LARGE ARCHITECTURAL TEXTILE: IN PROGRESS SHOTS

 As yet untitled work in progress  48" x 48",  Lori LaBerge   2017

Work on the first square continued and a second was started. The color planning allows for squares located diagonally from each other to be in the same color scheme. This was work completed as of Wednesday. The majority of colors are fairly bold and the light green adds some softness.

The mixtures of wool add more interest as the viewer gets closer to the work. The rust contains a bright, a texture and a dark yarn. A main color (the texture in this case) is usually chosen and then leftover strips from previous projects are used to add variety. In rare cases, there may be some dyeing needed when the right color strips are unavailable.

For the turquoise, a mottled light, a plainer medium, and a textured dull gray-turquoise were used.

Small black circles were hooked with the purple. These smaller circles will appear on three of the four squares, with the upper left square containing a redder purple meandering throughout rather than having the black involved. This adds a bit of a surprise as the expected similarity to the other squares is not there.

Straight hooking is being used for the black and white sections. Black and white together is bold. The straight hooking adds to the boldness, showing stability (horizontal) and strength (vertical) while framing the center areas.

While I find myself delving more and more into the reasons for my choices, I don't get bogged down with it. Sometimes a choice is simply: "I just liked those colors together." or "I felt like hooking straight after hooking meandering patterns for so long." Not everything is complex. It is important to keep in mind the effect of your choices, but it is also important to enjoy the process and just let go once in a while.

TWO WORKS SAME DESIGN: CREATING A DIFFERENT FEELING WITH COLOR

"Side Streets 2",  20" x 20"   Lori LaBerge  2017

To those who regularly read this blog the piece above may look familiar. A piece using the same basic design, "Side Streets", was done last year. Here is the first piece:

"Side Streets",  20" x 20"   Lori LaBerge  2016

I rarely use the exact same design more than once. Yet, I kept wanting to revisit this work using industrial felt. This led to a more subtle version. The first version, directly above, used a brighter orange, a pure slightly outrageous yellow and a bright white stripe. It has been sold and placed in a modern environment surrounded by other colorful artwork. There is a sunny, happy, almost childish feel to it with the yellow drawing the eye.

Close-up of "Side Streets 2"

The latest version at the top of the post has a more sophisticated feel to it. The gray felt blends with the background grays, leaving an orange one shade deeper more room to stand out. Stitching on the washers follows the direction of the felt, the longer piece horizontal and the shorter piece vertical. Copper paint was used on the washers to further emphasize the orange. The felt is randomly stitched in black so it won't stand out but be noticed when viewed from a closer position.

Art exercise--

Revisit previous works and draw them out in various colors. How does the feel of the work change? Do you have preferences? Has your use of color changed over the years?

"DIRECTIONS" COMPLETED, COLOR AND PATTERN IN FLORIDA

"Directions"   25" X 25" ,  Lori LaBerge  2016

We moved our son to Florida this past week. Many of our relatives have moved down to the warmer climate and we had a chance to visit some of them while there. 

 Work being mounted on canvas

When we returned, I completed whipping edges and mounting "Directions". As the work is in four sections, it can easily be arranged in various positions.

There were some wonderful ideas for artwork in Florida.

 Patterns on palm trees

The trunks of the palm trees criss-crossed forming light and shadow.  The rough texture could easily be depicted with textured wool or yarn.  These trees lend themselves to both abstract and realism.

 Wild and bright color combinations

Color, color, color. We saw loads of both pastels and saturated color. Pink, yellow, blue, green, turquoise, black, white and gray of various values are all seen in the photo above. Patterns of X's decorate the pink building and vertical lines can be seen in the balcony and roofing.

Wood pilings in the water

These are a favorite of mine. I love the way the various heights of the pilings protrude from the water, the various shades of color in them from the battering of the sun and the sea, the spacing between them and how the light hits each one  A subject I will work with in the future in abstract form.

STUDIO WORK

Almost completed.  “Side Streets”, 20” X 20”, Lori LaBerge  2016

It has been busy in the studio this week.  I have to stitch the metal washers to “Side Streets, mount the piece and then work on framing.  The original plan was to fill the background with dark grays, but I found the light gray added a nice contrast to the darks without detracting from the orange and yellow.  The diagonal shapes are reminiscent of a crosswalk pattern.

Pieces for landscape show lined up in the studio

Frames for the landscape show pieces arrived early in the week.  I have now completed 10 framed works and two sculptural pieces for the show.  There are two more sculptures to work on. 

The hooked portion of as yet untitled sculpture. 

Upholstery fabric was used for hooking.  The ends were left showing on the topside rather than clipped.   The sculptural section will sit on top of the hooked work.  Open areas were hooked around to leave room for screws to hold the sculpture upright.

