Starting a Commissioned Art Quilt

I have finally finished my other large projects and now have begun work on a commissioned art quilt. I sent my clients some photos of landscapes I had taken over the years in order to choose a scene they'd like me to make out of fabric.  They have seen some of my other work and have an idea of what it will look like when it's done.

This is the photo that was chosen.

 My process is to do a watercolour painting of the photo in which I try to highlight a focal point and bring out some of the colours I see. In this photo the line where the water meets the far shore is crooked (because of the angle of the camera) so the first adjustment would be to straighten that. The rocks do not have sun shining on them but I might try to give them more light and vary the colours in them for more interest.

These are the first washes of colour.

I have just positioned the trees, shrubs, rock and grasses. I've put a little yellow into the sky and also some pinks. The rocks have a light pink/peach colour on them. I don't like to paint my rocks grey. When I study them, I see pinks, purples, greens and blues in them and that is much more interesting than grey.

Here the colours are "punched" up a bit.

Today I worked on darkening the colours as I continue to look for the focal point I want to stress. I've made the far shore a little bluer which pushes it into the distance. You can see that this version is already more interesting than the photo. I will continue to work on the colours and create some nice contrasts in the sky as well.

Once the painting is done, I'll make a tracing of it and take it to Staples to enlarge to the size I want it. From the enlargement, I will plot out my sewing plan marking my colour scheme and fabric choices. That is the most time consuming part of the whole process but the most important.