I’ve been working on The Garth for a while now. A garth is an open air garden in a church. This one is my memory of Capestrano where there are roses and lizards throughout the garden.

I’ve gotten the lizard embroidered, used a rubbed piece of fabric that looks like mosaic. A couple of weeks ago, I added in roses.

It’s all well and good to plop an image in the center of a piece. But If you’re trying to build a visual path for the eye to travel, that won’t work. The eye needs a pathway. It needs to be led through the piece.

How do we do that? It helps that the lizard is off center. The roses are a start. But it helps that start to use small elements to build a path for the eye through your quilt.

I made a batch of butterflies to interview. I really couldn’t tell which ones were going to do what I wanted. I tried the green ones, the orange ones, and an orange one with small stones.

The pathway between the orange butterflies and the stones move this in a path I like alot.

I drew the path so you can see it. The lizard and the roses are very pretty, but the butterflies and stones build the path so your eye can take it all in.

I’m fascinated with the concept of the visual path, and I keep working towards building them within my works. It depends not only on the major imagery, but on the small details that place us on the path.