Tag Archives: art composition

Color Temperature: Fabric Fever is Cause for Concern

Can color temperature indicate the health of your quilt? These days, having a fever is cause for concern. Staying home and

Does you fabric have a temperature?

away from others gives me more time with my fabric, where temperature has also been on my mind. It was a topic in my monthly Color & Composition class. Read on for a summary of our discussion and learn how you can join us next month.

Color Temperature: What is Warm? What is Cool?

The exact dividing line between warm & cool colors has been an open topic for centuries.

What is your preference?

Your preference likely depends on your medium: a digital graphic artist lives in a different color world than a fiber art quilter. Here is what I work with…

Here are my play groups for warm and cool colors.

I also think of red and green as temperature neutral. They can function with either play group, but will be the coolest kids in the warm group, and the hottest kids in the cool group.

What’s cool in the warm group?

What is warm in this cool group?

How Color Temperature is a Tool?

It’s a fact that warm colors advance and cool colors recede! In a composition, we can create a sense of depth using temperature. Warm colors will seem closer to us and cool colors will fall to the background. Or do they? Do we know this because someone told us, or because we have experienced it? I say, “You don’t really own that knowledge until you test it out.”

So, I created a series of simple compositions of a box on a background. These are only 8 x10 inches, easy to make, and keep on hand for future reference.

Color Temperature: Warm vs Cool – Round 1

First, here is a box in a warm color sitting on a cool color background.

Does the box visually pop off the surface?

Now, here is the reverse: a cool color box on a warm color background.

What about this box?

If the concept holds true, the first version should appear to have more depth, and the background should fight for dominance in the second. What do you think?

Color Temperature: Warm vs Cool – Round 2

In my next experiment, I pitted warm and cool colors against each other in the same composition. Using a temperature neutral color green for the back ground, I put a large and small box together in the composition. Size will indicate to the viewer that the larger box is closer, but, how does color temperature amplify, or mute that message?

Warm vs Cool in Pictorial Quilts

These examples are very dramatic, but the concept can be used in more subtle ways. Color temperature is relative. Even within the “Warm” or “Cool” color play groups, each color will appear warmer, or cooler depending on what color plays next to it. For example, orange is cooler than yellow, but warmer than red. Also, blue is cooler than green, but warmer than violet.

I use this concept in all of my work. Look through my genre and portrait galleries to see how warm tones advance from the cooler backgrounds. When more than one person is included in a composition, I employ subtle temperature changes in flesh tones to make one figure more prominent, or appear closer than another.

Which figure has the warmer complexion?

How does temperature amplify depth in this piece?

Experience is the Best Teacher

Now, if you really want to own knowledge of this concept, you need to conduct your own experiences. It can be a simple as cutting out some circles of various sizes and colors, and then experiment with placing those circles on different backgrounds. You don’t even need to fix them permanently. Try one version, take a photo, rearrange, and take another photo.

If you try this, share a photo of your experiment with me: Lea@leamccomas.com

Learn More About Color Concepts

Every month, I teach an online Color & Composition class through the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum. We meet via Zoom on the 4th Saturday of every month from 1:00-3:00 (Mountain Time zone). Each meeting is a chance to explore a color concept, a color scheme, and a composition concept. Come every month, or participate when you can. The cost is $20/ session. Click this link to join us.

Here is what we’ll be exploring at our next meeting on January 23:

Color Concept: Creating Depth

Color Scheme: Analogous

Composition Concept: Variety & Unity

Sign up for the next Color & Composition class with Lea McComas

Quilt Stories: The Making of Crossing Over

In a Quilt Stories interview with Lisa Walton, I spoke extensively with her about the making of my quilt Crossing Over. It was great fun to talk with a friend, and sister quilter from Australia.

QUILT STORIES - See how LEA McCOMAS creates her THREAD PAINTED AWARD WINNING masterpieces

Here is a link to the interview

Lisa is creating a series of these interviews with quilters from around the world. Subscribe to her channel because there is more to come

You can see this piece and more of my work in my Portfolio galleries.

