The One That Got Away...

... or OTGA, as it is likely to be known forever, now, complete with crease, which I'll have to iron out.  I love the shape, though, so it got to be a small piece all by itself.  I was working on a piece to demonstrate just how interesting it is to work with a single shape, to get to know it (part of the FOQ workshop I've been banging on about here.  This is the actual piece;

The OTGA should have been in the top motif, but somehow I missed it.  I'm actually rather glad I did, because the other two motifs have three elements, and it would have been unbalanced if the top one had had four.  This will be one of the exercises we work through during the workshop.

I have a very simple rule in my workshops... participants can't get anything 'wrong'.  I'm really looking forward to seeing the variants that will come out of this exercise.  It's very much unfinished; it desperately needs stitch, and the addition of line.  But that's something we'll talk about in the workshop, I think...though I will probably work today on the OTGA, just so that we can see that it's possible!  I've been thinking about working in this way for some time, as I have masses of drawings that are really lines creating shapes.  (Yes, I know, that's how drawing usually works... but I'm talking about non representational drawing, random lines creating random shapes.  These pieces are coming out of that thought process, albeit in an altered way.  I love it when that happens.

If you would like to come and play with us at FOQ, there are still spaces available; check out the timetable here 

PS.  The background of both pieces is made from hand dyed cotton; the motif, from hand dyed lutradur.