Group Challenge

Tetraid Colour Scheme with Challenge Fabric

Painting with Thickened Fibre Reactive Dyes

Textile Dye Painted Piece ready for Curing and Rinsing

Challenge Fabrics. Textile Groups are often given a particular fabric to complete a project with. Note my challenge fabric beside the colour cards in the first photo. I loved the fabric I was given so never anticipated what 'challenges' I would encounter.
Why didn't I choose something to paint that contained the topaz, challenge fabric colour? When I was complaining, my friend Fayetta, just looked at me and said "That is just who you are" basically saying that an artist paints what they want to paint, period!
So I thought to myself, "Just figure out a colour scheme that will work". After trying several colour schemes that would include the topaz (yellow orange) colour as well as the prickly pear cactus colours, I finally found that the tetrad colour scheme could work. Tetrads are lovely but not commonly used. This tetrad is basically two sets of complementary colours, orange-yellow with blue and spring green with fuschia. To avoid the garish nature of complements, it is important to have some colours the main ones and the others as accents.
Rinsing will be the next step, then borders with the challenge fabric, and then free-motion sketching to bring out the details. Still a ways to go......