Explorations, Episode 3: My First Scale Size Practice Piece

Explorations, Episode 3: My First  Scale Size Practice Piece

I intimidated myself last week.  I'm making scale-size practice pieces for an upcoming exhibition, Explorations:  Journeys in Creativity. http://www.saqacallforentryexplorations.com/.

My actual entry doesn't have to be completed until August 1, so I gave myself the leisure, and the task, of creating four scale size practice pieces to see which one I wanted to do for the real deal.

Of those four, I got to the starting line on this piece involving sand ripples and an undulant ribbon of frothy foam:

but as I collected my materials, I felt a bit daunted by the idea of of shirring the fabric for that lovely undulating wave of foam. I'm going to do it, but...I decided to begin again with something less intimidating.

Like this:

I chose this piece for my first, throat-clearing practice, and this is what I've done with it over the past week:

Saturday, March 10

Tuesday, March 13

Wednesday, March 14

Friday March 16

My next step with this piece will be to add texture with quilting and thread painting.

Meanwhile, just so you know, this is how I blended colors of merino wool roving to make the glowing orange highlights on the sand ripples:

I started with two colors

And layered them one on top of the other on my carders

I put the two carders hook side down on each other and pulled the two handles in opposite directions from one another

And voila, this lovely pile of soft golden glowing roving, perfect for the highlights on sand ripples.