Leni Wiener

Choosing fabric for an art quilt differs from choosing fabric for a traditional quilt.  In traditional quilts, attention must be paid to print scale, if too many prints are the same scale the quilt will lose impact.  This is not true of an art quilt, where overall surface design is more important than the creation of a design and secondary design. As in traditional quilts, however, where each fabric sits will have a major impact on the look of the final quilt. You want lighter values to sit next to darker values, and control of the placement of complimentary colors, so the eye is drawn around the surface of the quilt and there is contrast and visual excitement. Each fabric should support those around it so the finished quilt has that wow factor.

If you are working with a photo and think that the values in the photo are optimum, then you have a guide to the value placements in your art quilt.  If you feel the photo lacks sufficient contrast, you need to either make adjustments to the photo or think about your value changes when choosing fabrics.

In “Yellow Hat” the colors of the original photo were changed to have greater impact in the final quilt.  By using strong, saturated blue for the water in the pool, and a lighter value for the ground underneath the woman in the hat, the stage is set and a pleasing composition established.  By dressing her and the chair on which she sits in purple, the complimentary color of yellow, the visual excitement is in their fight for attention, drawing the eye directly to the part of the composition I felt was most important.  Because purple and blue do not fight with each other for attention, the purple works with the water color and the only fight for attention is with the yellow of the hat.  It is no accident that the band on the hat is orange–the compliment to blue.

The first thing to think about is which color will set the tone and mood of your art quilt.  This will help you determine what other colors will serve to create visual interest and draw the eye of the viewer.

This piece, “The Boy in the Banyan Tree” has been discussed in this blog before, but it illustrates the point about using just a hint of complimentary color in order to establish where I want the viewer to look.  The mood is set using gray blues, and the grandfather blends into the color tones in his blue/gray.  But the boy (who in reality was wearing a blue shirt and blue jeans in the original photo) now wears orange (the compliment to blue) which allows him to jump out as the most important part of the composition.

The complimentary color for pizzazz used in smaller amounts focuses in on the boy for maximum impact. Using equal amounts of complimentary colors would create visual chaos rather than sparkle. Evaluate the photo to determine what your focal point is, what the story is that you wish to tell, and let the complimentary color do that job for you. In art quilts, complimentary colors are often used in a single area, as a way of establishing a focal point in the composition, or as a way of pulling the eye through the composition.

In “The Void” the same principles apply, even though the colors used are not complimentary.  Here, I used only black and white fabrics for most of the quilt; the amount of black vs the amount of white in each fabric design setting the value of each; and used just a touch of orange in the bag that sits next to the woman.  There is no compliment to black and white; using the orange as the only color in the composition naturally draws attention.  Although in this case the bag is not the focal point, it serves two purposes:  the first is to draw the eye up to the color and then the woman sitting next to it; and the second is to assist is emphasizing the asymmetrical composition.

In “Lawn Chairs” (one of the patterns in my book, “Photo-inspired Art Quilts”) the house in the original photo was a taupe/gray color (not many people choose to paint their houses bright pink).  But as the green set the tone for the summer setting, using the pink creates a contrast that makes the entire composition more exciting and more interesting.  In this particular composition, the green and pink are in almost equal amounts, the resulting visual chaos adding to the mood of the quilt.

Many of the very same fabrics are used in “Tulips in a Green Vase” (another pattern from my book) but set against the lighter neutral background they appear slightly different.  The vase is made of the same fabrics used in the chairs; the same pink is used as the lighter value of the tulips.  Again, playing the red against the complimentary green makes the tulips and their leaves the most important element in the composition.  Isn’t nature smart?!?

Placement of fabrics in art quilts cannot usually be effectively determined before you begin work. As work progresses, decisions must be made about each fabric–how it works in this particular area and what it means to the surface as a whole. For this reason, it is easiest to work on art quilts from stash fabrics; auditioning candidates and comparing them before making final decisions. I have often gone to a fabric store knowing that I need something specific for an art quilt that is either in my mind or on my design wall, but have never been able to purchase all the fabrics I need at once before I begin. Creating an art quilt is much more of an evolving process, each decision laying the groundwork for those that follow.

After evaluating the changes that needed to be made on the current piece, I went back to my stash to pull the fabrics I was going to try.

Here you can see the seven fabrics I have chosen–white is number one and the dark blue with the dots is number seven.  There is a more gradual change from each value to the next, with no real big leaps between any two.  The first three fabrics have remained the same from my failed attempt; number four is the back of a tie dye blue that was very dark, but just the right value on the back.  Number five is a wild card, I love the fabric (the purple with the lighter blue specks in it) but cannot be sure if it is too “out there” yet.  The number six fabric, the one with the swirls on it is perfect for that section around the right eye where I wanted a zinger with a lot of fluid movement.  The final one is a dark that still has some interest.

