Well, today was a shitty day. I failed. I just plain failed at fulfilling the assignment, and now I'm stuck with my failed prototype for the rest of the week.  We were supposed to blow up the little study we worked on yesterday into something big. I guess we were supposed to distort the shapes, or change the relative proportions but mostly I just made mine bigger. Big mistake. 

Small one, 30 x 4

Big one, 60 x 70"

Now we're taking our big mock up and changing out the blacks and whites for shades of gray. 

When we're done with that, which is supposed to be tomorrow afternoon, we're going to do it again in color. 

I'm completely bummed. I'm going to sit in my hotel room, eat low cal popcorn (it's all I have) and drink sparkling water. Then I'm going to get a good night's sleep and see if I can salvage my project tomorrow.

On Sunday I found another park with hiking trails. I set off on a 4 mile hike, but I took a wrong turn and it turned out to be about 6 miles. It was a walk through woods, and not so picturesque as Saturday. I slept well last night. 

Today our assignment was to quickly, with spontaneity, design a small quilt and lay it out in black and white fabrics. We had 90 minutes for that. We spent the rest of the day constructing the quilt. No rulers, no patterns, no templates. This is hard. We had a strict deadline to have it done by Tuesday morning at 9. Started at 7 this morning and finished at 8 tonight, a few hours ahead of the deadline, so I'm in good shape.  It's almost flat. It's about 30 x 40".

Today was an off day so I found a park nearby and went walking. A beautiful wetland preserve. The trail was grassy, and so little used it wasn't all trampled down.

Today I have new pictures. Here are a couple of the workplace. 

 

and my workspace:

Ok. Back to the assignment. We were asked to replace the black figures with bright colors. The background is to be white, off white or pastel.  Here's how mine looked by the end of the afternoon. I did exactly as instructed and she's happy with my work, although I can see many ways I could make it better. There isn't time to get too fussy. Just move forward. It's a terrific learning process.

If you are reading this blog, would you mind making a comment just to let me know who I'm talking to. Thanks.

 I was too tired to post last night, and then tonight I forgot to bring home my camera, so this will be brief. On Wednesday we finished another set of 4 progressions in the morning.

 In the afternoon we got our new assignment: take one of the sets and use it to fill up the space on a 6' x 6' quilt top. It's a matter of scaling up while keeping all the information the same. I chose the second set and started setting it on the wall. There were a few other parameters to help us get organized. On Thursday I started replacing the black shapes with bright colors and then sewing them together. It is hard to get everything to fit together just right. It took me all afternoon (5 hours) to do the top left square, and I'm making faster progress than most in the group. I'll have pictures tomorrow.

 I got a good night's sleep last night and today was a better day. We continued on with the progressions. This one started with a simple configuration (two attached shapes) and then we added more as we worked from the smallest to the largest. We're being introduced to a whole new vocabulary: figure, configuration, complex configuration, figure/ground tension. The designing came more easily today, but the construction was murder. I don't know why it was so hard, but it took me about 3 hours to do the last, biggest one and still it didn't come out right. 

 I'm here again at the Nancy Crow barn for a two week workshop entitled Improvisational Exercises.

Arriving.

First day's assignment was to create 4 compositions containing simple elements, each one getting larger and more complex. Special attention to the negative space. Designing was stressful. Who knows if they are good or not. Constructing them was a bear. But I finished by the end of the day. Tomorrow we'll be doing more of the same, although the elements will get more and more complex.