The importance of value

This post is not about watercolor, it's about quilting.....BUT they are intimately related. I'll explain.

Sewing is my other hobby, I find it quite entertaining, I would say therapeutic. I've been doing that lately, learning how to quilt. 

My bedroom was in need of an accent color pillow. Choosing the fabric was a challenge, can you imagine the thousands of patterns available? That would be nuts! It helped me to narrow the choices, having in mind the colors of the rug area I wanted to coordinate the pillow with. The lady in the fabric store guided me in this matter, she chose an "anchor" fabric which had all the colors of the rug area. She wanted to make sure I  include different values to create contrast, light, medium and dark and different patterns in different sizes. Wait a minute.....I had an a-ha moment! She was basically applying the principles and elements of design! I knew this from sketching! It is a puzzle game of creating something that look beautiful and interesting. With that in mind I made sure to include various prints in the fabric, from solid to big patterns. Once the fabric was cut in squares, I layered the squares and played with composition.

It was a little confusing, so I did what I learned in a quilting tutorial, I took a photo in black and white to see the pattern of value, which is the same that we do when sketching, we squint our eyes to see values. After several tries, I came up with this composition which I think was a good one.

I did the same with some scraps of fabric to make place mats.

Now I'm doing some more, with a package of a palette already coordinated. 

Considering value is very important, more than the choice of color. It could apply to any creative project you could think of! As I learned. So let the fun continue!