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.
On Friday, April 30th, I’ll be participating in a virtual art reception and talking about the piece above, Melting Pot. The occasion is the opening of “Floridian Flavors” at the Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art, in Tarpon Springs, FL. Pieces in the exhibit are all fiber, made by the Florida artists of Studio Art Quilt Associates,…
How do you reward students in an online class? I’ve decided on a digital gold star. I wanted to make a special fabric star as my starting point and a friend loaned me a 3D pattern from Fabri Flair. Perfect! First, fabric selection. I wanted to use my hand-dyed scraps and for each piece to…
My friend, Gabriele DiTota, and I are having a two-person exhibit in Raleigh, NC, and we’re very excited about it We’re calling it “Fabric, Dye, and Serendipity” because that’s pretty much how we work. Both of us dye our own fabrics, and then compose them with minimal planning, (although Gabriele does more planning than I…
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…
I recently had the great good fortune of seeing StitchPUNK, which is a SAQA global exhibit. To say that these artists are creative is a huge understatement! The exhibit statement (best read with a Rod Sterling/Twilight Zone accent) says “Imagine, if you will, an existence where you pull one string and reality unravels. Travel to…
After trying several temporary background colors, I decided to make one side white and one side red. I started with a new temporary background. The purpose of this is so I don’t have to compose against my pure white design wall. It helps me visualize. This was first stab at a new composition. I could…
