Ruby In The Emerald Forest

Ruby In The Emerald Forest is the first quilt (29.25" X 35") in Part II of my Nature Series where the main focus is negative space. Part I was a study on depth perception, consequently, the goal here is to contine with this depth perception while adding in another factor regarding negative space. Ruby consists of 50 pieces that are machine appliqued and embroidered. The tree that she rests on is made of various upholstery fabrics. For the leaves, I hand dyed some warm and natural batting and perle cotton, cut out each leaf and couched some yarn along the veins. The background is a piece of hand dyed cotton by Ellen Anne Eddy that I further embellished with Caran de Ache watersoluble pastel crayons and Shiva paintsticks to similate the water and shrubs in the foreground and middle ground. This piece is machine quilted with over 50 different colors of predominantly rayon thread with some metallic thread in the water. The tree trunk was constructed separately from the body of the quilt and acts like an envelope that encases the right side of the quilt. Edges are satin stitched. While I am happy with the overall results, I think that in order to fully gain an understanding of negative space, I will have to venture higher into the tree branches for the next quilt in my series. With regards to this study, I have to wonder if depth and negative space are one and the same thing for in order to have negative space, you have to have depth. And in order to achieve depth, you have to zoom out thus giving you this sense of void or negative space. I think that the two act in tandem to give dimension.