm my suspicions I looked at the composition in grey scale.
Yep. The blue-green squares were taking over.
So, what if I made part of the background white? I changed the temporary background in order to try out the idea.
Ah, yes. Now THAT had potential!
It was time to lose the temporary background and to start fresh with this new idea. I was excited to move forward!
Ellen Lindner
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