The most recent pieces in my Grevillea series have used strip pieced backgrounds ... a mix of hand dyed and hand printed fabrics to add some variation.

This approach worked nicely but what if I 'push the boundaries' a bit ...

Artists often create compositions from small areas of detail in a drawing or painting, scaling up the size to create and new composition. We used this approach in my weekly drawing class recently.

We started with a still life drawing and then using a small area of detail from that drawing created a new composition and then added tone and color ......

From one of my Grevillea drawings I made a number of detail sketches looking for compositions with 5 to 7 shapes. I picked 3 to try out and made them up this week .....

I'm pleased with the way they look ... the shapes and the color combinations. The plan is to stitch my Grevillea flower drawing onto these backgrounds ... so I'll need to work out the color and weight of thread and the best way to place and mark the design.

I'm hesitating a little bit about the stitching so I keep telling myself I can always make a new background piece if I mess it up!!!!

I'll let you know how I get on......

Thanks for reading .....CC