Translating ideas into samples

I really enjoyed the colour scheme of my first sample piece so decided to use a similar colour palette but increase the prominence of my focal colour.

I chose some open weave furnishing fabric samples in graduating tones which I hope to use to create shadow effects.  I colour matched my machine thread to these.

I built on the idea from the last piece and decided to use the weed suppressant and the netting again as window frames, and sketched out a rough plan.

The idea is that each window has a darker section indicating where the building shadow falls across the window pane.  I started by cutting each of the fabric colours to shape as per the drawing and lying them on grey glass-organza.

It all looked a bit flat and I needed something more to create a better shadow effect. I had a layer of fine tulle in mind.  Having drawn it first, I then stitched black tulle on to the paper to see roughly what it would do.  I was pretty happy with that so did a trial piece with fabric.

Not bad at all so I continued on.  I cut the tulle so it overlapped part of the lighter colour in each section as well.

Here is the finished piece, pinned to a white background, showing the colour gradations.  I carefully studied the Jeffrey Smart picture, Housing Project No 84 and noticed the incremental tonal changes from light in the bottom left corner, gradually darkening as you move up and across the work.  I’ve tried to do a very simplified similar thing, from bottom right to top left.

Above: Leaning against grey rock wall with bright sunlight.  No translucency at all evident but it still looks quite lovely.

Taped to the window with green foliage behind.  The grey organza has diffused the green to an all-over soft appearance.  Most of the colour has leached out of the furnishing fabrics but a tonal difference can still just be seen.

Still taped to the window but photo taken from a side view with the sun out of shot so much more colour can be seen.

If I had time to continue with this project I would re-do this piece but change the black netting so it is only on the two sides where the shadow is indicated, just like the sample in my previous post.  This would add weight to the shadow effect.  So an amalgamation of parts from the two pieces would be my next exploration.

I believe my project work, both these two new pieces for Stage 5 and the earlier samples in this assignment, have the potential to meet the requirements of the project in terms of their transparency qualities and the theme of ‘reveal and conceal’.