I’ve not been posting much in recent months as I’m working on a major new artwork that is bigger and more ambitious than anything I’ve ever done before. It is a commission for an exhibit being put together by the Clinton Foundation to celebrate Women’s Voices, Women’s Votes, and Women’s Rights. I can’t wait until I can begin to share this journey with you.

Take care and be safe–wear a mask when you go out.

Finally, Finished Fusing

Yes, Finally, all of the body pieces are working together and creating the depth of field that I’m looking for. With the face in place, I add some hair.

Helmet Hair

Yuck, that hair looks a bit too much like a helmet, but I’ll fix that when the background is in place. I rehearsed several fabrics for the background and settled on a piece that I made a few years ago in a dye/print/paint surface design class that I took with Susan Brooks in Louisville, CO.

Periodically, I take a class that is out of my comfort zone, just to learn some new things and get a fresh perspective. That was Susan’s class. I came home with lots of interesting pieces of fabric with no idea what would ever come of them.

Dye class fabrics

more dye fabrics

How happy am I to find the perfect background in that stash of “experimental” fabrics.

Background ini place

Now, back to that hair….

This is better. Phase 1: Fusing is complete.

Body Work

I’ve reached a place with my latest piece where I need to finalize a color scheme before moving on. So far, I’ve only chosen fabrics for the flesh. As I put these various body parts together, I’ve got to fill in the other elements of the composition (ie. dress, phone, background, hair.) I use my Itten Color Star to work this out.

Color Scheme

This Color Star is my favorite color wheel for making these kinds of decisions. It comes with a full set of templates that let me block out colors I don’t want to use and let’s me get a better sense of what colors I will be incorporating.

The hair is going to include yellow and yellow-oranges, while the phone will be blue-green, and her dress will be blue.

No decisions on the background yet, I’m going to put the figure all together and let it talk to me (or perhaps text me).

This week I’m able to complete the body along with the hand holding the phone. I’ve dipped into my special stash for the phone. It is made from some hand marbled fabrics I picked up in Venice back in the 90’s.

A body to go with the hands

Placing the face with the body, I have a real sense of progress. I’m not sure about the darkness of the upper body, but I’m going to move forward. I’ll audition some background fabrics before I decide whether or not to replace the body with lighter values.

A face with the body

Talk to the Hand

The fusing has begun. This week I was able to put together the hand for “We Don’t Talk”. It is created from warm red-orange flesh tones that I hope will pop off the surface and give it a real “in your face” feeling. For greater realism, I’m working with 7, rather than my standard 5 values.

The hand

Next, the face emerges from those cooler red-violet fabrics. You can begin to see that there is a significant contrast in the temperature of these 2 features. I hope it works as planned.

The face

I’m liking the detail in the eyes and mouth.

Next week I hope to fuse the body and put the pieces together.

Puppy Love, Part 2

Oh joy!!! I’ve finished something in less than a month; 2 1/2 weeks actually. It’s such a thrill to jump into a project and just breeze through to the end. With this piece, I took a break from thread painting and just did some dense stitching. The new challenge was to establish some designs that would fit with each element of the composition.

The blonde hair of the girl was easy. I used various values of yellow threads in long, undulated lines of stitching.

Next, similar, but shorter, wavy lines were put down with some variegated threads in a pattern that alluded to the hair of the dog. Several times I had to stop and pet my dear Coco’s face in order to really understand the changing direction of her hair. She didn’t mind too much.

Stitching the face was a leap of faith. It is so tricky to stitch the face! If you try to recreate the actual contours, and the lines aren’t just right, it throws off the perceived shape and makes the face look distorted. I decided to go in a completely new direction: loop-d-loops. I covered the entire face in a small repetitive design that had nothing to do with its shape or contour. I still varied the threads, letting the values do the work. I’m really pleased with the results.

