Tuesday 4 June 2013

Another day, another challenge

If you have been around here for a while, you know that I love a good challenge. In fact, I often come up with challenges for myself just because they inspire me so much. It’s rarely the finished project that is the carrot, but the process itself, figuring out how to solve a problem, make do, whatever the challenge is, it’s fun.

When Victoria posted a new challenge on the 15 minutes play blog, I was in before I had read through the whole post. It might have something to do with the need of distraction from my fear of finishing the Whatever quilt, but more likely it was the theme that drew me in. Architecture Challenge, imagine all the possibilities! You can read about the challenge here.

I have been through several ideas for inspirational pictures. The first that popped in my head was a picture I took at the Canary Islands a couple of years ago. I loved the rounded shape of the white stairs against the red.

Looking at it now, the picture itself was not as great as I remembered (are they ever?), so I moved on to my favourite architect and favourite building – Casa Batllô by Antoni Gaudi (none of the following pictures of the building are mine). On my first visit to Barcelona we only got to see the exterior, which by all means is simply amazing
 
 
but when I happened to stroll by on my second visit there years later, the building, at the time owned by an insurance company I think, was open to the public as part of the celebrations of the 150 year anniversary of Gaudi’s birth. It was the most amazing feeling walking around in the house I had read so much about about in my Gaudi books, looking at all the details everywhere. I was surprised to see all the clever and highly decorative solutions to simple things like ventilation and light shafts. I bet yours look nothing like this.

Wouldn’t it be the perfect inspiration for a quilt! I thought so, but then I remembered we are to use made fabrics in the quilt and somehow that did not work with what I had in my head. You can read more about the building here.

Having spent too much time browsing through Google Images, in the end I landed close to home, at a trade school near where we live. The building is a couple of years old and I still haven’t been inside even though I was following the building process eagerly. The façade is very modern and striking, and would fit perfectly for this challenge.

I want to use this opportunity to experiment with free-form-but-not-improvisational piecing, so as a first exercise I made a rough sketch, just catching how the light and shadows and angles create dept.

Next I did another sketch focusing more on proportions and angles.

I think I’ll use this as a blueprint. I just need to finish the Whatever quilt first, oh where, oh where did that inspiration go...

5 comments:

  1. Can’t wait to see your architecture project translated into fabrics!

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  2. All the photos would lead to great quilts, some a lot more detailed than others. Can't wait to see what you make out of it. (I'm doing the challenge too; fun.)

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  3. Absolutely the process and not the product - to challenge and motivate. Just amazing photos; how great you have seen those buildings! x Teje

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  4. Looking forward to seeing how it turns out. :D

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  5. Fabulous photos...........thanks for sharing. xox

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