Studio Sunday

Welcome to Sunday!!  I only had a semi productive day yesterday in the studio and for some reason I just couldn't get going on the paper and paint stuff.  My best time to be open and concentrate is in the morning and I had to get showered and rush out to do an errand so that kind of messed with my morning time and set the pace for the rest of the day.  Fortunately, digital play works anytime!  LOL

The image that I posted last weekend I started working with in a repeat pattern.  Sometimes this works well right away and sometimes it takes a little more manipulation to create a more realistic and workable pattern.  The image above is my first shot at playing with the design in repeat.  I added some tiles to the design and I do like the way it turned out but you can see how a lot of the actual elements are joined as they were mirrored on the edges and this detracts from the overall look and feel. 

I had blended the original image with another which brought in the brighter pinks along the edges so I'm going to remove that part and see what happens.   One of the things that I started playing with were combining elements using a half shape to form the design.  I think this is a very useful technique especially when you combine and flip the shapes to build vertical repeats or horizontal repeats which I will be trying later on.

But to give you an example, I used half of a right triangle and half of a circle to group elements that I can then mirror to create grouped elements.  Sometimes they look great when trimmed and flipped and sometimes they don't.  The black and white cluster looks somewhat whacky but I could have spent more time on it and added stems to fill in the bottom right corner of the triangle.  These are not the best images for this sample but I'm sure you understand what I mean.

Using the carnation looking brushes, I built up the flowers on the edge of the half circle first then flipped the design, added a central image and leaves separately.  I would remove the circle outline when I have filled in the the entire ring but it looks balanced without much effort.  Below is a great example of using the half triangle technique.  You can keep the elements away from the left edge if you don't want them to meet and connect and that is what I did here.

Up close, this design is YUMMY!!!  So much texture from the under layer that was taken from a section of one of my gelli and stencil prints on paper.  The original colors are on the second image with the beautiful blues and greens.  Additionally, without planning, when I laid these two repeating designs together, the pink dots came together perfectly at the center of this design!  One of those unpredictable benefits!!!!

Of course I want all of these designs in fabric!!!  I've been looking at modern quilting books and patterns because I'm really thinking about making a couple using my digital designs.  One book is Improvising Tradition by Alexandra Ledgerwood.  Really simple and stunning designs that look fairly easy to a non-traditional quilter! LOL

Another really cute book is Tula Pink's 100 Modern Quilt Blocks.  Love this one!!!  Her fabric designs are gorgeous and the quilt blocks simply adorable!!!  My last design is an additional design that I am creating to go along with 5-7 other designs which I want to incorporate into a collection.  When this finally comes together, I think it will be incredible and I promise to share!! 

Enjoy the rest of your weekend, stay warm and keep on creating!!!

Margaret