From Ugly Ducklings ... Part 3

Having printed and over printed my fabrics I have now started to work on composition. I have challenged myself to create a piece inspired by stillness, by inner calm, by tranquility. All of my work to date has been inspired, if only partially, by physical objects. Although the Ruins pieces are quite abstract I was able to think of their composition in terms of 'bricks' and 'buildings'. This time around is proving much more difficult. Can I break free from looking for literal representations and create truly abstract pieces? I started by pinning fabrics to the design wall to see how they interacted. I moved them around a few times. Then a few times more. Looking at them through the eye piece on my camera helped but I still struggled to see my path forward.

I decided to change the scale and started cutting small pieces out and working with those. (I remembered how using paper 'L's to isolate small areas of textile revealed some lovely details). Adding small pieces of solid colour had an immediate impact. All the fabrics have been printed with colours from my Dunure colour family so they work together from a colour standpoint. And the printing all has linear elements which also helps creating a 'pleasing' composition.

This feels like a breakthrough! At last! I still cannot see how to get from here to a large scale piece but am going to have some fun making little fabric collages. My ugly ducklings are have not transformed into beautiful swans yet but they are no longer ugly.