Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Gates completed

And this is how the completed quilt looks like:


I cropped it a bit, so the size is now 16,5"x16,5". Title is 'Christo's Gates'.

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Gates continued

After the background was done, I collected a number of orange squares and placed them on the background. As you see, the squares become smaller in the distance.



Time to add the trees.

Not completely happy with the result. Either I had to add more trees, or cut off part of the top. I opted for the second option. This is how the design looks now:


Size is about 18"x18". Time to remove all the small parts from the background and to start quilting.

Sunday, November 08, 2015

Gates

I started working at the gates for EB's masterclass. This is what I have done till now:



A variety of hand dyed fabrics. Now to sort out my oranges for the gates.

Wednesday, November 04, 2015

Masterclass

EB gave us 3 pictures to chose from, not to make a straightforward copy but as a starting point. I picked this picture of the Gates in NY done by Christo and Marie-Claude:



My sketching skills are limited. To be honest I only use them as a guide. This is what I did:


I am going to create an orange pathway where the orange squares will be getting smaller and smaller. In front of that there will be an abstract or fantasy tree. The drawing shows a triangular tree, but most likely I will use a different shape. This is EB's comment:
--
I like the way you've abstracted the photo of the Christo orange flag exhibit in Central Park, NYC, a few years ago - I was lucky enough to visit it at the time.
I do like the idea of the squares going off into the distance...I'm not quite sure, though, of the connection between them and the fantasy trees?  A design is usually stronger if everything is connected in some way...Perhaps the abstracted trees could be indicated by squares also - but in shades of grey rather than orange?  maybe they could be rectangles too instead of squares.  In that way the "gates" (as Christo called them) and the trees would be related by shape.  He deliberately chose February for this exhibit so that the orange would really stand out against the wintry grey - and sometimes white (with snow) of the natural landscape of the park.
You are very good at strong simply designs...so I think you could make this stronger too by simplifying and unifying it.
--

Years ago my online dyeing group did swaps with colorwheels and gradations. I do not keep them anymore as references, but I still use these samples whenever I need a wide range of shades/values. They will come in handy for this quilt :-).

Tuesday, November 03, 2015

OEQC

This weekend the annual OEQC was open in Maastricht the Netherlands. One of my online groups Stitched-Art-Textiles was present with a guest collection. In total we had 80 quilts there. During the 4 days of the show there were approximately 5000 visitors. Here are some pictures to give you an impression of the show. I took the pictures before opening hours, that is the reason you do not see any people on them.






Monday, November 02, 2015

Snow and Ice dyeing

This month I am talking about snow and ice dyeing on the And then we set it on fire blog. If you want to read about it, here is the link: http://andthenwesetitonfire.blogspot.com/.