Red Glasses

Dimensions: 30" x 30"
Materials: #6-cut hand-dyed wool on linen
Designed and hooked by April DeConick, Houston, Texas, 2016.
Featured in: Celebration 27

My intent with this piece was to experiment with a wool palette in muted grays, browns, and reds to be used in portraiture hooking. To do this, I dyed 8-value swatches of 13 colors in both plain and textured wool. The most challenging part of this rug was getting the color just right. I started out with too many muted colors and the skin looked dead. So I kept reverse hooking and adding bright and more intense colors until I was able to wake up the skin so that it looked lively. I learned that gray works best in small quantities and that rugs must have intense and bright colors alongside muted colors for the rug to come alive.
- April DeConick, Celebration Hall of Fame 2018
(Note: This rug description was taken as an excerpt from the published Celebration entry.)