Larimer County Artist of the Year

I just received some very exciting news - I've been selected as Larimer County Artist of the Year for 2013!

As someone whose work is inspired by nature this is a particularly rewarding designation to have.  An honor bestowed by the Larimer County Department of Natural Resources, the artist chosen is asked to create a piece of visual art inspired by a Larimer County park or open space which they will donate to the County.  This artwork will then be celebrated and displayed for public viewing in a Larimer County building.

I've just been looking at the long and varied list of parks and open spaces, some I'm familiar with and others I look forward to exploring.  Larimer County contains such wide and varied types of landscapes that I don't think there will be any lack of inspiration!

Color in a winter landscape

Now that the trees are done, I have been sorting through all the other fabric choices for my winter landscape. 

There are several blues that I want to use for my meandering stream.  Then there are a couple of other fabrics that are also a dark value with a strong print to them that I think will be perfect for bushes and shrubs along this stream.  Last, but not least, I have fabrics that are variations of white and beige that will represent the snow covered patches in my landscape.

As I always like to do, I have organized all my fabrics by value.  I want to make sure that my meandering stream is the darkest value (aside from the trees) across this landscape, with the edges of the water gradually receding to the lighter value of the snow covered areas.  Sorting the fabrics by value now will help me in my choices as I fill in my pattern. I'll be able to group together similar values in my fabrics, making sure I avoid a "stripe" effect.

Somewhere I learned the phrase "value does the work while color gets the credit" and I've always remembered the words as they are so true.  If anyone knows who can be credited with that statement, I would love to hear from you.

My never ending search

As someone who focuses on nature, more specifically trees, I am always on the lookout for fabrics that portray foliage.  And a fabric that can portray foliage against sky is the absolute Holy Grail for me.

.Unless you are working in a very large scale, it is usually out of the question to individually piece leaves.  If I did applique or fusing or some other technique, this would be an easier problem to tackle  but piecing is what I enjoy.  So I look for fabrics that have a light/dark value contrast even if the colors are not anything you would ever see in a real leaf or in the sky.  I once did a piece that featured blue trees in a blue landscape just because I had found the perfect fabric for the foliage against the sky and that perfect fabric was in shades of blue. 
When it came time to add a few leaves to my cottonwood trees in this project I chose the fabrics pictured here and drew them in random shapes.  The shapes of the fabric pieces themselves definately do not resemble leaves in any way but are my impressionistic interpretation of foliage.

 

 

A Quick Value Check

There's nothing like having a brand new project to start.  My favorite part of the process is pinning the pattern to my design wall and getting to put those first splashes of fabric color up!

As always, I start with the most obvious and easiest choices first - the trees.  I have a large tree in the foreground, a few trees in the middle and several smaller trees in the distance.  Because of this, I want to keep the principal of atmospheric perspective in mind and keep those trees in the foreground a darker value and the trees in the far distant part of the landscape a lighter color in value.  I also want to show a little more shadow detail in the largest tree in the foreground. 

To make sure I achieve all this,  I've taken all my possible tree fabrics and and arranged them by value as you can see above.  Some of the fabrics with the lightest value will be perfect sunlit accents on my largest tree in the foreground.  And, while it may be difficult to see in my photo, I can make sure that the largest tree in the foreground consists of my darkest value brown.  I can also make sure that the trees gradually get lighter in value as they recede in the landscape by having those fabrics side by side from the start and sorted by value.

Throwing in a curve

 I decided on the vertical composition for my piece, using the rough sketch below as a guideline for the placement of my trees and where the creek will meander.

For many of my quilts in recent years, I have been drafting my patterns using all straight lines.  There is something about the final look of the piece that I find more pleasing.  Sometimes when I have used a lot of curved lines in depicting subjects they tend to take on a cartoonish look but that may be just my own perception.

 I am a firm believer in having the unexpected "something" in a composition, whether that be a color or shape.  In this case I had one small tree in the upper center of my piece that seemed to stand alone.  I worried about there not being enough interest in this area but I didn't want to add anything too distracting as it was not a focal point.  I just needed a little added spark so things weren't too boring.

My solution was to use line to add interest.  I decided to add one curved line, amongst all my straight ones in this pattern, to the small tree standing alone in the snow.  As the tree will be a dark value against the lighter value of the snow, the line will be in marked contrast and very distinctive.  But not too distinctive.   

Rough sketches

 When I say that I start with a rough sketch at the beginning of a new project, I do mean rough!  As you can see, there is nothing pretty about these drawings. 

Believe it or not, this is a landscape scene consisting of cottonwood trees along a creek in winter.  Both of these drawings are 3 or 4 inches in size.  I am trying to find the best  composition, working on different tree placements and tree silhouettes as well as auditioning different shapes of the piece.  Should it be a horizontal or a vertical shape?

So far I am leaning towards the verticle orientation.  That size gives me a lot more space in which to meander my creek and put in more distance and perspective, items that I believe will make a much more interesting piece in the end.

But I will keep scribbling and auditioning different compositions and final shapes.  For me, this is an important step with important decisions to be made and you never know what you may come up with by taking the time to try different ideas. 

Fabric First

For me, it is all about the fabric.

Before I start scribbling down any new ideas or drawing any pattern, I always go to my fabric stash.  As you can see here, I sort all my fabrics by color and I like having them in these cubbyholes so I can easily access everything, flipping through different fabrics without moving things around too much (fabric is heavy!). 

I love shopping for fabrics online, usually doing a big buy every 6 months or so.  As I don't buy fabrics for specific projects, preferring to use what I have on hand, I am never worried about matching colors or receiving something that wasn't quite what I expected.  And it is so much easier than lugging around 20 or 30 bolts at a time around a fabric store.  I still love stopping into my local fabric store for backing fabrics, threads and the occasional fabric, but now when I visit it is much more relaxed rather than being a weight lifting session.

Half yard cuts are my favorite unless it is a very large scale print or directional.  Fat quarters never give me the length or size I usually need as I tend to work larger.  And I always pre-wash my fabrics before they get added to my stash so I know that they are ready to use.

I want to make my next quilt feature trees in a winter scene with a meandering creek through  the landscape.  I've gone through all my browns, blues, whites, creams and a few other colors (just in case) and pulled them out so I can look at them while I think of my pattern.  I like to fold them as pictured, placing them together so I can see if any of them don't work well or play well with the others.  So now I'll go start sketching, but first it is always about the fabric.