Tuesday, November 24, 2009

VISUAL TEXTURE EXERCISE PART 3

In this third and final exercise you were to find a variety of different fabrics in neutral, white or beige and with as much visual texture as possible, looking for fabrics from rough burlap to silky satin. Next step was to create a composition and then analyze how the textures work together. In the first photo you can see the different fabrics I chose and how they play off of one another. In the closeup photo, you'll notice how the quilting changes the visual texture of the piece. The quilting actually knocks back the texture of the fabric itself so that it is barely visible and the quilting is what gives the piece it's predominant texture.
The whitest of the fabrics actually has a pattern to it but you can't see it because of the quilting. The creamy fabric to the right is very textural in appearance but you don't notice it as much with the quilting on top. And the patterned fabric stands out bold with or without the quilting.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Vistual Texture Exercise Part 2

For part 2 the instructions said to find 5 fabrics each with a different visual texture or pattern. After making black and white photocopies of them, you were to cut them into different shapes and arrange them in a pleasing composition. Here are my two examples. In the first one, the background fabrics are more dominant than the circles. If I had used a stronger fabric for the circles, the background would recede more. There also is not a strong contrast in value.
In the second example, the circles are very dominant and the background fades away. Strong contrast in value. Part 3 in my next post.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

VISUAL TEXTURE EXERCISE

I came across an exercise on visual texture in the latest issue of Quilting Arts magazine. It is an excerpt from a book by Lyric Kincaid. Looked pretty interesting so I decided to give it a try. The following photos are for the first step. She said to go outside and take photos of different textures noticing the textures from close-up and far away and then make some notations about what you noticed. This first photo is of rust inside an iron pot. I love how you can really see the bumpy surface and the variations in color. Love the play of the dried leaves against the ice crystals from a recent snow. Also the sunlight on the leaves adds visual interest.
This next one is pine tree bark with a pruned section and two different vines winding their way up the tree. The white on the pruned area is some waxy substance. I like the texture it adds and also the smoothness of the vines against the rough bark.


This is dried yarrow. Love, Love, Love the texture and the change from light to dark.

Part 2 in my next post. If anybody wants to join me in this exercise, just post a comment and we can discuss our findings.