New year, new series. I’ve decided to start a new series - using photographs to identify shapes and structures that inspire me. These shapes and structures are transformed into an 8 x 8 art piece and then become a pieced block pattern. So each piece will move through a sequence: photograph, art piece, and block pattern.

At the end of 2024, I hope to have 24 8x8 quilt block patterns and 24 individual art pieces.

Photography

My January 2024 blocks got started with two images.

In Mountain Clouds, I was fascinated by the shape of the shadows that clouds cast across the hills and the strong contrast of the underlying purples in the shadows versus the yellow tones in the foliage in the foreground.

In Butterfly and Coneflower, I’m interested in the arches formed by the over lapping butterfly wings with the startling green and orange yellow coloration.

Mixed Media

I focused on the the rolling shadows in the mountain clouds echoing the coloration above and around the photo pulling the colors out into the textured part of the work .

The arched shape of the butterfly wings is echoed in the block along with the pink, orange and green colors of the butterfly wings.

The colors of the photographs are muted when printed on fabric; even though the images in the mounted pieces are printed from the images above.

Quilt Blocks

Finally, I translated the images into quilt blocks. One features a fussy cut butterfly. The colors are drawn from the fabric. In the other, I modified the proportions of the blocks and brought in a half rectangle triangle to echo the mountain shapes.