Three Seasons by Dawn Donnelly

I’ve had the idea for the piece, in the back of my mind, for over 10 years. I just never had the time or reason to work on it until I had to have an expertise piece for NAN Certification. Given the complexity of the piece, it was the perfect candidate. I would love to have four seasons, but I didn’t think the piece would work mechanically, so it ended up being three with summer and spring in one scene.

Drawing the scenes onto the canvas, with the divided panels, was a challenge. I had to make sure that the lines continued from one panel to the next and in the right line or angle. Then while stitching, adjustments still had to be made.

The winter scene is light with snowflakes. I knew it had to be on blue canvas and include beads and metallics. The fall scene seemed to work best in a quilt pattern. The spring/summer panel had to have lots of flowers and a watering can. Metallic thread was used to create the water lines coming from the watering can and beads on the flowers were used to indicate water drops.