The Tea Bag Quilt

I am completely fascinated with and enamored of Judith Coates Perez's quilt on the cover of Quilting Arts. Painted Threads: My second cover! I absolutely loved the look and the idea that tea bags were used in the construction. I had to try. Since I always have tea bags in every stage of use I went, fished some out of the pot of iced tea I was making and laid them out to dry. The results of two days effort is below.At this point there actually isn't much about it I like. I chose a pink to grayish color range for the back ground and the tea bags didn't disappear but that isn't my real problem with the piece. I don't like the composition and I'm not sure if it is because I mixed a photo with the delicate line drawings on the tea bag paper or if the the balance of the elements is just all wrong. The glare on the surface is from oil pastels and not from a glossy acrylic medium. At this point I'm trying to decide if it is worth it to continue to work on it or just to try again.

But making it was compelling. I had fun doing it and I'm busy sorting out what I learned.