The background was the most troublesome decision, just as with choosing the fabric. The print was complex and busy. Afraid that it would become too strong and overpower other elements, I didn’t want to stitch the printed design. I came up with a wandering ribbon design with a tiny meandering stitch to fill in the spaces. I feel like the 2 patterns of the fabric and stitching sort of neutralize each other and take away their power to dominate.

Finally, here’s the finished piece.

Puppy Love, Part 1

Maya’s selfie

This week I’ve jumped back into my art with gusto. I’m tired of being on hold. I need to be creative!! With a 4-day weekend and plans to pack and move postponed (again!) it was time to make up for lost time.

4″ x 6″ thread painting.

This past week has been devoted to making a piece titled “Puppy Love”. I’ve done smaller versions of this piece in the past for small art auction donation pieces, but this one is big and bold.

It started with a selfie taken by my step-daughter, Maya with our little dachshund, Coco. While previous versions were printed on fabric and thread-painted, this one is raw-edge fused appliqué and 30″ x 40″.

My color scheme is an analogous run of yellow-orange, orange, red, red-violet. This kind of scheme tends to be calm and mellow, so, to punch it up, I threw in some blue-green.

A couple of marathon work days, and the piece was nearly completed. Selecting the background fabric had me stalled for day as I just couldn’t decide. I took audition photos with my phone and toggled back and forth between the shots until I was able to make a decision.

Background option 1

Background option 2

Now, it’s on to the stitching. I’m going to try something new and will share that with you next week. Check back in next week.

Is Your Face in the Right Place?

I’ve just finished a new piece titled “Simple Pleasures”. It features a young boy named Indigo who is celebrating his 6th birthday and is thrilled with his new plastic horse. How wonderful to find such pleasure in something that has no bells, whistles, screens, login, or even batteries.

In this weeks video, I show you how to check the size, location, and dimensions of facial features so that the face looks realistic and well proportioned.

Golden Mean Calipers Pt 3: Facial Features

This piece was a chance for me to try a bolder color scheme. I like the energy and vibrancy of it. Below are process photos to show how the piece came together.

Face and Hands

Shirt and shorts

Horse in Hands

Thread-painted face

Finished piece

Golden Mean Calipers Part 2: Crop a Picture

This is my second video on how to use the Golden Mean Calipers. This week I show you how use them to crop a photo around a focal point so that the outer dimensions are harmonious and the subjects in the composition are well placed. These calipers are available in my web store. If you find these videos interesting or helpful, subscribe so that you get notified whenever I post a new one. I’m trying to do this once a week until I run out of things to say—like that could ever happen.

Calipers video part 2

“No” to the Nose

Original photo

When I thread paint, I rely on the thread to do the bulk of the work. My technique allows me to blend colors and create subtle shading and contours, as if I were working with paint. In my process I find that there is an OTZ (Optimum Thread Zone). Stitching below the zone creates what I consider dense quilting, and stitching above the zone overloads the fabric and causes it to expand and buckle.

With this in mind, I consider the facelift that is needed by my horse. As mentioned last week, the shape of the nose needs some adjusting. However, having applied heavy stitching to the face already, there is a limited amount of thread that can be added without exceeding the OTZ. This means I need to get it right, right away.

In the original photo, the horse is moving his head as the photo is snapped, so it is blurred and doesn’t provide the details that I need. It is off to the internet to find images of horse heads that face the right direction, at a similar angle, and in the right light. I also look to reference books of paintings done by several Western artists.

sketch of nose on plastic sheet

Next, I place a clear plastic sheet over the face of my horse and outline its shape and key lines with a red marker. That sheet is then set on a white background where black lines indicate where stitching is to be added or changed. In this way, I can audition the additional stitching, erase, and redo as needed until it’s right.

Back at the longarm frame, I keep this plastic sheet handy and begin the facelift. In addition to creating a more boxy snout, highlights were added around the nostril and above the eye to give them more depth.

Facelift results

First Face

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