Misty Moose

Misty Moose is the sixth and final picture I created as part of my thesis in college.

I actually hated it at the time. One of my goals when creating the picture had been to create a wooded hill that disappeared off into a misty ravine. Although I was successful with the misty fade away, I was not pleased with how the hilside didn't have any texture itself (since I had hand-dyed the entire background).

Fast forward seven years. My husband and I are packing our house in preparation of moving, and I came across this picture in the closet. At the time, I was preparing a speech on the importance of value in quilting, and I was stunned at how well I had used Value in this picture. I decided I had actually done a pretty good job back in college, and used Misty Moose as one of my key examples when I gave my speech.

Why is value so important in this picture? It has to do with the second goal I had when originally designing it: I wanted to hide the moose family. The area with the stongest contrast in value (the bright white mist behind the dark brown trees on the right) is what draws your eye first. Next, you move left and look at the papa moose standing in bright sunlight. Third, your eye moves around the image looking at the bright yellow leaves until you get all the way to the left side of the picture and realize there are a mom and baby moose hidden in the foliage.