A New Textile: "Color Circle"

Color Circle, hand dyed wool on linen, 12 in. diameter.

I'd been thinking for a while of doing a round piece, and had done several small sketches with different compositional ideas. I decided on a circle with three arcs crossing it, the arcs being much larger in circumference than the circle itself. I liked how the arcs gave the image an illusionistic quality, and I admit I kept thinking "beach ball". After I'd decided on the drawing, color was next: first I did a subtle sketch, using mixed tertiary colors, but then did one with these bright colors (beach ball!). It's summer, time to go with the vivid and bold. I used the red blue green of Ellsworth Kelly (see the painting below) and added a big swath of yellow, having it overlap the blue and red to make a yellow-green and an orange. When dyeing the wool, I tried to make the colors fairly equal in intensity, so no one color would demand the most attention. 

Color Circle, detail

I cut the strips of black slightly narrower than the colors, using a smaller cutting wheel on my Fraser cutting machine. I also had to decide in which direction to hook the wool, settling on continuing the circular pattern from edges to center; the center here being off center from the lines and color. With the black arcs, the hooking pattern emphasizes round.  I'm now tempted to try other circle designs, maybe next flat. 

Ellsworth Kelly, Red Blue Green, 1963; oil on canvas, 83 5/8 x 135 7/8 in.