Wednesday, June 27, 2007

More watercolor

Karen - watercolor lone star

The (award-winning) quilt above is by KarenD, who - not really coincidentally - just wrote an entry about her watercolor period and this quilt in particular. (This picture is one I took when I went to visit her.) I noticed that she called her entry "Colorwash Quilts" - which may get at the difference of opinion that there seems to be between me and everybody else on this subject. Because to my mind, "watercolor" quilts are not exactly the same thing as "colorwash" quilts, even though I know most of the time they are used interchangeably. Sometimes my brain just refuses to work the same way as everybody else's! I guess I would say that "watercolor" is a somewhat more broad term, and that's why I said this sunflower quilt qualifies to me as watercolor, even though nobody seems to agree with me. (See the comments to that entry for the discussion.)


On another sort-of-related subject, Joan of Lazy Girl Designs wrote an entry about the NQA show, and that got me thinking that I really need to start paying attention to where the quilt shows are up north, considering that we go to see my in-laws in Ohio at least once a year. Sooner or later I might be able to coordinate one of these trips with a show. NQA was in Columbus this year - which is where we normally fly to - but it's the show that moves around, right? So it won't be there next year. -- Ooh, no, it is in Columbus again - did they change that policy? Hmm, well, anyway, I will have to bear that in mind next time we start talking about visiting Rob's parents. June 19-21 are the dates for 2008, so it says. (I could also think about going to IQF in Chicago in the spring - but since a lot of the quilts in the show there seem to be the same ones that are in Houston in the fall, that makes it a little less intriguing to me.) Food for thought, in any case.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, if you make here in June, bookmark this post at my blog for shows and restaurants:

http://www.lazygirldesigns.com/blog/?p=635

I hope to see you at the show sometime!

My best,
Joan Hawley
Lazy Girl Designs

KarenD said...

Not at all coincidentally. :)

NQA did stop moving their show around and settled it in Columbus, which made it less attractive to me since I liked going to a new place every year. I think you're right about Chicago IQF being Houston lite. You might want to consider the Greater Chicago Quilt Exposition in the fall--that's a new show but it's put on by the same people who do the Pacific Internatial Quilt Festival; I got a chance to see the first one last year and it was pretty good.

As far as colorwash vs. watercolor, in my head there is a difference, with the former being more about creating an overall effect instead of a recognizable image (like a piano or heart or vase of flowers), but I think most people don't separate them that way. Gai Perry's Impressionist Quilts emphasize the images even more. Where Blended Quilts fit in, I do not know.

Then there are the quilts which are cousins of watercolor paintings, like the sunflower in your earlier entry, or those by Melody Randal I turned up Googling for "watercolor quilts".