Colors chosen for sculptural work.

I want to create a piece depicting water so various shades and textures of blue will be stitched into dark gray industrial felt.  It should be completed in the next couple of weeks.

My daughter will be visiting this coming week and will be helping me prepare for the Toe River Studio Tour.   There will be quite a bit of cleaning due to happen in the work section of the studio.  We’ll also focus on hanging work in the gallery section.  I feel lucky that my family has always supported my art.

Thank those that support you in your art, hobby, career, etc.  and have a great day.

COLOR DECISIONS IN ART

"At Bridge's End"  9 1/4" X 13",  Lori LaBerge  2015

It's back to work in the studio after a nice Christmas and New Year break.  The continuation of creating pieces for July's landscape exhibit have been keeping my design skills in use.  The above work is all about the color. 

There are many ways to use color in art.  You can use it to show a time of day or year, to depict mood or atmosphere, to experiment with specific color combinations, or to show light and shadow.  I tend to veer from realistic color in favor of using color to fit a mood or to exaggerate nature's palette.  I saw shades of lavender in the gray bridge and decided to emphasize this by making the whole bridge lavender/pink shades.  Quite bold, it is based on a bridge in Black Mountain, North Carolina. 

Here the compositional lines are drawn in.  The top and bottom of the bridge fit between the horizontal lines.  The top orange/brown, the edge of the lighter blue and the side of the red are spaced to touch along the vertical lines.  

Compositional lines are also separating out large areas of color.  Most of the blue is below the middle horizontal line.  This breaks the rule of splitting a picture in half. Some blue is carried up further into the bridge opening.  Most of the lavender/pink is between lines, the red in the lower right rectangle and the brightest of the orange in the two upper right rectangles.

More color planning was done this week:

These colors will be used in a tree in the woods scene.  The scene will be calming with browns in the tree, greens in the background, heather lavenders on the ground and a modest use of pink and off whites to contrast with duller colors.

  

This is a sophisticated color scheme for an abstract work in the road sign series. The grays along with the butter yellows have a neutral tone to them.  Neutrals are often used to emphasize shapes when the artist's intent is to put shapes before color in a piece.  The top of the piece will contain the green and turquoise.  A limited use of color rather than a vast mix of colors will tend to be more sophisticated.

The yarns and industrial felt above will be used on a multi-layered sculptural work.  I hope to create at least three or four of these types of works to be shown on pedestals at the landscape show.  The yarn colors definitely have a woodsy feel to them.  I hope to use them with embroidery and sculpting techniques to depict vegetation.

Think of how you use color combinations, through dress, interior design or other methods and have a great day.

"BRIDGING THE GAP" ABSTRACT CONTINUES, AGNES MARTIN'S USE OF COLOR

First section of "Bridging the Gap" in progress, 11" X 11" Lori LaBerge  2015

Work on the latest piece has continued this week.  The curves are constantly being tweaked as they don't follow the grid of the backing linen.   A spot-dyed wool is being used in the purple section and the lighter sections needed to be near the edges as the darker sections did not give enough contrast. Placement of darks, mediums and lights were marked off.

It was a busy week with many decisions to be made on various activities and when I feel stressed I always do two things:  have a glass of wine and read an art book.  I have always turned to art and it has never failed me.

"Agnes Martin" by Nancy Princenthal

I found myself reading a book about Agnes Martin.  She worked with a subtle sense of  contrast when she began working with grids and stripes.  I could not find photos of her work that gave permission to use, but her work can be viewed here.

In rug hooking we constantly talk about the importance of value and contrast with most of it being centered on intense contrast. There would be no better work to study than Martin's to learn about the opposite, the subtlety of value. 

   Wool colors close in value.  Notice the feeling you get from them.  What would you design with these colors?

Martin's work always gives me a sense of tranquility.  The colors she used are muted and similar in value leaving one with a feeling of peace and calm.  There is also a slight innocence to her pieces. Maybe it is the purity of paler, lighter colors.  I can easily see this having an influence on my work down the line.

People tend to veer toward the familiar.  Our brain is constantly trying to make sense out of the artwork we view.  Martin's work deletes that need and forces the viewer to see more from what at first looks quite simple.

Pale yellow, pale blue, pale peach and textured medium beige

At first glance her grids look very controlled, yet the pencil marks are not perfectly straight lines.  They skip and wave while along their "straight" path.  Martin called herself an abstract expressionist though many see minimalism in her work.  The two are different and she seems to fit into both as the simplicity and paring down of the work fits the mode of minimalism while the sense of the unconscious ideas she portrayed may fit into abstract expressionism. 

