Be Inspired by Your Photo, Not Controlled by It

“Be inspired by your photo, not controlled by it.” This is our class motto in Design Your Own Nature Quilt. The quilts in this post are good examples of that.

Barbara had this great starting photo.  She noticed the vertical striations and decided to abstract them a little and to exaggerate them.

Design Your Own Nature Quilt with Ellen Lindner. AdventureQuilter.com/blog

Isn’t that more interesting?  I think so.

Design Your Own Nature Quilt with Ellen Lindner. AdventureQuilter.com/blog

Barbara was kind enough to later send me a photo of her finished quilt.  Here it is, “Uluru, Austraila.” I think it’s fantastic!

Design Your Own Nature Quilt with Ellen Lindner. AdventureQuilter.com/blog

Joan started with this great photo. Although she planned to eliminate quite a few trees, she wanted to reproduce it pretty closely.

Design Your Own Nature Quilt with Ellen Lindner. AdventureQuilter.com/blog

However, as she began to exactly match some of the red colors in the foreground, she decided they weren’t bright enough for her.  She kicked up the colors and was much happier with it.

Then, it was time to tackle the mass of yellow leaves in the background.  Fortunately, Joan had a wonderful tree-like fabric that could be cut and used over and over to get the desired effect.

Design Your Own Nature Quilt with Ellen Lindner. AdventureQuilter.com/blog

This is what it looked like at the end of class.  Very dramatic, right?

Design Your Own Nature Quilt with Ellen Lindner. AdventureQuilter.com/blog

For her second quilt, Barbara started with a great photo taken in Hawaii.

Design Your Own Nature Quilt with Ellen Lindner. AdventureQuilter.com/blog

Again, she simplified the shapes of the fields, and played up only the best parts of her photo. See the in-progress photo below.

Design Your Own Nature Quilt with Ellen Lindner. AdventureQuilter.com/blog

Here’s her finished quilt, “Taro Ponds, Hanalei, Kauai.”

Design Your Own Nature Quilt with Ellen Lindner. AdventureQuilter.com/blog

And a detail shot of the flooded fields.

Design Your Own Nature Quilt with Ellen Lindner. AdventureQuilter.com/blog

These ladies did great work!

Ellen Lindner

No comments yet.

Leave a Reply