March 24, 2010

A New Rug Hooking Project: Scarlet Vessel



This thumbnail sketch has been hanging on my wall for a while; I've decided to use it for my next hooking project, going back to a rectangular composition and intense color. The design has both pottery and Ellsworth Kelly as inspiration.




As I started to work on the full sized drawing, above, I ruled out a 10 by 9 inch rectangle because the thumbnail has a near-square rectangular look to it. But when I drew the shape, it looked cramped in that format, so I widened it into a square. What you see is a 10 inch square, but it still looks to me like a rectangle. I drew and redrew the curved lines, trying to get a balanced feel from an off-balanced shape, which I hope will give the work some movement and energy.




The intense colors are a scarlet red and cool yellow with some green added to make it close to chartreuse. I wanted a cool, rather than warm, yellow so that it would contrast more with the red.




And here is the beginning of the work on the linen backing. I left some of the ends of the wool strips uncut, so that you could see how they look during the process of hooking. I plan to hook the yellow background in a random pattern and the red shape in parallel lines, which I think will emphasize the thing-ness of the "vessel", floating on its ground.

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