New Hooked Wool Drawings

2015 #16, hand dyed wool and egg tempera on linen, 15 x 12 in.

While working on the designs for this new group of hooked wool drawings, I tried to make each one different in compositional ideas. I don't always do this; sometimes I make a group of related works, such as these based on line; or these, which work as a set. Here, instead, I have a variety of shapes and color, from a composition engaging the entire picture plane....

2015 #17, hand dyed wool and egg tempera on linen, 17 1/2 x 17 in.

....to one that is square and centered....

2015 #18, hand dyed wool and egg tempera on linen, 17 3/8 x 16 1/2 in. 

....to shapes which climb the surface, grabbing hold of a small circle....

2015 #19, hand dyed wool and egg tempera on linen, 19 1/2 x 15 in.

...and finally a split rectangle filled with a circle and smaller rectangle. I did have some funny problems with two of these, with what I described as un-mindfulness to a friend. I was sitting and happily working on 2015 #19, hooking the dark red semi-circle, when I realized, after more than an hour of work, that I was hooking the wool on the wrong side of the circle! There was no salvaging it, so I had to re-cut and re-draw and re-paint the piece of linen. My other mistake was with 2015 #17: I didn't pay attention to how much wool I had in the orange color of the lines; I thought there was enough, but it wasn't even close. So, I hooked a darker color for the large hooked shape (I tend to use my wool leftovers for these pieces, of which I have large piles) but it looked awful. So I had to dye a piece of wool in order to finish; I deliberately made it a lighter color, which worked a lot better than the darker one. Sometimes the work goes smoothly, and other times there are bumps in the road; sometimes the work isn't even salvageable, but happily, in this case, with some do-overs, it all worked out.