Clothing in yellow, ecru and stone

Martin worked in repetition.  The grids are repeated rectangles or squares while the stripes repeat themselves throughout a piece with alternating colors or lines in between them.

A tower of books.  Repeated stripes of various thickness in calm colors

Think about how color affects us, notice the calm colors around you and have a great day.

WORK WITH COLOR VALUE, SAUDER VILLAGE CLASS

There was quite a bit of activity in the studio this week.

"Missing Glass" in progress,  Lori LaBerge  2015  

Monday:  

A while back I had found a small swatch of green on the shelves that I wanted to use to replace the teal green in "Missing Glass".  The teal green is too close in value to the blue. The swatch was not enough to replace it so I decided to dye some extra this week.  The darker shade, shown above, will provide a better contrast against the blue and give a better overall balance to the piece.

Tuesday:

I decided on a tentative color plan for another design.  You can see the colors above being used in the design below.

"Detour", Lori LaBerge  2015

Wednesday and Thursday morning:

Hand therapy is going well and I can now use a traditional hook for short periods.  I decided to start on a piece I have not yet titled.  It was originally based on orange barrels on the roads, but I did not want to be so literal and changed the barrels to a lilac color. The upper lilac against the light gray will in all likelihood need to be darkened a bit. The bottom half of the piece will be a mix of dark grays. Metal will be added later.

I noticed the use of hit and miss in the last design "Mountain Reflections" did not seem to fit in with the "Road Series" work.  It seemed separated from the other work due to the mix of wool colors.  This has led to a new series called "Parkway". These pieces will all have a hit and miss use of wool in them.  This is a good example of how one thing leads to another and is basically a series within a series.

Thursday afternoon:

A color plan was developed for another "Parkway" work.  The black and white photo shows the variety of mediums, lights and darks chosen.  I'm finding the "Parkway" series pieces more difficult than the "Road" series as I am placing lights on the top and darks on the bottom leading to problems with other colors showing up on both of these. This is leading to a new focus on using various values of the same color on either the light or dark background areas.  I'm interested in seeing where this takes me.

Friday:

I worked on plans for the class "A Creative Approach to Working in a Series" that I will be teaching at Sauder Village in August.  There will be lots of activities and discussion to enhance the understanding of series work. You can find information on the class here.  I encourage everyone to think about joining us or taking another of the many classes that will be offered at Sauder this year.

As mentioned, I am facing the dilemma of values with both a light and dark being used as a background. Think about the dilemmas you face in your art, welcome the challenge of working with them and have a great day.

RUG HOOKED WINDOW CONTINUES, NEW DESIGN PLANS

As yet untitled work in progress, 3 feet x 5 feet,  Lori LaBerge,  2015

The holidays are over and I finally returned to the studio this past Wednesday.  The window piece is starting to take on some character and I can see the direction it is going in.  I'm still debating on whether the darker green spots placed in the turquoise are working or not.  I don't like to pull things out too early so I'm still waiting on this one.  This also gives me time to think of possible options, rather than rushing.

Though there is plenty of wool on the shelves of the studio, there was no light blue, so it was time to hit the dye pot.

Here you can see the light blue middle left.  I used the lightest shade in the formula and halved it. A more mottled blue was also dyed.  These two values of wool will be hooked together in the areas requiring a light blue to add variation.

More color placement was done.  The mint green is brighter in reality than the photo shows. It is a color that will add a little punch to the work along with the red.  I also wanted to see if the blacks were going to balance out o.k. and they will work out perfect.

Another piece in the Road Series was planned out this week.  The focus of this work is the mountain roads.  I also thought of the reflection of the mountains in local lakes and added this to the design with the reflections being offset in the lower half. Chain and metal will hang from the top.  The bottom right shows my list of the order that the gray background will be hooked in.

The gray wool was laid out on the studio table and various strips were chosen. Darker strips were chosen to show up on the light grays and lighter strips to be hooked against the dark grays.  I'm thinking of hooking the triangles vertically to contrast with the horizontal gray stripes which will be hooked randomly.

Almost everyone that came to the studio tour in December mentioned how neat and clean the studio was with everything in its place.  Needless to say, the tour is over and I couldn't resist taking this photo.   The dye table is once again in work mode. There is always chaos before calm in this workplace.

When designing and hooking, focus on your work, forget about the mess being made in the process and have a great day.

NEW MIXED-MEDIA FIBER AND METAL DESIGNS FOR "ROAD SERIES"

I received confirmation of booth space being reserved at the Carolina Designer Craftsmen show in Raleigh, NC.  The show will be held over Thanksgiving weekend. Since I have been making quite a few larger pieces lately, I will need to focus on some in the $100-$300 range in order to have a variety of pricing options available. I will be on the road the next three weeks, so this is the perfect time to work on some smaller pieces.

