Negligent...with excuses

I've been neglecting my poor fledgling blog already.   But I have good reasons, really.  I was able to get my FFFC entry done except for quilting and binding by the deadline, but it was 10:30 pm on Thursday before I finished posting it.    I called it Cloister and you can see the entry on the FFFC site here,  I hope.  But just in case, here's the info I posted:

Here is my first entry to FFFC.   It is 12" x 12" with a mixture of commercial cottons, batiks and overdyed wool fabric.  Fused and soon-to-be-machine-quilted.

 I had a lot of fun with this, and learned so much.  I was overly optimistic about how much I could do in one week. I ended up doing much more fusing and less piecing, and my idea turned out to be much more time consuming than I expected, so I have not quilted it yet. 

I based (with permission) it on this photo that a friend took of a palace in Barcelona.

I thought that the contrast between the  sun shining on the leaves and white stone with the dark recesses of the archway addressed the challenge, but I was also trying to illustrate a contrast between the ephemeral light emanating from inside the stained glass and the everyday word of bricks and mortar.  

I plan to use lines of quilting to represent the courses of stone and brick.   I hope that will give it a little more finesse.  

I'm eager to hear comments, this is the first time I've put my work out in "public."

I got a lot of very good comments,  which I won't reproduce.  I'm eager to get the quilting done, and see if it helps the depth perception.  I think it will if I am technically able to produce what I envision.   

It was interesting to see what each person's interpretation of "chiaroscuro" was, and what the critiques perceived as a successful response to the challenge.   It seemed that entries with great direct contrast between light and dark were deemed successful, while others that I thought met the classical definition better, did not get such good reviews.   I'm trying not to over-post and seem pushy there, but I can say what I think here, no one has to ready it, right?!   My understanding of the concept was that the dark/light contrast was specifically related to using it to define three-dimensional forms in a two-dimensional work.    

Anyway,  it was really fun to see all the different interpretations and read the critiques.  But it's a good thing it's only once a month, it ate up all my evenings for a week.