It’s On

My piece is inspired by the feeling of excitement and speed I experienced while listening to Vivaldi.
The music reminded me of the first few minutes of a race… A lot of adrenaline, energy, momentum, a feeling of being chased.  The moments after the starting gun can be a little chaotic (which is why I tend to stay on the outside edge and hug the curb). Everyone is going in the same direction at different speeds. I sometimes feel like I’m being swept along, almost out of my control.  It takes a few minutes to calm down and get my bearings.  But pretty soon I get into a good rhythm and have fun.
For this piece I went a little bit out of my comfort zone and tried a few new approaches.  For the figures, I used bright colors without any modeling or sense of light & shadow. I also purposely stitched outside the edges of the figures with loose sketchy lines, pushing the colors into other figures, trying to create a blurry movement around them. 
The runners in the distance fade out and disappear into simple line drawings.  That gives me a little visual “breathing room” and allows me to see the curve of the road.  The scene is crowded but I didn’t want it to be oppressive and claustrophobic.
I always add a binding to my quilts, usually a thin black line around the edge. But I thought that would ‘trap’ the figures and stop the action. So I experimented with matching the binding to the image using different fabrics. That way the runners can move out of the frame.

Technorati Tags: Challenge1,Themel,Vivaldi