January Color Palette Challenge is Finished!

"Pine Needles"

10" x 12"

Hand-dyed and commercial batik cottons, cotton batting, cotton and poly threads
Machine pieced and quilted

This is an abstract interpretation of Terri Stegmiller's picture (here).  Or at least kind of abstract.

"I've been doing a lot of abstract painting lately, extremely abstract.  No brush, no paint, no canvas, I just think about it."   -Stephen Wright

I had a hard time with this.  I had to think about it a lot.  I LOVE the colors.  And they really seem to suggest a nature kind of thing.  So I could have done a landscape, but Terri already did that (here).  

Or I could have done a seascape.  Maybe an eagle flying?  Or (this occurred to me as I was walking the dog in subzero temperatures during the week before the Superbowl) I could have done a Green Bay Packer -- the bright gold and the greens are close to the right colors.  After the Packers won (Go! Pack! Go!), I lost interest in that idea.

And, anyway,  I wanted to do something abstract.  So I filched Terri's photo -- I forgot to ask permission, but I've heard that it's better to do something and ask forgiveness later than to try to get permission first.  At least that's what my kids say. Hmmm...

So how did I get from this wall to the finished product?  I'm not really sure.  Abstract is harder than I thought it would be.

"There is no abstract art.  You must always start with something.  Afterward you can remove all traces of reality."  -Pablo Picasso

I started with strips and cut some of them curvy and sewed them back together.  Then I cut those up and sewed those together.  Eventually, I had cool strips of bits of fabric, but no focal point.  That was when I decided to filch Terri's photo (thanks, Terri!).

"There is plenty of courage among us for the abstract but not for the concrete."  -Helen Keller


Fortunately, I work with fiber, so I don't need a lot of courage.

Evil is the product of the ability of humans to make abstract that which is concrete.   Jean-Paul Sartre

 I did have a problem with the threads.  It's a real bear to wind the thread back on the spool after dyeing it, so I had to make do with what I could buy.  And would it kill the thread manufacturers to make a light blue/green with greyish tones variegated thread?

Abstract art: a product of the untalented sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered.   --Al Capp 

I left the edges a little wonky and finished it with a small zigzag.  I thought that the rough edges went with the rustic theme.


Praise or blame has but a momentary effect on the man whose love of beauty in the abstract makes him a severe critic on his own works.   -John Keats 


Now I'm hoping for a little forgiveness...