Colour Challenge Completed

This has been a week for finishing.   First I completed my piece on aging and spent two days photographing it....Then I spent this morning mounting my colour challenge piece on a stretched canvas - It consists of tiny brightly coloured, nibbled mushrooms, lots of foliage with hand and machine stitching.    The finished piece is 12" x 12" but the actual mushrooms were miniscule.   I am still deciding on a name for the piece - something that speaks of them being mushrooms, nibbled, larger than life.  I spotted them when I was hiking in Cape Breton and was attracted by the look of these tiny beauties nestled among the tiny bits of foliage like a miniature forest.  A mouse wouldn't even need to go on tiptoes to reach them.

 
Here is a close up view of the photo that inspired this piece just in case you don't believe mushrooms can come in reds and oranges.  I took this through the glass so there's a little glare.

This colour challenge exhibit will consist of 16 pieces (all 12" x 12") done primarily in tomato red (orange red) and 16 pieces done primarily in midnight blue (almost violet).  It will be displayed for the month of March at Wabi Sabi on Wellington Street in Ottawa, and on April 11-13 at the annual Out of the Box and Island Park United Church tea and art show.  I can't wait to see what the others have done with their colours.  Next year there will be 2 more colours and a further 2 colours the following year.

 This challenge is loosely patterned after the excellent book Twelve by Twelve; the International Art Quilt Challenge (Lark Crafts) where 12 women completed 12 pieces with 12 themes over 24 months.  The book not only talks about the challenge pieces but I also learned a lot about the women who took part, and the way different people approach the same theme.  If you haven't read this book, I strongly recommend it - very informative and very moving.