For our new lesson we get a chance to focus on color and the mood it sets in our quilt.
I did three environmental sketches to send off to EB.
The first are wind turbines seen from their perspective. I took this sketch from a photo, but E had issues with it. She did not like the horizon line or the blade that comes from the right to the left across the sketch. I would create this one in blues and greens to set the mood.
The second sketch was of corroded metal drums. The drums contain waste from fracking. The photo is one that I modified in Photoshop to create a color scheme of mainly purple with yellows, teals, browns thrown in. My idea here was to make it beautiful and jewel tone like from a distance and then when you get close you see that it is not good to have leaking drums of hazardous materials. I think this one would be fun to create all that texture in fabrics. E liked this sketch.
My third sketch is of a fracking well. I modified the photo in Photoshop to have a green sky. This then gave a rig of pinks, reds, and purples. My idea was to show with the weird sky color that fracking is not good for the environment. This was the sketch that E liked the best.
Here are her comments about this one:
“very interesting sketch with the human beings dwarfed by the machinery...good proposal for the color scheme..and with its bold diagonals would actually work well with all your turbine quilts....might be worth thinking about!!! Of the three I find this one the most graphically interesting with the contrast of sharp diagonal lines and rounded humans.....and again a good thoughtful color scheme proposed...”
So now it is time to make a decision of which one I am going to do. I am leaning toward the 3rd one for now since she liked it the best, but someday I think I would like to make the other two. I will start to look at fabric today. Sometimes fabric dictates what to do.
What do you think?
Linking to Nina-Marie (a day late)
Thanks for stopping by.
Chris
Hi Chris
ReplyDeleteI actually like the first one because of the intersecting lines the wind turbine arms make. You could try a sketch removing the offending arm and play around with the horizon if you don't like that.
I was reading down your blog to your last post which I missed. I think you get fewer comments because your quilts are serious art quilts - and you ask concerned questions!!Could also be time of the year - my visitor number/comments have reduced over the summer months.
Are you teaching in the States? I taught in adult education in the UK. I didn't have problems so much with non-attendance as with students disagreeing with university criteria. They felt that as adults paying for a course they should be able to disregard criteria and rules that they didn't agree with - I will rephrase that - they felt that in my marking I should disregard criteria they didn't agree with and pass them regardless! (I didn't, in case you are wondering!)
All that is a bit removed from quilts, but soon you will be able to enjoy so much more time on them!
Hope you have fun with whichever quilt you choice - or do all 3!
I'm really surprised at how much I have disagreed with some of EB's critiques and also how many times I've thought I knew what she was going to point out as a problem only to have her focus on something else. This assignment is no different.
ReplyDeleteI do agree about the horizon line in the first sketch but I'm surprised she picked out that one blade (I had to look very hard to even find it so obviously I do not find it distracting). I would have thought she'd take issue with the two in the background whose blade tips are nearly touching.
As for the barrels - well, I like everything about them, including your color ideas.
But the fracking one - I find it confusing with far too much detail. The value weight throughout seems very off to me. Because I've never seen the actual fracking process, I did not know this is what you were portraying. I suppose you could take that as a positive, that using this design would educate the viewer. I can't believe EB thinks this the most graphically interesting.
So there ya go - I'm being the contrarian again! If it were me, I'd go with either the first or second one. I'm leaning more toward the turbines, but if you are tired of turbines and wanting to include yet another energy source, then go for the barrels.