So here she is reworked.  This is coming along much better than before.  It still needs tweaking, but I feel that I am more on the right track.  What has changed:

The colors are on a single path from light to dark.  Even though there is some movement between blues and blue purples, there is no more of that red violet that was throwing everything else off.  I still love those fabrics together, so I will use them in another piece.  It is always important to remember that you can’t get every idea into every single piece.

The values are more contiguous.  Here the fabrics flow more gradually from light into dark, with no big leaps from one to the next, and allowing the lighter side to be less contrasty (but still enough) from the darker side.

The eyes show now.  In the last incarnation, the eyes were lost, but now they are much more important to the overall composition, adding the drama that the first attempt lacked.

Finally, that speckly fabric that I wasn’t sure was going to work–I think that maybe it does work.  It has a lot of movement, and it becomes even more of a zinger than the number six fabric (which was intended to be the zinger) but I think it makes the whole piece kind of interesting.  Not a “texture” that one would normally associate with skin (it looks like really bad acne) but I think it makes this much more of an artistic interpretation than a realistic portrait.  So, at least for now, it stays.   But nothing is set in stone until everything is in place and I can evaluate it all.  Then I can confidently glue the pieces in place and move forward.

Where do I go from here?  First of all, that swirly fabric (#6) around the eye and down the side of the nose to the lips doesn’t look right to me.  I had thought that using those swirly lines in a vertical position would draw the eye up and down the composition.  But now that I am looking at it, I think I will try re-cutting that piece so that the lines run horizontally and then compare it both ways.  This is when it is great to have a digital camera, so that I can make the change and then look at them side by side to see which I like best.  Even when you look at this image on the screen now, step back from the computer or squint your eyes and the image appears as it would across the room in a gallery space.  If you don’t have a digital camera (get one, they aren’t expensive anymore) you can use the back end (the reducing side) of binoculars to get an idea of what the piece looks like if you step way back.

Then I want to relook at the right side of the face, where the highlights are not quite working for me yet.  The same for the bottom under the chin.  Both of these may just be waiting for the hairline and the shape of the chin to be determined, so all of that will be evaluated at the same time.  Baby steps, but I am glad I did not just abandon it and start something else.  Slow and steady wins the race, remember?

I have always believed that it is easier to learn from seeing what goes wrong than seeing what goes right.  Sometimes it is difficult to see a finished piece and hear discussion about why this color, why this fabric.  It is more instructive to see a piece that isn’t working and discuss why.  For that reason I am airing my “dirty laundry” so to speak, and showing you my disaster du jour.  Hopefully, if and when it is fixed, you will understand what I changed and why.  So here goes, it is like standing before you in my underwear!

Here it is.  I was so excited to get started on this piece, it looked so awesome in my head.  There is the seed of something decent in here, but it isn’t working.  So let’s discuss why.

1.  Color:

In my head this piece was blue tones on one side and purples on the other.  In reality the purple side goes in too many directions, some are red/violets and some are grape purples.  Too many different places to look, no real harmony.

2.  Value:

If you have ever read my blog before, or my book, you know that value is a biggie for me.  Makes all the difference in the world.   Where do the values here go wrong?  First, on the blue side, the dark area of the eye is much darker than the blues around it, making too large a leap in value.  This needs to be fixed.  On the purple side, the values are too close to each other, there isn’t enough of a leap.  Plus the purple side is so much darker than the other side that it looks unbalanced.

Here is the pattern from which I am working.  You can see that although one side is darker than the other, the difference is not as extreme as it looks in the fabric.  The eyes are the darkest part of the face, making them very dramatic.  In fabric, they almost blend in and disappear.

The solution:

1.  first, although I will keep some of the fabrics, I need to revisit the fabric selection to make sure that they blend from one into another, probably staying more blue into blue purple and losing the red/violets.

2.  secondly, I need to lay the fabrics out and look at them again through the red viewer to be sure that they not only move from light to dark,  but that they do it in a way that looks more even–that is to say that each incremental step is about the same change in value from the one before and the one after.  This will give the piece a more coherent and harmonious look.

Sometimes it helps to reprint the pattern or photo in black and white.  This prevents the brain from being too distracted by the colors and allows me to focus on the values from light to dark.

3.  finally, I want to make that piece that runs a ragged line from the eye to the lips a fabric that will stand out more, as this is the most interesting shape in the piece.  It will also (probably) be the inspiration for the stitching when I get to the quilting part.

So there you have it.  What went wrong and what I plan to do to fix it.  So many times artists get started down a path and when the emerging piece doesn’t look right, it is abandoned.  But when you do that you lose out on two scores–the piece is never realized and you never learn how to evaluate and analyze in order to make it right.  Learning to fix the pieces that go wrong is crucial in being able to move forward and evaluate your work with a critical eye.