Thursday, January 20, 2011

I Need Your Opinion

I'm hoping you all can help me with this next project. I'm trying to decide what border/background to put on my painted, beaded, and thread painted moth project. I'd appreciate your input and suggestions for a border/background that works with this piece. For each of these pictures, I have tacked my moth project onto a different piece of fabric on my design wall.

In Picture 1 the background is a bleach discharged shibori piece I just finished. Should I include this much background if I choose this arrangement? Off center, centered, leave it where it is, cut down on the border????
 In Picture 2, I have used the fabric just as a border.
In Picture 3, I used a "striped" shibori fabric. The question again is whether to use the fabric as a background or just a border and which placement looks best. 
Picture 4 is the same "striped" shibori used only as a border. 
Picture 5 is a copper batik border. (The copper color is a little more toned down than it looks here. The true color isn't as orange as it is coming off.)
Picture 6 is a black border. 
Picture 7 is the copper batik border with a sinemay ribbon on top. I like the texture the sinemay ribbon adds to the piece. What do you think?
Picture 8 is the copper batik with the sinemay ribbon used as a border. 
Picture 9 is the "striped" shibori with the sinemay ribbon added. 
Picture 10 is the "striped" shibori with the sinemay ribbon (again used as a border). I'm really not crazy about covering up this much of the shibori piece if I use it only as a border.
Picture 11 is the black fabric with the sinemay ribbon as a background. 
Do you like any of these? Any suggestions of something else to try? Comments on design? I'd really appreciate any comments/suggestions/opinions you all can give me. (I know, I know...just do it! Chalk this up to my curiousity.) I can't wait to hear from you.

6 comments:

Laura said...

I like the first and third pictures, with placement towards the top, slightly off center. Either fabric looks great as the background.

What is the moth project? I don't remember hearing about that before!

Lis Harwood said...

Isn't it amazing how different they all look. I like the placement in picture 11 and think that plain background works well with the ribbon - there's no clash of textures as there is when the ribbon is with the shibori. I also like the striped shibori as a border, photo 4, it seems to echo the central piece and is such a lovely piece of fabric in its own right. I don't expect that's helped you, it's so subjective, but I enjoyed seeing all the possibilities.

beckypb said...

I love your enthusiasm and I admire your talent. I like Picture 3 - I really like the composition as a whole. The "stripes" in the shibori fabric give repetition to the "veins" in your moth's wing. I like that the shibori stripes give movement to the lsft and the moth has movement to the right - it has a really nice organic balance. Great work!

Kathleen Loomis said...

Hi Beth! I'm going to be a party pooper and say that the decision has to be yours, not ours. Suggest you sit down with a piece of paper and write down what you are trying to accomplish -- what mood, what message, what you want to highlight about the central piece, what this is all about.

Then write down pros and cons for each possibility. Think about what you like about each alternative, and what you don't like.

Maybe you could contemplate them all and discard one. Then contemplate some more, etc.

But the important thing, in my opinion, is for you to be clear on what you're searching for, and then evaluate how well each alternative gets you there. We can't help you with the objective.

Quilter Beth said...

Great idea Kathy. That is really what I plan on doing, but I AM really interested in opinions/critiques from others. I think it can help me grow.

Thanks for your ideas.

Karen S said...

I like the top one -- but I love, love, LOVE the striped shibori piece in picture number three! Any one of these will be great. I think that maybe you should wait (I like to call it "cogitating") and see what you like best after it "marinates" for a while.