Last month I got to spend two and half days with members of the North Suburban Needle Arts Guild when I conducted my class, Design Your Own Nature Quilt. Because this group includes many non-quilters there was quite a mix of skill levels in the class. About half had never made an art quilt and several had never made a quilt of any sort! But, they all bravely dove in and they achieved EXCELLENT results.
In this class, each student brings their own inspiration photo, which means we’ve got 15 DIFFERENT projects going all the time. It keeps me on my toes, but I love it. They learn so much in this class!
I wish I had thought to photograph their inspiration photos, rather than just their resulting quilts. (These photos were showing on my computer when photographed. The quality is sometimes low, but you’ll get the idea.)
Gretchen was inspired by a photo of water lilies. She changed the nearly black water to a dark plum, which worked beautifully. She’ll use fusible web to add the skinny little grasses, and she’ll stiffen some of the leaves to make them 3D. It will be great!
Ronna also worked with water lilies, and also switched to purple water. This complementary color really adds drama and contrast. And check out how effective those black shadows are. Nice!
Val’s lily pads are coming along nicely. She’ll add some shadows to add dimension. Check out her water grasses and their reflection near the top. She spent a lot of time on them and I think they’re very effective.
This photo doesn’t do Barbara’s work justice. Her photo had three delicate flowers against a complex shadow. She had to work at providing contrast with value. Her later progress showed that she was moving in the right direction.
Nancy cut loose in a really wonderful way. She started working with solids, but needed some dappled light. As we searched her print fabrics she realized that she had quite a big selection of them, so she switched gears. This brought a lot of energy to her scene. She’ll add some thread-painted grasses in the foreground.
I’m currently enrolled in a mini-collage class with Jane Davies. For week one, she had us paint A LOT of swatches. Surprisingly, I didn’t need to buy any paint. I guess I’ve done more of this over the years than I realized. I’m pretty good at mixing colors, but I still gets streaks sometimes. Jane…
In conjunction with the “Forced to Flee” exhibit, there’s also a presentation of artwork by Tanja Boudal and it’s VERY interesting. The majority of the pieces on display are like those shown here. As I understand it, she finds media pictures showing women in the midst of struggles and prints them on to fabric. She…
A few months ago I was playing around with paint quite a bit and using a lot of palette paper. You’re probably familiar with it. It’s sorta waxy, so it can handle a lot of moisture. Often, the paint dried in interesting ways, so I decided to save the papers. (Yep, I did it again:…
I got brave and decided to cut into some of my specialized fabrics. These are hand dyes that have a variety of motifs, scales, or colors. They’re not “yardage” and are a little more challenging to use. These were my starting three. The left fabric reminded me of kiwifruit, so I began to think of…
More awesome results from my “Floral Improv” students in Tavares, FL. This is what they accomplished in just 5 hours, all with no patterns! Karen’s dark background made everything pop. Dawn was getting close to her final composition. Gail’s was ready for stitching. Betty was careful about how she used her printed background fabric and…
Remember me telling you about the “Stitched” exhibit, in Stuart, FL? It’s about to end, so I thought I’d show you the quilts, in case you didn’t get to see them. (This will take several posts.) Enjoy! These are just the first few. Check future posts for more art! Ellen Lindner You…
