beyond first light

OK--I admit it. I love this quilt. First light. So simple and yet so complex. The colors seem to glow with the dawn. My husband you see is a school teacher and after I get him off the work on a winter morning I can hike to a nearby mountain top and watch the dawn break. I love the drama and mystery always different and yet always satisfying.

first light--45 x 45"--copyright Ann Brauer

Yes, I love this quilt. But I don't want to make it just like this one. Not that any two quilts I make are ever the same. Different fabrics. Different moods. I always have to pay attention to what I am doing and each quilt takes on a life of its own. But this time I want to take all that I have learned since making this quilt and make it more gentle. More haunting. Maybe because I just spend a week-end by the ocean and saw the misty dawn rise above the marshes. Or maybe because I have been thinking of mountains a lot. What is it about horizons that affects us anyway?

This time I want to take the feeling--that promise--of the dawn and make it gentler. Even more illusive.  As always I start with what I know. This time it is the gentle song of the earth and the meadows. Haunting colors aren't they? Can't you just feel the softness of the mist?

Then the dawn--again this time I want it subtle. Not the bold colors of first light but soft.  The moments before the sun breaks through when the colors of the dawn are just reflected in the sky.

Gradually the colors will turn to a soft blue/grey. Why do these colors haunt me? Will the blues be the colors I seek? Can I sustain this blue as it stretches up?

Will the blue define the dawn? So many questions. So much to do--one block at a time as I sketch out the quilt? Do you ever work like this? Taking a concept but putting it into a different time. A different place. Changing the mood. Do you ever feel the need to make  a gentle haunting piece? What affects your mood?