Inspiration Hits Me!

I saw this artist's work for the first time today on Gerrie Congdon's blog.
The artist is Ton Schulten and I went to his site and was absolutely entralled. Color and shape and line and oooooo!

I felt that he could teach me something about my own work. Notice how eleglant and simplified his landscapes are. NO fiddly stuff, just hints of forms that we all recognize. I decided to try and make something of my own that fulfilled the desire I had to have all his paintings for myself.

So I shot this still life. I have been wanting to play with pears in my work, since I love their shape and color. The other fruit was so nice, I decided to add them too.


My warm up sketch began with loose swirling lines, for placement and to get the feeling of the shapes. I did about three of these and chose the best one to clarify.

Nice, huh? I should have stopped there.

But I got all interested in the shadows and the lines crossing and the tiny bits of shapes that would eventually have to be sliced and diced to form the fruits and shadows.

So to re-clarify, a sheet of tracing paper went over that drawing and I attempted to eliminate all my 'darlings'.

There! I left in the shapes of the shadows, because I was still hung up on this being an abstraction of reality. In my little mind these fruit shapes had to have dimension, hence shadows.

I made one apple and hated it. Then I made another and hated it.

I needed to look at the paintings again, since I clearly was lost and needed direction. I printed out several of Ton's paintings and realized that every section of his grid was its own composition. The house, trees, or boats in his paintings were merely flat areas of color. NON-Dimensional.

oh.

I took my drawing and just cut off one side of it and worked it for color and line, letting the pear and apple shape be suggestions rather than literal representations. The background is the best, because of the LIMITED colorway. O my. I have taught myself something. Alrighty.

This was a good exercise and I think I can do this for real when I have the time to be calm and patient. The piece above is only about 12"x 5". I like it just the way it is.

When I do the real quilt, it will be very simple, even less division of space in the layout. Bigger blocks of color...REALLY.