The 22.7% Solution

I decided to work out the details for the first 15 inches of the tapestry and not stress over the rest. This is good for me. It gives me time to ponder what and how to approach the actual view outside the window.

I've decided the way for me to sustain visual interest in this piece is to have two planes and maintain a strict plane integrity between the two. The first plane is what is inside the mountain cabin. It will have its own palette of colors and distinct look. It will be crisper and closer to reality than the view of the outside.

I have pretty much finalized the colors for the inside plane and am making sure I know where my dark and light values will go...the mid values easily find their spot. I am going for the darker values at the bottom to provide stability to the piece with some moving up along the upper left to bring the eye upwards and around. I want the entire piece to be light value dominant but there has to be some dark values to draw the viewer into the scene.

I covered the entire canvas with a cartoon which lays out the basic parts of the piece. I am going to leave it on the canvas. I created a smaller cartoon which is the width of the piece and 36 inches high - that's the one I will attach to the tapestry while I weave. It has much more detail. I will remove it after I have woven about 15 inches and develop another cartoon at the point where I leave off. I will end up having to do this about four times.

The entire piece is about 19-20 square feet...so this means 4-5 square feet per piece...ouch! It will be interesting to see how fast this weaves up.