Author Archive | Ellen Lindner

Of course, the reason for making artist trading cards it to swap them!  And that’s just what I did with a talented group of SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) members  from south Florida.

These are the nine cards I received.

What a collection!  These women are pretty fearless.  They used a lot of surface design techniques, including painting, thread painting, melting, gluing, and hand stitching.

Here are some closer views.

A wide variety of materials was skillfully employed by these artists.  Can you identify the orange open-weave item in the left card above?  Yep, it’s from a produce bag.  Great texture and contrast!

Both of the cards below used glued paper, among other things.

It was great fun trading ATCs and generally celebrating the holidays with these women!

Ellen Lindner
P.S.  SAQA is an excellent organization.  Find more info here.  (I’m biased, but I think the Florida members are especially talented, active, willing to help, and fun to hang out with!)

Did I tell you about meeting a woman on an airplane who later sent me some upholstery fabric samples?  It all started while I was “arting” on a cross-country flight.  I was sketching and playing with paints and she was knitting.  Of course, it didn’t take long before we were talking about our respective projects, and it turned out that she was a quilter.  We exchanged contact info and it wasn’t long before a NICE selection of sheer upholstery samples showed up at my door.  How thoughtful!

I love sheers with textures.  Since I had recently agreed to make an artist trading card, I thought some of these delicate fabrics would be just perfect.  (Then I found out I needed to make TWELVE of them!  Oh well, at least I had the fabric I needed.)

Not familiar with artist trading cards?  They’re small cards about the size of a credit card:  2 1/2 x 3 1/2.  As the name implies, artists make them and trade them.

I decided on silk burgundy and cotton cream fabrics to showcase these sheers.

The gridded sheer fabrics made excellent backgrounds against the deep burgundy colors.

For each one, I layered a textured sheer piece that covered most of the card.  Next I added a small piece of cream fabric.  Then, I cut a motif from the sheer fabric and added it on top.  These were accented with a little bit of black  fabric.  Finally, I stitched around the motifs with black thread.  I did it in a kind of messy/sketchy style.

This one was my favorite, and I sent it to my new airplane friend.  (It was number 13.)

Here’s another one close up.

I added silk on the back, too.  Since it ravels badly I burned the edges with a soldering iron.  That took a while.

Here’s the whole collection.  I was pretty happy with them and they were (mostly) fun to make.

I swapped these for a very intriguing collection.  I’ll show you those in the next post.

Have you ever made ATCs?  Which one is your favorite above?

Ellen Lindner
P.S.  See my soldering/melting set up here.

Now that Christmas has passed and all my angel ornaments have found their homes I can show you the rest of them.

First, a couple for friends.  Here’s Jo-Ann’s.

And Susan’s.

I used recent photos for the two above, but tried to find more vintage photos for the next ones.  On to my sisters-in-law.

Jennifer

And Lisa

Finally, close family.

My sister at about age 12.

And my mom at age 32.  Wasn’t she pretty?  (And she still is.)

By this age my mom had four children, ages 6-11!

I’ve had a lot of fun making these ornaments, especially finding the faces to use.  Everyone has loved them.

Ellen Lindner

A lot has happened with my coastal piece since I last posted about it.  I’ve now added the bulk of the bottom/foreground section.

At about this time I began to question how much I really needed to add on the right.  After some consideration, I ended up deleting the far right column.  This is the new reference photo.  I don’t miss the last part on the right, do you?

By the way, do you see the blue painters tape on my cutting mat in the photo above?  I added it to indicate my desired dimensions for each block.  It’s proven to be helpful.

I was really happy with the progress at this point.  I wanted to hint at gold grasses in the foreground and it’s turned out about the way I wanted it.  In the photo below, I was auditioning rock fabrics for the right side.  I needed them to provide contrast with the blue water.  But, I didn’t want them to be nearly as dark as the left rocks.

First rock:  not bad.

As I continued to work on the right side, I spent a lot of time selecting fabrics.  I wanted the right foreground to be fairly dark brown.  But, the far rocks would be grayer.  I spent a while planning how these fabrics would merge, yet still have enough variety to be interesting.

It’s getting there!

Ellen Lindner

While visiting our local zoo, we got to see an art exhibit called “Washed Ashore.”  It featured large animal sculptures made entirely from trash which was found on beaches.  The pieces were quilt large and very impressive.

This puffin gives you an idea of the attention to detail that was used.

Gatorade lids add texture to the feet.

It’s all  held together with some sort of stapling.

Sea anemone and other plants.  Can you see how colored items were inserted into plastic bottles and used for the sides?

A big octopus.

And a detail shot.

There were about 8-10 of these sculptures.  Here’s a penguin.

I was amazed by the skill and CREATIVITY required to build these pieces.  And also, by the vast array of junk that washes up on our shores!

Ellen Lindner