Fields at Dusk

I found the monochromatic challenge very appealing, so I set out to make a piece almost straight away.  A map seemed to be the obvious choice – a variety of shades of one colour for the fields, black and white for the buildings, grey for the roads and paths.

My first thought was using green – the obvious colour for fields.  However I thought it may be too ‘strong’ without other, warmer colours to counteract it – too stark with just black and white.  So I opted for purple – the colour of dusk.

Purple is a mixture of mainly red and blue, so its shades can veer towards the blue or the red. If a lot of red is added, it becomes too pink.  So I opted to combine both purples - those veering towards red, and some veering towards blue.  I had a variety of hand-dyed fabrics fitting the bill so that wasn’t a problem.

The quilt is improvisationally pieced, freehand, using no rulers. The dusk fields are densely machine quilted, with a range of purple threads, and have added stitched ‘paths’ using a double needle and two different grey threads.  There is some minimal quilting in the white areas, and none in the black areas; and none either on the grey roads.

How does it relate to my Magic and Science theme?  Well – these kinds of views from above weren’t easily available before cameras, aeroplanes, and satellites – so there is the science connection.

The size is 40” high by 22” wide.  I am very happy with it.