06.28.10
Posted in Design Theory at 7:00 am by deRomilly
Color experiment
Color has always been tough for me… I tend to use analogous color schemes — like yellow-green, green and green-blue, so I can avoid the entire issue!
Color experiment
But I spent quite a bit of time learning – once you can pair value (how light or dark an area is) with color-brightness and contrast, and complimentary colors, the world opens up. I play with all of this in paint first these days – no intention of creating finished or resolved work from them, just little experiments in what works and why, and my color choices in threads need to be ripped out much less now, although I have discovered that what works in thread on a small scale may not work when enlarged — for example, three colors that work as a small face don’t necessarily work together when enlarged to an 8 1/2 by 11 inch piece of work. This seems to happen more in thread than in paint for me, at least right now. Still working that out.
Color experiment
I’ve been trying to learn this academically for a long while now – but the more I read, or even pushed buttons for (online resources follow) the less I understood. It finally took getting a bunch of cheap acrylic paint and doing it myself to actually grok it. My experiments may be ugly, but they did what they were intended to do! (I used quite a few of them as backgrounds in my journal, or I’d post more of the photos here.)
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06.01.09
Posted in Design Theory at 7:00 am by deRomilly
Stumpwork detail
If you’ve been following me you know I took Sharon Boggin’s Encrusted Crazy Quilting class. I’m loving it to death. Every time I take another class from this lady I find another layer of myself and how to work it into my work.
In this case, I’m trying to find more depth in my work. A friend of mine, one to whom I’ve taught stumpwork techniques, laughed heartily when I told her this. I think she missed my point. Stumpwork is dimensional, yes, and very pretty – I’ll keep teaching it and doing it. But texturally, it’s not particularly layered or deep. I can find cool thing after cool thing in historic stumpwork designs, but in general they are beside one another. The thing about what Sharon does is the sheer baroque depth of it all –
First Encrusted CQ Block
So anyway, class completed, my block now looks like this (click the photos for details):
And I’ve finished a second one:
Second CQ block
And working on a third and fourth (they’re lighter). These four will turn into a small wall hanging, taking lessons from the Sumptuous Stitches class, and the Studio Journal class, I have built to a theme of Madame Pompadour: something I came to as I realized that my blocks all reflected the colors in paintings of her in my print collection. It’s evocative, there won’t be anything specifically figurative, but I’ll know. Although I am toying with the idea of using her quotes in the sashing when I put it together. I rather like “Intelligence has no gender.”
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05.27.09
Posted in Design Theory at 8:52 pm by deRomilly
With summer well on its way, here in NC – (I saw my first fireflies today. They never cease to send me into a fit of wonder.) insects are suddenly on my mind again. (The 8 mosquito bites just from planting a melon vine yesterday don’t help keep my mind away from insects, either!
Gardens and their denizens have been favorites of embroiderers for centuries. Spiders and their webs hold pride of place in crazy quilt blocks. In the renaissance and Tudor embroideries, all manner of creepy crawlies appear among the flowers.
But did you know that bellydancers also have a love-hate relationship with the creepy-crawlies? Costumes have been decorated with sparkly versions of butterflies, dragonflies, and so on — usually things with wings (although leaving hte garden mataphor for a moment there have been some unfortunate run-ins with seafood and misplaced, disembodied hands, but hopefully those are rare…)
What interests me is the fact that it seems to be very difficult to do insects on bellydance costumes in a less-than-tacky manner. Butterflies with bra cups for wings, usually made out of those sequinned camisoles that were so popular back in the day (Camisoles and tops that I often love on their own, with a pencil skirt by the way…). Dragonflies on the belt with the body vertical in… umm… suggestive locations. It’s all been done. And often in beautifully executed sequin embroidery.
I have an idea for a garden/insect costume myself, despite the current “thou shalt not even go there” attitude that has developed from the above sad costume choices. Wish me luck — I’ll probably need it. 
But I’ve got other costumes to develop first… and I have GOT to get back to beading that turquoise bedlah I’ve been documenting here!
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04.13.09
Posted in Design Theory at 7:06 am by deRomilly
Note: Getting Things Done is taking longer than I expected it to, due to some bad planning on my part, taxes, and family emergencies. I AM still making progress, though, albeit slowly. I’m going to try to come back to one post a week because I don’t want to completely disappear from all your radars!
Indigo:
I’ll admit it. I failed horribly. And I’ve had more than a week to find it.
Indigo is a color I love – a deep blue with a hint of purple in it. It is also not a color you see often, at least in the form I expect it. My midnight blue hipscarf comes close — in fact, it’s the color the International Order of the Rainbow for Girls (IORG) used when I was a member – it annoyed me then, too – there’s no purple in it. Hence, to me, it’s blue.
My irises have indigo in them as I remember — they haven’t bloomed yet. I did not think I would fail to find a color I love so much. I was wrong.
Has anyone else found anything they’d call indigo? If so, I’d love to see it! Post a link in the comments and I’ll find time to come look. I promise on that one. I LOVE indigo!
Next, Purple, violet, whatever you want to call it! And I’m still on the lookout for indigo.
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