If you’ve followed my Sunday sketches for awhile, you’ll know that I love playing with colour palette and placement to make multiple versions of the same block. This week’s design uses two blocks, but that just creates more opportunities!

In the first version I’m showing you, which is the last iteration of the underlying design, I’ve just used colour to hide parts of the block (by blending them into the background). This particular colour placement suggests that the blocks have two layers, each of which can be peeled back to reveal the other one on its own. (This is my attempt at ‘modernising’ what’s otherwise a relatively traditional design.)

The designs that led to that first one are a bit different, though. I started by alternating two block types in a standard layout (even though the diagonal lines in the next few versions might suggest an on-point layout). Even with two relatively simple block designs, there are loads of ways to use colour placement to achieve a different look. Sometimes that means colouring some shapes the same as the background, effectively removing them from the design.

After playing with those versions for awhile, I switched to an on-point layout, which changes all those diagonals to vertical or horizontal lines. The same two block types are in there, but it almost looks like a design you could achieve using just one block type and some creative sashing.

I often like to colour only some of the outer blocks to create interesting edges to my designs. (I really like the movement in the first design below, which I think might be easier to see when there’s no red to distract the eye.)

Of course, I kept iterating these designs and adding or subtracting new shapes (which were always there, just not always coloured in). This next version, the penultimate one, is the first version where I coloured in those smaller red squares (which are actually the four corners of that particular block; the other block doesn’t have any red in it).

This colour placement suggests two discrete layers: a lacework of red squares overlaying the black ones. I liked the idea of paring back both layers in different areas, to reveal each one on its own (at least for a few blocks). That’s a concept I’d like to explore more in future.

Anyway, so the first and last sketches in this week’s post feel a bit different from the rest of the designs – I probably could’ve stretched them out to fill two blog posts! – but at least you can see how they’re all connected.

This week’s designs could be made into quilts using squares, square-within-a-square units, flying geese, rectangles and half-square triangles.