Playing with colour and contrast

In my last post I showed the little abstract quilt I made that was supposed to be about winter ice.

Winter Ice 1

It was for our art quilters group where we had been talking about contrast and I wanted further practice with abstract piecing. I was only moderately happy with it. The straight line quilting was something new for me and to tell you the truth I found it a bit boring. It's much more fun filling in with feathers and other curvy patterns.

As I examined the little quilt I thought that the lines were too horizontal to be icy and so I whipped another little quilt. This time I tried to add some more value in the background as well. Instead of an ombre fabric background, I added light, medium and dark fabrics.

Winter 2

I didn't bother to quilt this one although it is pieced. I liked the extra angles that I had included but I felt the two central upside down tick shapes were competing as a focal point.

I read somewhere that it is better to include only light and medium values and a hint of dark or the opposite, all medium and darks and a hint of light. So I had another try at it.

Winter Ice 3

You can see that I used only lights and mediums in the shapes and a hint of dark in between. I still had the competing focal point though and it seemed a bit dull and ordinary. You might also notice that I gave up on the piecing and to be quick I fused the pieces on.

I had another try, I only had the one focal point now and I added some different colours.

Winter 4

It still wasn't right, I felt that the pinks were too warm and I had lost the icy feel. That meant that I had to do it again but this time I made it easier still by gluing down the shapes with a glue stick!

Winter 5

This last one had the one focal point, more icy colours, more diagonal shapes and values from light to medium with a hint of dark. I was pretty burnt out by the time I was finished but looking at them now, the last one is probably the most successful.

What do you think? I'd love to know.

It might seem like a fairly pointless exercise to some but I actually think that it was a valuable learning experience. You can read all you like about colour and design but you don't really know unless you try it out.

Bye for now,
Linda