May 31, 2010

A New Rug Hooking Project: Berry



A couple of weeks ago, on a post about blueberry blossoms, a reader commented on their similarity to the fruit. A little chime went off in my artist brain, and I did a series of sketches based on this idea. What I finally came up with alludes to the flower and fruit without precision; I chose yellow for the bell shape, as a contrast to the purple, which is closer to the hue of grape than blueberry; the ripply flourish at the blossom's opening is gone for simplicity's sake.

When I work on a sketch for a ruglet, I keep my dye sample book in front of me as an aid for color mixing; by checking the available dyes, I have a better idea of colors I will need. The pencil notes you see under the watercolor remind me which dyes I plan to use.




I dip dyed the end of the yellow wool into light green so I can give the bell form a slight sense of volume; the change will be very subtle. The purple wool has a nice variegated color range, created by crowding the wool in the dyepot so the dye doesn't reach all the material evenly; I love the color shifts that come from hand dyeing, which gives the work a quivering uncertainty, more lively than flat hues. I think these three colors are quite gorgeous together, and hope they look as good when hooked.




The hooking patterns for this piece, which is 10 inches square, are: following the outlines on bell and circle, and random for the green background. As the weather is a bit cooler, (we've had a lot of much warmer than normal temperatures), I can enjoy sitting and working with wool on my lap.

4 comments:

  1. wonderful colors for this. the unevenness of the dyed wool is so water-color-ish.

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  2. thanks, rappel. The variegated color does have a look of washes, unevenly floated on a colored ground.

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  3. Once again, I like the watching the process unfold, from the uneven floating to the ruglet. And then I am pleased by how the qualities of the wool make the finished product less perfect. Colors remind me of my favorite eggplant.

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  4. I'm glad you like the less than perfect too, Julie. As for eggplant, I adore it too, and the color is definitely an aubergine.

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