It's good to be green

That is the theme of a show being organized by Larkin Van Horn. She invited a group of us to each create a piece using that theme. The size is specific. It must measure 45" vertically by 18" wide. I am just getting started with mine and thought it might be interesting to document the steps here over the next couple of months. I e-mailed Larkin to see if she had any objections to my doing that and her reply was that it was OK, but she wasn't crazy about having finished pieces shown on the web because she plans to create a CD of all the images in the show that will be for sale. Proceeds will help defray shipping costs with any leftover funds going to Habitat for Humanity. So I probably won't show you the final finished product, just parts of the process. Maybe your interest will be piqued enough that you will want to visit the show or purchase the CD!

I have considered and rejected many ideas for this piece. Several years ago I made this quilt for a guild challenge. I decided to expand on the same idea and called the quilt "green thumb." Below is my preliminary sketch, done in Adobe Illustrator. I like using Illustrator for these kinds of sketches. I can try out different things, resize elements, and move parts around. For this piece I could draw a leaf and copy it multiple times, rotating it and resizing it to create groupings.

I will print this out, full-size on multiple pieces of paper that I will tape together. Then I will trace it onto a single sheet and make adjustments and changes there. Even though this looks like a finished idea, you can be sure that changes will be happening all through the process.