Designs drawn on linen and ready to be packed up for the trip.

Below is the design process of the three pieces worked out this week.  These are roughed out designs and I may make some changes during the hooking process.

Design for "Parallel Roads"  9" X 13"  Lori LaBerge  2014

Here you can see how many erasure marks were made while working out the placement of lines.  Usually I start out placing the lines then look at the various shapes they create.  Often, changes are needed to eliminate odd shapes or lines that are too close together. 

Color planning for "Parallel Roads"  9 X 13  Lori LaBerge  2014

In the first sketch the parallel areas were the same width. I made the decision to vary the widths for a more interesting piece.  I will be placing fishing weights on the color sections and the gray marks within them gives me an idea of how they will look.  I'm debating on placing a larger weight hanging down about an inch away from the top right hand side as this design still feels like it needs something.  Also, the pink section may be too close to the center of the work.  I'll continue working on this and see where it takes me.

Design for "Tunnels"  9" X 13"  Lori LaBerge  2014

When searching through a box of metal pieces, I found some cylinder shaped lamp parts which gave me the idea of tunnels.  A chain will be placed through the two cylinders and left to hang down the ends of each.

   Color planning for "Tunnels"  9" X 13"  Lori LaBerge  2014

The local Blue Ridge Parkway is surrounded by the beautiful greenery of the wooded areas on the roadside which led me to use the color green.  There are a multitude of both short and long tunnels to drive through along the Parkway so I will use one short and one long cylinder in the piece.

  Design for "Ice Ahead"  9" X 13"  Lori LaBerge  2014

Though we are in the Summer season, I've been thinking of using turquoise or light blues in a piece.  This led to the thought of icy roads.

Design with color planning for "Ice Ahead"  9" x 13"  Lori LaBerge  2014

This color plan has the cold feel I was going for.  The purple will add a tad of warmth to offset the coolness.  A chain will hang down the center of the purple section to represent tire chains.  When I drew this out on linen, I narrowed the blue line directly to the right of the purple section slightly and moved it closer to the purple in order to create variance in the parallel lines.

While working on both large and small works for this series I have found it interesting to see how size affects the design process.  Look at works of your own or on the web and see how a composition would have to change if made larger or smaller and have a great day.

PROGRESS ON RUG HOOKED ABSTRACT, TIME FOR PLEIN AIR

"City Crossing" in progress,  30 X 30  Lori LaBerge  2014

The work on the latest figurative abstract continued this week.  Music filled the work space as it was a quiet week after the studio tour last weekend.  I added a diagonal section through the middle of the piece where I am hooking blue.  The background is vast and placing a medium blue in the diagonal section with a mix of a light medium and light blue above, though subtle, will break it up a bit.

Above is a comparison of last week's and this week's progress.  I put this up so people can see how colors affect each other.  There have been many times I have seen rug hookers tear out a color they don't think is working.  This can affect beginners who are still learning color theory.  Often, this is because they are looking at it against the backing fabric of linen or monk's cloth.  The color of linen is quite often not very attractive against colors one may be working with.

The photo of last week's progress is quite boring.  The dull red violet against the light beige of the linen is anything but exciting.  This week's progress brings a truer violet next to the red violet for a rich analogous mix.  Adding again to the analogous scheme is the violet blue started on the right.  Across from this group of colors on the color wheel is yellow.  I did not want a true yellow for the figure.  I opted for a yellow-green for something just a little bit off. The piece should be completed this coming week if all goes well.

Since the weather cooperated this week, I took some time to head outside and work on a plein air piece.  The hay was quite thick and looked like waves rolling through the field when the wind blew.  The day I headed out there was a clear afternoon with only an occasional mild wind.  We have a red gate in a corner of the front field that I love against the green grass.

"The Positively Red Gate"  7 X 7 Lori LaBerge  2014

I'm still having fun with the plein air work as it is freer than the planning which goes into studio pieces.  It is a nice break and gives me time to enjoy the mountain air and my surroundings. The shadows on the fence took on a blue tone and the glint of sun on the top of fence and gate produced a glare that I used white wool to portray.  I spent two days on this piece and it was a good thing I made progress on the first day as the second day the field looked like this:

No more long grass as the local farmer came to cut the hay.  I hooked the rest of the grass in the piece from memory, though I still sat outside enjoying the smell of the hay.  Yes, hay fever medication had to be taken that morning.  If you are interested in joining the Plein Air Hooking Artists, please check out our site here.

Try different color plans, follow the color wheel or throw in something unexpected and have a great day.