Tuesday, August 04, 2009

Piecing and which wings?

I have managed to get some piecing done... finally and at last. I took the lower left hand block of the center and began to work on it, feeling my way along, trying to make it work. I wanted to do several things with the center portion. I wanted to
- use colors that allow the Titania block to blend in rather than stand apart
- follow the curve of the light from under the tree to the outer edge
- use Allie's curved piecing method
- make the seams of the pieces curve to mimic grass and foliage

This is what I came up with:
Lower left block in center portion.
It's 11"x15" and it took me awhile but I think I managed to do what I wanted to do. When I got it finished I was rather taken aback at how bright and intense it was... I guess I have been working with neutrals for so long that the color was rather shocking! Here's how the upper right corner of this block matches up color-wise with Titania's block:
Titania up against fabric
I'm pretty tickled that I was able to blend it so well... hopefully I will keep my matching mojo going. ;0)

Meanwhile, I have been playing with Titania and adding some details and shading here and there. I used colored pencils to intensify the colors on the tree, deepen the shadows and give a little more life to her face with eye shadow and lip color. Then I ironed the whole block to set the color. I've never used that technique before but it worked quite well and really made a difference.

Next, I started working on her wings. I wanted to really get the feeling of Titania's block set in my head and to do that, I need to give her wings... so to speak! I had some marbled fabric so I played with that first:
Titania wings A
I reaslly wanted this to work but I think they might be a little bit too much. They kind of take away from her rather than add to her. Here's the second try:
Titania wings B
This is a textured fabric I picked up somewhere and I like it alot. On this one I laid the wings back a little bit, thinking that that's how they would be if she was sleeping. I'm not sure about that part, but I do like the fabric. I also tried some white organza but it completely disappeared against the background so I didn't even take a picture.

I've been looking at these so long, though, that I can't really see which would work anymore. So, which one do you like better and why?