Sometimes Fabric Does All the Work

New Mexico Twilight

copyright 2003

I have talked already about the things you can use for inspiration. Here's another example of being inspired by a piece of fabric. I hand-painted the sky fabric after I had taken a class from the famous Mickey Lawler of Sky Dyes.

With this piece, that wonderful sky was created from using purplish blues and a strong orange (those secondary colors again!). It reminded me immediately of the strong twilight colors out in the West. It didn't take a whole lot more fabric or "doing" to come up with a piece that catches the essence of New Mexico and Arizona--that is, amazing colors and vast spaces. Perspective also came into play here because to create a lot of desert space in front, those mountains had to be small.

When you are designing landscapes, sometimes you will also find serendipitous things in the fabric that can play into your design. If you look at the moon above, you will see that the fabric behind it has a light or whitish area. That was a perfect place for the moon! It makes it look like the moon has lit up the sky just like it does in real life.

The desert space was created from a great piece of batik which had lots of coloration, including some light areas, like on the left. This creates a feeling of reflected light and adds interest.

It didn't take a long time to make this piece, but it makes me happy every time I look at it!