Colour inspiration: Rue de Buade #2

Rue de Buade, #2

"What's the most difficult part of making this?" That's the question I was asked by a visitor to my tent at Art by the Lake. "Is it the stitching?"

"No," I answered. "It's choosing all the colours." Now, deciding on a colour palette is pleasurable.   It's satisfying. It's fun. But selecting a team of players, dark and light, dull and bright, is tricky. I'm also limited to using the hand-dyes that I have on hand, because I don't really want to interrupt the process of composing a piece to dye another batch of cloth.

I had the drawing for my latest piece done and all was in place to begin the colour selection. Nothing seemed quite right. Then, inspiration came from the most unlikely source. One of the women in my fitness class showed up wearing a teal-coloured jacket with a turquoise-green top. Just a little "off". Salty and sweet. It was a combination that pushed me in a new direction, combining yellow-greens and blue-greens.

Seeing the work in progress, I was reminded of a page I had ripped from an Oprah magazine ten years ago. A quick search and there it was, a stack of towels in a most intriguing combination of colours, suggesting a little seasoning with blue-violet. Hmmm.















The resulting piece, Rue de Buade #2, is based on a photo taken in Quebec City this summer.