A New Textile: "Translucent Curves"

Translucent Curves, hand dyed wool on linen, 10 x 19 1/2 in.

The titles I use for my works are generally flatly descriptive, but I was tempted with this textile to be a little funny and metaphoric and call it Hill and Dale; then I thought, no, the idea of landscape will be annoying fixed on what is an abstract idea, so I changed it to Green and Pink Curves; but that missed a main component of the piece, which was the value shifts from lighter to darker in each hue, so I finally settled on Translucent Curves.

Translucent Curves studies

This is a page of thumbnail sketches, where I am working out some major decisions about color and about the direction of the hooking. Once I'd decided on the darker red/green on top of the image, there were several ways I could hook the piece: all-over curves, or two directions of curves, as in the bottom two sketches. I ended up going with the middle sketch, so as not to break up the flow of reds. Below is a detail of the meeting of the four colors, two directions of hooking. 

Translucent Curves detail