Art Challenge Underway

So sorry about the rant of a few days ago. My back has been out all week, and with yet more snow in the forecast I was feeling really grumpy. I have gotten over it, I think, and last evening I got down to work on the Art Challenge piece for guild. I enlarged the inspiration photo and took a good look. The challenge is to choose an element from it and repeat it with variations to produce an 8 x 10 quilt. OK so there are lots of little bits in it, and I found a semi abstracted flower that seemed interesting. So I got out my circle templates and sketchbook and started playing around until I got something that resembled the bit in the photo. Now to decide how to repeat it with variations. Well, there are lots of surface design techniques that would work. I settled on a stencil, which I then cut. I have used paintstiks in warm metallic colors to stencil it numerous times onto a piece of fabric that is much bigger than I need. Once they have set I am going to use water based media to paint around them. Hopefully the result will look like a resist. Sometimes it actually does resist, and sometimes not, but that is the look I am seeking. The organizers have asked us not to reveal the images until after the results are presented to the guild so I wont show you any photos yet. Challenges like this are wonderful for letting you experiment, and get a jump start for the creative engines.