A Little Feedback on Mt. Hood

The range of blues that I had in my stash.

In mid-November, Joen Wolfrom taught her Color Play class through our Clark County Quilters (CCQ) guild. Picking fabrics has been the most challenging part of the quilting process for me. The "been there, done that" method, has helped me produce some projects that were more pleasing to my eye. I still wasn't comfortable about choosing fabrics though!

Since her class, I have some confidence that I can make fabric choices that I will be happier with and even more importantly, I can explain why. Joen would share slides of quilts showing examples of various color principles. Then she would share fabric examples of the principles and finally, we went to our class stash and

My class exercise work

made our own example of the principle. A few times, I was right on, sometimes I was a little off and occasionally, I was right on!

As I worked through the class, I had many aha moments about why I had a challenge with this part of that project or why that fabric didn't show up enough in that project. I liked that when we finished an exercise, we put it up on the wall and she critiqued our work. By the end of class, we were critiquing our own work. That critiquing process was priceless to me!

I learned that the fabrics in my stash are mostly tones and that many of my fabrics have too strong a print to be used in a landscape quilt. I don't have enough fabrics of the same color family to produce a graduated change from light to dark. I've too many mediums or darks or lights that are the same intensity. I also learned that it is a challenge to find "pure" and "tinted" fabrics. So, I practiced using toned fabrics from my stash that could read as "pure" or "tinted." This was an invaluable part of the class!

Class work displayed

As part of the class, we were invited to bring in a project of something that didn't work well for us or if we wanted feedback on a project that had us stalled. I brought in Mt. Hood. She asked me what I thought now and I said that I should have made the proportions different as it would have shown better if it were shorter and wider. (She agreed.) I learned that when I listened to her lecture! But, since this was the view from my window, my proportions are what I would see. I can make a change for the next landscape quilt.

Mt. Hood--My View 

I said that my reflection wasn't quite right; but, I didn't know what was off. She said that because the view is straight on, the reflection would be the same size as the actual mountain/tree line. (I hadn't considered the size of the reflection at all!) Later, I saw photos of a mountain and reflection that illustrated that point. She also said that it is easier to work with the reflection when there is a little breeze on the water rather than a calm day because the movement of the water distorts the reflection.

I said that as I looked at more landscape photos with water, I realized that my water was too bright for my sky.  She said that the water should be the same color as the sky and that next to the shoreline, there is often a bit of illumination in that the water is a bit lighter.

She said that my flowers could have extended just a bit past center which would have created a more pleasing look. She thought the flowers added a lot to the piece and she loved the crystals in the water. She also said it was a beautiful piece and I agree. Moving forward, I believe that I can create a more lifelike example. I'm not changing anything on Mt. Hood. I'm continuing to enjoy it as it hangs in my home!