My art quilt background is still hanging on the design wall. I made a cutout of a monk from brown wrapping paper and took a photo of it. I made a bunch of rock cairns on a table from river rocks and took photos of them. (It was difficult balancing them because they are so slippery and Opus had a blast watching and chasing them as they fell.) And I used a previous photo I had of a circle from a wipe rag. I imported the background photo and all the other photos into Photoshop Elements and began to play with various compositions. Here are some of them in the order I designed them.
1.) Remember; this is only to check for compositional placement. The real thing will look much better because all will be made of fabric with textures and patterns and stitches. You know how much better it all looks once it is sewn and quilted. To me, this one is a bit boring, but it is a start.
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| large monk, tall cairn, all three items seem to be focal points |
2.) This second one has a rock cairn with more interesting shapes. I tried to see how changing the size of the sun/moon would affect focal point since in the one above all three items seemed equal. But I want the cairn to be the focal point (I think) so this doesn't work for me.
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| better rocks on this one |
3.) I made everything smaller on this third one and I like the effect better now. It gives a more expansive view like the monk is looking outward. Getting more like I want it. Oh, how Photoshop helps me see things. I can enlarge and stretch objects out and shrink them out in just a few seconds.
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| getting the effect closer to what I want |
4.) Now, I had to go and really change it up. I flipped the composition over on the background, lightened up the sun/moon. Decisions...decisions.
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| Flipped composition |
So how will I decide? That's the hard part for me. I'm hoping some of you will chime in. I think I'm leaning towards the last one. The monk is in the part that is glowing. Also, the rock cairn is in a part of the base that is almost like a path pointing to it (that's accidental but fits it and seems to lead to the sun/moon).
Of course, the rocks will be made of fabric and won't resemble the photo rocks you see here.
But now I'm excited to get going.
I'm linking this to
Off The Wall Friday where you can visit art quilt blogs. Be sure to make comments on their posts to let them know you were there.
Hi, Regina. This is really interesting and you got me to thinking. As we tend to read from left to right, the top three seem more comfortable. However, the last one seems more interesting because it's a more unusual position, right to left. Kind of gives the viewer a moment's hesitation when "reading" the piece.
ReplyDeletebest, nadia
Nadia, you are correct about the reading left to right. I didn't notice that when I set up the background. But since the background fabrics are already sewn in place, I can't flip them, too. I'm still playing around with Photoshop with the relative sizes but I like the 4th composition the best because of the monk in the part that is glowing and the rocks in the "path". Thanks for visiting and commenting.
ReplyDeleteI like the 4th one the best too. I keep wanting to put the sun/moon behind the pillar instead of in front of it. I don't know if you wanted that as a pillar, I am just saying what my eye sees. I really like the monk being in the doorway that I see.
ReplyDeleteThe rock pile bugs me. Is it the focal point you want to use? Maybe since it is not yet in fabric form, that is why it stands out wrong to me. Right now they look more like an afterthought that is just sitting there...again, probably because they are 3 dimensional instead of 2 dimensional.
Oh and #2 having the larger sun/moon there makes it look like it is casting an odd shadow below it.
I am no expert and am just sharing what I see. I am here from Off the Wall Friday and am trying to leave comments on blogs that I visit.
I'm getting confused about my focal point, too. I'll have to work that out as I work with the fabric. I think the rock cairn will be okay once it is in fabric (I hope). As for the pillar and doorway... All that is just background and not really any kind of object/s. I'm hoping to get it to all blend together using sheer fabrics or paints later on. One of the scary things about showing works in-progress is that they don't look as they will when finished. Another scary thing about it is that they may end up to be failures. Time will tell about this one.
DeleteI'm voting for number 4, but they're all wonderful!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Cathy, but I think I've changed it yet again. I may actually cut a chunk off of the left side and rearrange the whole composition. But I like where it's going. This is such fun. My end products never come out as I expect in the beginning.
ReplyDelete