Umbrella Girl

The Umbrella Girl is taking shape, the denim jeans were the easiest part, I had the perfect fabric. Finding the teal was difficult, as the teals kept going bluer or greener, I did not want something too bright to fight with the umbrella, and I thought it was also in the shade of the umbrella.

The face fabric was from a packet of hand dyed flesh tones that I picked up at a quilt show. It still does not give me the range of color I want for shadows, in this small a format. It is either too pink, or too grayed beige. Maybe I'll have to try to dye my own at the next dye workshop. I went more red with the hair, so it would contrast with the yellow umbrella. Too yellow a blonde would not have stood out. I ended up fusing the pieces, because they are still small, rather than raw edge applique. I wanted to have clear details and not have frayed edges around the face and hands. It is ok if a tree or rabbit gets a little frayed in a landscape, but not a person.

An "a ha moment" when looking at the photo, gave me a lighter yellow at the top of the umbrella, where the sun bounces off of it. I used an orange colored pencil to shade the underside of the umbrella for more contrast. When the ribs are highlighted it will give more shape and definition to the umbrella, and adding the pink and fuchsia dots will add a lot of pizazz. I am linking this to Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday, click on the badge on the right hand column to see some other wonderful quilt artists.